This is the third major-label monograph of diverse music of Michael Daugherty (b. 1954), the University of Michigan faculty member known for his engagement with pop-culture subject matter. The first, of his Superman-inspired Metropolis Symphony and other works, made a splash. Another brought us a series of sound-gags, including the bassoon concerto Dead Elvis. There’s also a release of his opera Jackie O and scattered works on numerous compilations, as well as a symphonic band version of UFO and other works on the Klavier label. This is his first Naxos release, part of the terrific “American Classics” series.

Philadelphia Stories, considered by the composer his Third Symphony, was commissioned by the Philadelphia Orchestra, which premiered it under David Zinman in 2001. The work is in three movements, as much a triptych of tone poems as an abstract symphony—an urban La mer. The titles of the movements indicate the gist: “Sundown on South Street,” “Tell-Tale Harp,” “Bells for Stokowski.” The piece is just under half-an-hour long, each of the first two movements being about seven-and-a-half minutes and the third about 14.

If you know anything of Daugherty’s music, much of what’s here won’t surprise you for the most part. Daugherty frequently draws on pop and kitsch music archetypes in building up evocative larger forms. I can’t pin down any specific paraphrases in the first movement, but the several different kinds of orchestral pop, jazz, and Latin jazz conjure the atmosphere of Philly’s South Street, a byway of the musical night life where Daugherty himself had performed jazz and experimental music. The movement is a fantasia for two solo harps and orchestra, the title referring to The Tell-Tale Heart, which Edgar Allan Poe wrote in Philadelphia. Daugherty likens the somewhat gas-lit mood of the movement to Poe’s lyric poetry. The big shadow to go along with Stokowski’s in the last movement is Bach’s, alluding of course to the conductor’s famous orchestral transcriptions of Bach’s music. Daugherty begins the movement with a solo violin theme (arguably in the style of Bach), which serves as a basis for wide-ranging variations, Daugherty writes, “in my own musical language.”

The second work, UFO (1999), is a five-movement concerto for percussion and orchestra, written for soloist Evelyn Glennie and the National Symphony and conducted at its premiere by Leonard Slatkin. The five movement titles are as evocative as those in Philadelphia Stories: “Traveling Music,” “Unidentified,” “Flying,” “???,” and “Objects”; each concentrates on different percussion instruments. There are a few neat moments, but from the subject matter one expects a more imaginative (Lachenmann-like? Messiaen-ish?) orchestral experience than one gets. Deft, but largely predictable—as in Philadelphia Stories. The latter, though, is a far more satisfying work; it suffers less from a desperation solely to entertain. (The symphonic-band instrumentation of this piece was created in 2000; it was commissioned by a consortium of university bands and recorded by Glennie and the University of North Texas Wind Symphony, Eugene Migliaro Corporon conducting.)

Daugherty is a good composer from the standpoint of his ability to get what he wants out of his materials, but it’s hard to put one’s finger on what his true voice (that “my own musical language” of the above quote) might be beneath the busy surface of style-dropping. It could be argued that style isn’t something that can be heard from moment to moment, necessarily—that the whole of the work, the choices the composer makes in his gleanings from others, his extramusical impetus, are the style. Daugherty definitely has a taste for particular kinds of borrowings.

The performances are excellent. Marin Alsop obviously knows the Colorado Orchestra well and leads them with confidence through this often tricky music; they seem like they’re having fun. Glennie is outstanding as usual as a performer, but once again, she’s playing a commissioned piece that remains a little flat. Still, this disc is all in all a good and inexpensive introduction to Daugherty’s work. This Naxos series is invaluable.

Robert Kirzinger, FANFARE

Jon Deak is a composer who ‘has more fun with music than anyone I know’ (New York Newsday), and all of the pieces on this album of symphonic stories for young and old alike involve the performers as narrators. These tales include the wolves of Canada and Alaska in B.B. Wolf (An Apologia), a loving tribute to the immigrants of America in Bye-Bye!, and a dramatic and virtuoso version of Hans Christian Andersen’s The Snow Queen Finale. The Legend of Spuyten Duyvil is a tale of old New Amsterdam that invokes the heroic spirit of trumpeter Anthony Van Corlaer. John Deak, composer and education specialist, was associate principal bassist with the New York Philharmonic for many years. A Pulitzer and Grammy Award-nominated composer, he has written over 300 groundbreaking works, many of which are accessible to children.

Although he is a prolific composer of operas, symphonies and concertos, songs lie at the core of Daron Hagen’s output. With over 350 published art songs, he has embraced and extended the great lineage of American song exemplified by Samuel Barber, Leonard Bernstein and Ned Rorem, and is now considered one of the foremost twenty-first century composers for the voice. The meticulously crafted and wholly idiomatic examples included here have been recorded under the composer’s supervision with his chosen performers, members of Lyric Fest, Philadelphia’s renowned song series.

This collection of songs with voice and clarinet has at its heart Lori Laitman’s profoundly moving cycle I Never Saw Another Butterfly, which sets the words of hope and desolation written by children imprisoned in the Terezín concentration camp. Inspired by this poignant music, Kristine Hurst-Wajszczuk and Denise Gainey commissioned a follow-up, The Secret Exit, on poems by Nobel Laureate Nelly Sachs that reflect on life and death. Newly arranged for voice and clarinet, Living In The Body is a cycle about love, memory and resilience. The program is completed with Diana Rosenblum’s delightful setting of Winter Rain and Kalmen Opperman’s haunting Unseul.

This recording of choral works showcase a group of composers who are or were once faculty members of the Aaron Copland School of Music at Queens College, CUNY. The widely differing languages and poetic aesthetics set by these composers represent the concept of “Songs of Peace and Praise,” from symbolic, descriptive pieces such as Bright Sheng’s “Two Folk Songs from Qinghai” to tender and moving interpretations of traditional texts such as Allen Brings’ “In paradisum.” The voices of The New York Virtuoso Singers and Queens College combine to express the universal nature of shared experience.

This is really fun. Hubert Headley (1906-95) is a composer in the tradition of Gershwin, Still, Gillis, and Moross--that is, stylish, pop-influenced ('30s and '40s), and well-crafted. Howard Hanson and Pierre Monteux had nice things to say about the colorful and extremely enjoyable California Suite, and during the 1940s it enjoyed a measure of popularity. Similarly, the concertos are brilliantly scored and full of good ideas. Both are single-movement works lasting a mere 11 and 15 minutes, respectively. The First Symphony (1946) requires a mere 13 minutes, and it's likewise colorful and cogent. Certainly there is no reason why this music should not become popular again; likely it faded from view because Headley essentially gave up symphonic composition after the 1940s in favor of large-scale choral music, but then so much good tonal music vanished after the "serial interruption" that began in the 1950s. The performances here are consistently exciting, with Anna Bogolyubova a confident soloist in the two concertos, and Dmitry Yablonsky leading an orchestra that sounds like it's having a remarkably good time. You will too.

--David Hurwitz, ClassicsToday.com

This is another collection of American classics that deserves the highest praise. With exemplary playing, singing and an acoustic to match this is plainly indispensable.

Thankfully this isn’t the umpteenth recording of Appalachian Spring but a collection of lesser-known Copland. As always this music is quintessentially American, the suite from his opera The Tender Land, the bluesy piano concerto and the Old American Songs, the latter in choral arrangements. Appropriately enough the orchestra is the Illinois-based Elgin Symphony, which has embarked on an ambitious project called In Search of Our American Voice. Helping them in this endeavour are the St. Charles Singers, a multi-talented chamber choir founded in 1984.

Speaking of voices, Copland has a unique, instantly recognisable ‘voice’ of his own and that is clear from the first bars of The Tender Land suite. In his illuminating liner-notes Joseph Horowitz reminds us that although this has a Depression-era rural setting one could argue that, in part at least, it’s also Copland’s response to the McCarthyist witch hunt of the 1950s.

Interestingly the suite, arranged after the opera’s premiere in 1954, starts with the introduction to Act 3 and the love duet between the farm girl Laurie Moss and her drifter beau, Martin. The second movement is based on the party in Act II and the final movement comes from the quintet,’ ‘The Promise of Living’, at the end of Act I.

Whatever Copland’s intentions the music is not far removed from the Pennsylvanian hills of Appalachia, with its open, unpretentious scoring. The usual epithets ‘folksy’ and ‘homespun’ apply but there is also a degree of disquiet reflected in the brass at the start of this movement. The ensuing harp melodies are most affecting in their simplicity and directness, Robert Hanson securing warm, idiomatic playing from his orchestra.

The recording is clear and detailed, notably in the vigorous party music, and there’s no sign of strain or grain in the climaxes. Indeed, it’s an almost perfect acoustic for such a lucid score, the surging music of the last movement lovingly shaped and projected. This is vintage Copland and hearing this music may spur you to try the opera itself.

Horowitz makes the point that Copland’s piano concerto was somewhat eclipsed by Gershwin’s much better known effort, written the year before. It doesn’t have the latter’s Broadway-inspired razzamatazz but what it does have is a more sophisticated, cosmopolitan feel to it. The insouciant, bluesy first movement – introduced with the usual fanfare – has the pianist doodling quietly at the keyboard. Benjamin Pasternack captures the languor of this movement very well indeed, the piano ideally placed and faithfully recorded. Copland’s detailed scoring is wonderfully realised too, the more expansive moments thrillingly intense but never overheated.

The doodler is back in the second movement, his random notes followed by raucous music that has a real swing to it. The drums and percussion are certainly reminiscent of Gershwin but there is a fresh, individual quality to this concerto. Pasternack is suitably foot-stompin’ in those repeated jazzy phrases and the Elgin players give him wonderful support throughout. But it’s the final minute or so that’s the real tour de force, with the splendid percussion chasing the pianist all the way to the finish line.

This is exhilarating stuff and quite possibly the most enjoyable item on the disc – go on, give it another whirl – so the choral arrangements of the Old American Songs needs to be pretty special to top that. Most listeners probably know these pieces in their original scoring for voice and piano; if that’s the version you want do try Willard White on Chandos CHAN 8960.

Alas, first impressions of the choral arrangements aren’t very encouraging, baritone Nathaniel Stampley’s rather wide vibrato spoiling ‘The Boatmen’s Dance’. The St. Charles singers are another matter entirely; they are clear and nimble and, to be fair, Stampley does improve in ‘The Dodger’. Those who have heard Willard White in this repertoire will know just how much character and personality he brings to bear in these songs. Well worth seeking out.

The Elgin Symphony is never less than excellent and the chorus sing eloquently in the ballad ‘Long Time Ago’. Diction could be clearer but with such heartfelt singing it seems churlish to complain. And then there’s ‘Simple Gifts’, the Shaker hymn we know from Appalachian Spring, essayed here with a wonderful sense of innocence and optimism. They even manage the farmyard onomatopoeia of ’I Bought Me a Cat’ which, if you don’t mind this kind of silliness, will probably put a smile on your face.

Really it’s the chorus that makes these arrangements stand out; their bright, focused sound is invariably pleasing, even if the music doesn’t always sound like Copland. They are also suitably impassioned – febrile, even – in the Revivalist hymn ‘Zion’s Walls’. Then Stampley and tenor Jeffrey Hunt join them for a spirited rendition of ’The Golden Willow Tree’. Both soloists acquit themselves well here and for once the quirky orchestration actually sounds like authentic Copland.

Of the two remaining songs the hymn tune ‘At The River’ could have been penned by Charles Ives, such is its mix of devotional text and strange harmonies. Hanson and his band bring this music to a stirring close before launching into the utterly delightful ‘Ching-a-ring Chaw’. If you haven’t smiled so far then this will surely do the trick, the singing and playing pin-sharp and full of fun. An upbeat finale to an enchanting disc.

Minor caveats about the baritone aside this is another collection of American classics that deserves the highest praise. With exemplary playing, singing and an acoustic to match this is plainly indispensable. And the song texts are included as well, which is a welcome bonus. Buy it and enjoy.

-- Dan Morgan, MusicWeb International

Born in New York in 1928, Nicolas Flagello began his career as a concert pianist touring widely in the States and Europe. During his student years he had also been a conducting pupil of Dimitri Mitropoulos, and in 1962 was appointed as Music Director of the Rome Symphony Orchestra. As a composer he studied with Vittorio Giannani, an American of Italian descent whose mentor had been Goldmark. It comes as no surprise therefore to find that Flagello inherited a cosmopolitan background, and on his death, at the early age of 66, he left a considerable catalogue of scores, the earliest dating back to his early twenties, though he was forty before he completed his first symphony. Looking back at a previous Flagello review I described his idiom as 'Korngold orchestrating Hindemith's thematic material', a description I would be happy to attach to the present disc. I could add 'Rachmaninov meets Hollywood' to set the scene for the First Piano Concerto, its opening in a rich and dramatic mood offering unlimited space for virtuoso solo display. Conventional relaxed Andante comes before we turn full circle for another shot of brilliant orchestral colours. For Dante's Farewell we are in the world of opera, the big scene highly rewarding for the solo soprano. The Saxophone Quartet Concerto - his last completed work - is highly engaging, its lyrical centrepiece offset by the wild conclusion full of spine tingling excitement. Performances are of mixed origin, but share the same degree of conviction, with soloists that are unfailingly superb, the gorgeous voice of Susan Gonzalez being a major discovery that I am itching to hear again. Sound quality is good, and has the bass drum ever been more realistically captured than in the finale of the saxophone concerto? One of the most enjoyable American music discs I have heard.

"David's Review Corner"
June, 2006

Nicolas Flagello was one of those composers who was a skilled craftsman, and very much a member of his "school", that school being American "neo" something-or-other (fill in the blank with either "classical" or "romantic", it doesn't much matter which). If you like the school, and there's plenty to like, then you will like Flagello. During the dark days of the 1960s and '70s, tonally speaking, facing little if any prospect of performance, he left some of his larger works in short score, hence Anthony Sbordini's sensitive orchestration of Dante's Farewell, a moving scena for soprano based on works by Mrs. Dante. It's a lovely, affecting piece that would have been wonderful had it been sung by someone with a voice far more appealing than that of Susan Gonzalez.

The First Piano Concerto is a bold, passionate, memorably tuneful work that takes its romanticism seriously. There's plenty of storm and stress, and my only quibble is that there doesn't seem to be any particular motivation for the piano and orchestra to divide the musical argument the way that they do. In that sense, it's an odd piece, but still a good listen. Tatjana Rankovich already has recorded Flagello's Second and Third Concertos, and she knows what she's doing, as does the orchestra under John McLaughlin Williams.

Best of all, though, is the Concerto Sinfonico, a late work dating from 1985. This has to be the best piece ever written for saxophone quartet and orchestra--not that there's all that much competition, but it really does work extremely well. The timbres that Flagello exploits are consistently ear-catching, the argument easy to follow but rewarding as well. The performance also sounds very comfortable--inside the idiom and aptly high-spirited. The Rutgers orchestra (of New Jersey) acquits itself proudly, and despite the different venues, the sonics are consistently good.

--David Hurwitz, ClassicsToday.com