Rain WORTHINGTON (b.1950)
Dream Vapors: Selected Works for
Orchestra
1. Shredding Glass (2004) [10.11]
2. Reversing Mirrors in the Quiet (2012) [6.08]
3. Tracing a Dream (2009) [8.15]
4. Fast Through Dark Winds (2013) [6.33]
5. Within a Dance (2012) [7.51]
6. Yet Still Night (2001) [6.04]
7. Of Time Remembered (2011) [7.56]
Czech Philharmonic Orchestra/Robert Ian Winstin (1,6)
Moravian Philharmonic Orchestra/Petr Vronsky (2,4,5,7)
Russian Philharmonic Orchestra/Ovidiu Marinescu (3)
rec. Reduta Hall, Olomouc, Czech Republic, 11 June 2015 (2, 4), 2 July
2013 (5), 28 November, 2011 (7), no details, 2006 (1, 6), Moscow, March 2010
(3)
NAVONA RECORDS NV6025 [52:58]
This is important and interesting music, from a composer with something
significant - and different - to say. Take, for example, the first piece,
Shredding Glass, written in the aftermath of 9/11. The shredding
glass is from the Twin Towers. The music is not angry, but rather elegiac in
tone, from a sombre and striking opening. It has been described, on its
original mp3 release, as evoking the feelings of an impotent but concerned
spectator. The composer builds tension through tone clusters, with
ever-deepening intensity of feeling. This is not simply a technical exercise
in composing sad music: one senses the deep emotion behind it, but, more
importantly, shares that feeling. It absorbs the listener. There is grief,
with all its intensity, but it is the shared concern of humanity: this is
human music.
This is Rain Worthington's first CD of orchestral music, after a life of
much variety, with time spent as a music teacher, at another time working in
the box office at Troy Savings Bank Music Hall in Albany; known for its
wooden auditorium and fine acoustic - many of George Lloyd's works were
recorded there. Some pieces, such as Shredding Glass, have been
available singly as mp3 downloads, but this CD offers to the opportunity to
grasp more thoroughly her compositional voice.
That voice is succinct, always clear and with a strong sense of
development. Examination of her scores, available at
the
label's website, together with notes on the works, reveals an approach
to orchestration which is often sparse and clear. She has cited Aaron
Copland and some of the minimalists as formative influences. Apparent here
is that openness and distinctiveness of expression.
Try, for example, the shortest work on the CD, Yet Still Night.
This is a cityscape rather than a rural nocturne. It begins with the sounds
of bells, on a piano, quiet and clear, very beautiful. These delicate sounds
gradually merge into something stronger. The composer describes the piece as
one in which 'recurrent punctuations of an urban soundscape reverberate in
the late hours and mix with an emotional insight suffused with sadness and
clarity that dreams and conflict will continue, insistent and inconsolable.'
Exactly so - and the listener is carried through the piece as it builds: and
then it stops, without resolution.
For too many composers, modern music is either the sound of squeaky gates
or inconsequential, aimless shimmerings. Neither description is appropriate
here: the modernity is in speaking to the condition of humanity as it
is.
Profits from the CD all go to an Alzheimer's charity.
Explore this - it is special.
Michael Wilkinson
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