{"product_id":"goldenthal-fire-water-paper-a-vietnam-oratorio-202507","title":"Goldenthal: Fire Water Paper - A Vietnam Oratorio \/ Ma, Panagulias, St. Clair","description":"From the multi-award-winning stage and film composer of Alien 3 and Batman Forever comes a new oratorio. War, terrifying silence, and violent death invite simple statements as well as, hopefully, more complex ones. This work, despite a plethora of interwoven texts, is a direct utterance: a lament, a conjuring of brief images, which rub against each other to evoke not just a surge of emotion but a sense of purgation. The instrumentation and word-setting is not without beauty (especially the Vietnamese flute and snatches of children’s songs); choirs will enjoy performing it. The work is gestural in concept: a cello elegy in the first movement from the splendid Yo-Yo Ma; an unnerving helicopter simulation, a pithy extended scherzo, a diabolic chorus listing Vietnam combat operations, a dose of Mahlerian threnody. Perhaps most effective are two extended solos, setting Pulitzer Prize-winning poet Yusef Komunyakaa, which freshen up the prevailing monodic feel: that for Maddalena in the first part, where a genuine feel for angular chromatic line surfaces; and that for Panagulias merging into duet in the final movement. Here, and at the close, Goldenthal achieves a dramatic cogency not wholly evident elsewhere. If not Psalmus hungaricus or A Child of Our Time, it’s at least related in spirit. A fine choir, and top-notch wind phrasing.\u003cbr\u003e  \u003cbr\u003e  Performance: 5 (out of 5), Sound: 5 (out of 5)\u003cbr\u003e  \u003cbr\u003e  -- Roderic Dunnett, BBC Music Magazine","brand":"Sony Masterworks","offers":[{"title":"CD","offer_id":46034518147306,"sku":"886975611423","price":13.99,"currency_code":"USD","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0614\/3423\/3066\/files\/3822295.jpg?v=1778245329","url":"https:\/\/arkivmusic.com\/products\/goldenthal-fire-water-paper-a-vietnam-oratorio-202507","provider":"ArkivMusic","version":"1.0","type":"link"}