Philip Rhodes is an
American composer, born in North Carolina
and currently composer in residence
and professor at Carleton College, Northfield,
Minnesota. This disc from Composers
Recordings Inc. re-issues a number of
Rhodes’ works which were originally
issued on vinyl disk.
‘Visions of Remembrance’
is a four-movement song cycle which
explores the themes of reminiscence
and memory. The first movement, ‘Flashback’
uses a poem by Douglas Worth which evokes
a distant memory of a happy childhood
summer. Rhodes evokes the uncertainty
of memory by surrounding the vocal with
an evocative and attractive instrumental
aura. Rather than a single singer, the
work uses two – soprano, Carole Wilson
and mezzo, Lorraine Manz - thus usefully
giving two different perspectives of
memory with the voices of the two singers
hauntingly intertwining. The second
movement is, I think, intended to be
a more comic/amusing diversion. ‘Grown-up
relatives’ uses a text by the composer’s
12 year-old daughter, Anna Jean. The
text itself is a delightful, child’s
eye view of visiting relatives and Rhodes
gives it a perky and pointed instrumental
accompaniment, complete with ‘funny’
noises. But Wilson and Manz’s delivery
is so portentous that it robs the piece
of any lightness; added to this, neither
singer has ideal diction nor is able
to deliver the text with the clarity
it deserves. The final two songs, ‘My
Grandmother’s letters’ to a text by
Hart Crane and ‘Piano and Epilogue’
to texts by D.H Lawrence and the composer,
return to the moods of the opening song.
Rhodes voice is modernist
and expressionist, his vocal lines are
expressive though usually lacking in
strictly tuneful melody and his effective
accompaniments are anchored in some
sort of tonality. In his writing for
the instruments he evokes a lovely sound-world
which parallels the themes of memory
and remembrance in the text.
‘Museum Pieces’ is
a suite of six pieces for clarinet and
string quartet each of which is designed
to evoke a work of art from the J. B.
Speed Art Museum of Louisville. The
museum commissioned the work for the
inauguration of their new music room.
The first movement is a furioso where
the upward surge of the clarinet is
designed to describe the rearing form
of horse and rider in an equestrian
bronze statue. The writing is furious
and hard edged and the strings sound
rather strenuous but there is a contrast
with a middle section for unaccompanied
clarinet. This is followed by a lighter
waltz, based on music from Gounod’s
Faust, to conjure up a 19th
century pierrot music box. This opens
with pure pastiche but the music, rather
charmingly, keeps going ‘wrong’. Seurat’s
tiny landscape is evoked by string harmonics
in an appropriately short movement with
wispy clarinet phrases. A more substantial
movement includes a reference to a chorale
for a 19th century ‘Station
of the Cross’ by Theodore Chasseriau;
musically this is cast as a rondo and
variations. This very expressionist
movement is intense and quite stressful.
In contrast, a short, fast movement
evokes Picasso’s ‘Le Bouquet’, ostensibly
using relationships between sound and
colour. Finally a Flemish bacchanal
gives rise to a movement marked giocoso,
but the resulting orgy of excess is
rather hard-edged and not very luscious.
These are a charming group of modernist
character pieces, confidently played
by James Livingston and the Louisville
String Quartet but the strenuous performance
rather lacks that element of surface
elegance which characterised ‘Visions
of Remembrance’. I did wonder if the
original listeners, with their recent
memory of the originals, might have
found the music more attention-grabbing
than listeners coming to the music without
any visual input.
‘Autumn Setting’ for
soprano and string quartet returns to
the evocative expressionistic sound-world
of the opening cycle. Here Phyllis Bryn-Julson
sings the three songs based on poems
by Patricia Schneider. In the cycle
Rhodes attempts to play with our concept
of time as the poet dimly remembers
summer from a gloomy autumn. The stillness
of the 2nd movement is intended
to hint at the suspension of time and
in the final song, Rhodes interleaves
settings of two poems. Bryn-Julson is
powerful and expressive and the music’s
wide tessitura gives her no problems
though there are times where the music
veers towards vocalise, so few words
do we hear. In style the music varies
between the lyrical, ethereal setting
and spiky leaps. Bryn-Julson gives a
truly bravura performance of a difficult
part. As in the previous piece, the
string accompaniment sounds rather stressful.
The disc concludes
with a short three-movement work for
chamber orchestra; it is, in fact, the
only piece of absolute music on the
disc. A modernist character piece, it
successfully evokes memories of Webern’s
music, though the writing is generally
more melodic. It is confidently played
by the St. Paul Chamber Orchestra under
Dennis Russell Davies.
This disc makes a fine
showcase for some of Rhodes’ medium-to-small
size chamber pieces all given in fine,
confident performances. The modernist
works on this disc also make an interesting
comparison with Rhodes’ disc of folk-inspired
pieces, ‘With a Mountain View’.
This is a CD reissue
which enables a new audience to hear
some fine recordings which were in danger
of languishing on vinyl disc. But I
did have one stray heretical thought,
arising from my own experiences of assembling
music for discs: are we hearing the
very best of Philip Rhodes or are we
hearing the pieces which best fitted
the economics of music-making and record
producing? Whatever the answer, I look
forward to more of his music.
Robert Hugill
From
the New World Records Website
CRI
Update
March 2004
We are pleased to announce
that the catalogue of Composers Recordings,
Inc. will become a permanent part of
New World Records. We expect that the
process of integrating such a large
and prestigious catalogue will take
some time. As New World Records and
Composers Recordings, Inc. are both
public foundations, this transfer first
must be approved by the New York State
Attorney General's office. That process
has begun. When approved, and after
the Trustees of both organizations formally
ratify the transfer, New World Records
will begin offering titles that were
originally released on CRI. We are committed
to keeping every title active in our
catalogue and available at all times.
In the meantime, CRI
titles are still available for purchase
from:
Qualiton Imports
24-02 40th Avenue
Long Island City, NY 11101
Tel. 718.937.8515
Fax 718.729.3239
www.qualiton.com
We expect a smooth
transition from the liquidation of the
remaining CRI inventory to the creation
and introduction of new versions of
the titles in the CRI catalogue. We
do not expect any interruption in the
availability of any title. Please check
back to this page periodically for updates
on our progress.
If you have a specific
question please direct it to me.
Paul Tai
Director of Artists and Repertory
ptai@newworldrecords.org
Carole Wilson (soprano) (1) 