October 20, 2010

  • Review: Jack Gallagher Orchestral Music

     

    Gallagher: Orchestral Music
    London Symphony Orchestra/JoAnn Falletta
    Naxos 8.559652
    Recording:   ****/****
    Performance: ****/****

     

    Naxos continues to explore newer American orchestral music with this release featuring music by Ohio-based composer Jack Gallagher.  Gallagher’s music has received a dozen recordings on smaller, hard-to-find labels that many will wish to seek out perhaps after hearing the orchestral works on this release.  The music presented here features selections from 1977-1991 with a recent revision dating from 2007.  No doubt having your music performed and recorded by the London Symphony Orchestra was a thrill and fortunately conductor JoAnn Falletta is on the podium to provide her deft interpretations of this music.  The CD is arranged like a miniature concert opening with an overture and concluding with the composer’s much lauded Symphony in One Movement—Threnody.

    The opening Diversions Overture (1986) has its root in a work for symphonic band.  The introductory section is a very Americana lyrical section recalling Copland but with a bit more chromaticism.  A flute call has an almost Native-American quality.  What is fascinating though is how the work builds slowly to its center where brass announce an exciting syncopated theme that could come from an Elmer Bernstein western score.  All is brilliantly orchestrated and performed here.  The work is in that genre of American overtures like Copland’s Outdoor Overture or Williams’ The Cowboys Overture.  Overall it is an exciting work deserving a place on concert programs.  This is followed by the short Berceuse (1977), a touchingly beautiful lullaby for orchestra that inhabits an accessible romantic musical realm.  It is oft-heard on Viennese classical radio and one can hope soon will be a frequent work to be enjoyed here as well.

    There are two large-scale pieces that make up the bulk of the CD.  The first of these is a work that has seen a bit of revision, Sinfonietta.  Originally it began in 1989-90 as two pieces for orchestra and then later was expanded with three more movements in 2006-2007.  Gallagher further revised the work in 2008 after concert performances and it is this version which is recorded here.  The string orchestra work allows Gallagher to explore different registers of this orchestral family to brilliiant results.  The opening “Intrada” is an at times Bartokian flurry of strings featuring multiple stops, rapid passages, and the juxtaposition of lyric writing with pizzicato.  The following “Intermezzo” is slow song-like lyrical work showcasing various soloists and the composer’s gift for melody.  The third movement is a Ginastera-like “Malambo” with some exciting rhythmic play and two trios for contrast.  The fast scherzo-like movement provides great contrast to the preceding material.   The dance references continue in a sttely “Pavane” and a final movement in Rondo form with a dance-like theme.  The piece is a fine display of string writing and in this final (?) form greatly benefits from the upbeat third and fifth movements.  Gallagher’s thematic material is always engaging and quite accessible with his formal structures easily deciphered by the listening audience.  One does wonder though if maybe calling a “Dance Suite” would benefit its chances at further performances.

    The final work included here is the 1991 Symphony in One Movement—Threnody.  Here we are moving away from the lighter, more pops-like Americana of the earlier pieces and into one of the composer’s more introspective and emotionally deep pieces.  The opening lyrical ideas seem to spiral upward only to be thwarted in their expectation toward consonance and cadences in expected places.  Instead, the music  winds about chromatically with brilliant little explosions of faster-paced music and intriguing solo work.  This piece shows a further command of the orchestra in its restraint  of musical ideas cast throughout the ensemble and featuring more percussion, mallets and piano appear in the texture.  The work is more complex than the earlier pieces, but we have by now been drawn into Gallagher’s musical world enough that these more dissonant ideas come as fascinating new directions.  The dark colors and chromatic writing are reminiscent of Bartok’s Music for Strings, Percussion and Celesta, but the sound tends toward a more contemporary American orchestral style unafraid of its more Romantic roots.  It makes for a moving orchestral work with exciting faster sections that further explore the orchestra in this dramatic piece.

    The London Symphony Orchestra is in top form here giving committed performances to works that appear to have mostly been performed by regional American orchestras.  What a blessing then to have one of the world’s premiere ensemble provide such engaging performances captured in a perfect sound picture.  This CD will be of great interest to fans of new American music and its film-like Romantic orchestration could find a whole new audience as well.  Highly recommended.