Michael DAUGHERTY (b. 1984)
Mount Rushmore (2010) [31:48]
Radio City: Symphonic Fantasy on Arturo Toscanini and the NBC Symphony Orchestra (2011) [25:36]
The Gospel According to Sister Aimee (2012) [20:29]
Paul Jacobs (organ)
Pacific Chorale
Pacific Symphony/Carl St Clair
rec. Renée and Henry Segerstrom Concert Hall, Segerstrom Center for the Arts, Costa Mesa, California, 4-6 February 2010 (Mount Rushmore), 23-25 February 2012 (Radio City, Gospel)
World premiere recordings
Sung texts included
NAXOS AMERICAN CLASSICS 8.559749 [77:53]
Mount Rushmore (2010) [31:48]
Radio City: Symphonic Fantasy on Arturo Toscanini and the NBC Symphony Orchestra (2011) [25:36]
The Gospel According to Sister Aimee (2012) [20:29]
Paul Jacobs (organ)
Pacific Chorale
Pacific Symphony/Carl St Clair
rec. Renée and Henry Segerstrom Concert Hall, Segerstrom Center for the Arts, Costa Mesa, California, 4-6 February 2010 (Mount Rushmore), 23-25 February 2012 (Radio City, Gospel)
World premiere recordings
Sung texts included
NAXOS AMERICAN CLASSICS 8.559749 [77:53]
The last time I saw Mount Rushmore Eva Marie Saint
was hanging off it in North by Northwest, and the last time I heard
the music of Michael Daugherty was in American Spectrum
(review).
As for the California-based Pacific Orchestra and Chorale and their conductor
Carl St Clair, they are new to me; however, the blurb speaks glowingly
of a new ensemble dedicated to promoting contemporary music as well as
playing the core classics. The works on this disc, written between 2010
and 2012, are certainly bang up to date, so kudos to Naxos for wasting
no time in committing them to disc.
In my review of Daugherty’s musical evocation of the iconic Sunset Strip I noted that he has a ‘penchant for celebrating places and spaces’; well, the huge presidential portraits carved into the Black Hills of South Dakota are about as iconic as it gets. In his very readable liner-notes the composer explains his choice of texts, ranging from the letter Washington wrote on his retirement and a lover’s song for Jefferson to Roosevelt’s musings on the great outdoors and Lincoln’s Gettysburg Address. In that sense the work is a genuine - and very affectionate - traversal of American history.
George Washington opens with breathtaking power, and the orchestra and organ are joined by choirs whose songs of the period are projected with telling ardour and accuracy. Daugherty’s strong, sinewy rhythms and his transported choral writing in Thomas Jefferson recall Prokofiev’s Alexander Nevsky, the quieter passages Britten at his most reflective and intimate. Not surprisingly the adventurer Theodore Roosevelt strides forth to strong orchestral accents and horizon-stretching choral vistas; there’s even an Orffian earthiness to the more declamatory moments. The music of Abraham Lincoln - noble and visionary - seems to catalyse all that’s gone before; in the broad, slow-building finale, shot through with jubilant bells and punctuated by trenchant rhythms, Daugherty strikes just the right balance between grandeur and gravitas.
Mount Rushmore is a terrific piece, as much a contribution to musical Americana as anything by Copland or Thomson. Moreover, it’s played with tremendous verve and passion by St Clair and his multitude of musicians, and the recording’s wide dynamics are very well caught by the Naxos engineers. There are hints of other ages here, but this is no clumsy, derivative pastiche; no, Daugherty speaks with an assured and individual voice that deserves to be more widely heard.
New York’s Radio City, the home of Arturo Toscanini and the NBC Symphony, is the second landmark to be celebrated here. It’s also a homage to the fiery maestro, whose first NBC concert is evoked in the Vivaldian echoes and emphatic thrust of O, Brave New World. Daugherty has a lively and inventive style and the Pacific band give this music all the crunch and punch it needs, before modulating into the equally forthright yet sometimes dreamily nostalgic Ode to the Old World that follows. Happily there are no longueurs to speak of, and listeners of all stripes will surely respond to the fine writing on display here and in the witty Toscanini portrait, On the Air.
Daugherty then turns his attention to another icon, Aimee Semple McPherson, who he calls ‘the first important religious celebrity of the new, mass-media era of the 1930s’. Anyone remotely familiar with the antics of modern tele-evangelists as embodied by Billy Graham and many others since will smile - even laugh out loud - at the exaggerated organ glissandi and burping revivalist brass of Knock Out the Devil. This is a fiendishly clever piece of writing that captures to perfection that weird blend of strained piety and outrageous theatre that accompanies these preachers and their very public ministry. Organist Paul Jacobs tackles his riotous part with obvious glee and the Pacific brass have a field day too. Surely The Gospel According to Sister Aimee is the modern-day equivalent of Ives’s equally satirical General William Booth Enters into Heaven; both are just too accurately drawn to be offensive.
I enjoyed this disc so much I barely noticed the sweltering summer heat outside. This is highly original music that avoids mawkishness in the first two pieces and is so deftly drawn in the third as to signal a composer of accomplishment and good judgement. Daugherty’s chatty liner-notes are part of the whole entertainment, and the sonics are simply awesome.
A well-chosen programme that highlights Daugherty’s prodigious talent; great fun.
Dan Morgan
http://twitter.com/mahlerei
A well-chosen programme that highlights Daugherty’s prodigious talent; great fun.
Michael Daugherty on Naxos American Classics
Track-List
Mount Rushmore (2010) [31:48]
George Washington [4:04]
Thomas Jefferson [6:17]
Theodore Roosevelt [7:51]
Abraham Lincoln [13:36]
Radio City: Symphonic Fantasy on Arturo Toscanini and the NBC Symphony Orchestra (2011) [25:36]
O Brave New World [7:28]
Ode to the Old World [12:18]
On the Air [5:50]
The Gospel According to Sister Aimee (2012) [20:29]
Knock Out the Devil [7:30]
An Evangelist Drowns - Desert Dance [4:57]
To the Promised Land [8:02]
In my review of Daugherty’s musical evocation of the iconic Sunset Strip I noted that he has a ‘penchant for celebrating places and spaces’; well, the huge presidential portraits carved into the Black Hills of South Dakota are about as iconic as it gets. In his very readable liner-notes the composer explains his choice of texts, ranging from the letter Washington wrote on his retirement and a lover’s song for Jefferson to Roosevelt’s musings on the great outdoors and Lincoln’s Gettysburg Address. In that sense the work is a genuine - and very affectionate - traversal of American history.
George Washington opens with breathtaking power, and the orchestra and organ are joined by choirs whose songs of the period are projected with telling ardour and accuracy. Daugherty’s strong, sinewy rhythms and his transported choral writing in Thomas Jefferson recall Prokofiev’s Alexander Nevsky, the quieter passages Britten at his most reflective and intimate. Not surprisingly the adventurer Theodore Roosevelt strides forth to strong orchestral accents and horizon-stretching choral vistas; there’s even an Orffian earthiness to the more declamatory moments. The music of Abraham Lincoln - noble and visionary - seems to catalyse all that’s gone before; in the broad, slow-building finale, shot through with jubilant bells and punctuated by trenchant rhythms, Daugherty strikes just the right balance between grandeur and gravitas.
Mount Rushmore is a terrific piece, as much a contribution to musical Americana as anything by Copland or Thomson. Moreover, it’s played with tremendous verve and passion by St Clair and his multitude of musicians, and the recording’s wide dynamics are very well caught by the Naxos engineers. There are hints of other ages here, but this is no clumsy, derivative pastiche; no, Daugherty speaks with an assured and individual voice that deserves to be more widely heard.
New York’s Radio City, the home of Arturo Toscanini and the NBC Symphony, is the second landmark to be celebrated here. It’s also a homage to the fiery maestro, whose first NBC concert is evoked in the Vivaldian echoes and emphatic thrust of O, Brave New World. Daugherty has a lively and inventive style and the Pacific band give this music all the crunch and punch it needs, before modulating into the equally forthright yet sometimes dreamily nostalgic Ode to the Old World that follows. Happily there are no longueurs to speak of, and listeners of all stripes will surely respond to the fine writing on display here and in the witty Toscanini portrait, On the Air.
Daugherty then turns his attention to another icon, Aimee Semple McPherson, who he calls ‘the first important religious celebrity of the new, mass-media era of the 1930s’. Anyone remotely familiar with the antics of modern tele-evangelists as embodied by Billy Graham and many others since will smile - even laugh out loud - at the exaggerated organ glissandi and burping revivalist brass of Knock Out the Devil. This is a fiendishly clever piece of writing that captures to perfection that weird blend of strained piety and outrageous theatre that accompanies these preachers and their very public ministry. Organist Paul Jacobs tackles his riotous part with obvious glee and the Pacific brass have a field day too. Surely The Gospel According to Sister Aimee is the modern-day equivalent of Ives’s equally satirical General William Booth Enters into Heaven; both are just too accurately drawn to be offensive.
I enjoyed this disc so much I barely noticed the sweltering summer heat outside. This is highly original music that avoids mawkishness in the first two pieces and is so deftly drawn in the third as to signal a composer of accomplishment and good judgement. Daugherty’s chatty liner-notes are part of the whole entertainment, and the sonics are simply awesome.
A well-chosen programme that highlights Daugherty’s prodigious talent; great fun.
Dan Morgan
http://twitter.com/mahlerei
A well-chosen programme that highlights Daugherty’s prodigious talent; great fun.
Michael Daugherty on Naxos American Classics
Track-List
Mount Rushmore (2010) [31:48]
George Washington [4:04]
Thomas Jefferson [6:17]
Theodore Roosevelt [7:51]
Abraham Lincoln [13:36]
Radio City: Symphonic Fantasy on Arturo Toscanini and the NBC Symphony Orchestra (2011) [25:36]
O Brave New World [7:28]
Ode to the Old World [12:18]
On the Air [5:50]
The Gospel According to Sister Aimee (2012) [20:29]
Knock Out the Devil [7:30]
An Evangelist Drowns - Desert Dance [4:57]
To the Promised Land [8:02]
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