Sparks: Miniature Works for Orchestra
Siberian State Symphony Orchestra/Vladimir Landa
Moravian Philharmonic Orchestra/Petr Vronsky
Richard Stoltzman, clarinet.  Slovak Radio Symphony Orchestra/Kirk Trevor
The Wembley Players/Bruce Babcock
Navona Records 6050
Total Time: 48:53
Recording:   ****/****
Performance: ****/****

Navona Records tends to focus on highlighting modern music and in this release provides some space for a variety of composers to be exposed.  Sparks features 13 works for orchestra by an equal number of new composers (though there is one arrangement at the center of Gershwin’s “Summertime”).  As such, the listener has a chance to hear the state of orchestral writing in a postmodern world.  The music tends to be quite accessible and often very dramatic lending a more filmic quality and often tied to a single idea.  The recordings date mostly from the past couple of years, though one (Bruce Babcock’s Event Horizon) was made in 1984, and the Gershwin in 2005.  The album is sort of a modern compilation of pieces that parallels some of the “pops” like covers of popular pieces of previous periods.

Jay Anthony Gach’s Gangsta opens the selection.  It is entirely inspired by great 1940s crime and film noir styles and comes across like a long lost Rosza suite.  A touch of this, with some jazz-like suggestions with a nice inclusion of a vibraphone color, appears in the following work by Rain Worthington, Still Motion.  Marga Richter’s Fragments is a fascinating five-movement work exploring different orchestral color—it too has an almost film-like dramatic flow.  Motivic ideas are the binding factor here to move the music forward with fascinating textures.  Explorations of single dance forms are always a unique way for a composer to create a faster audience connection and Phillip Rhodes accomplishes this well in his A Tango Fantasy, a sort of deconstruction of the rhythms and musical phrasing of a tango.  At the center is a nice little arrangement of “Summertime” featuring clarinetist Richard Stoltzman whose central section allows for a variety of pyrotechnics and shift into suggestions of other Gershwin melodies in these riffs.  This is followed by a touching portrait for the late conductor of the Dayton Symphony, Charles-Wendelken-Wilson, Prelude for Charles.  Steven Winteregg's music here has a wonderful, romantic flow, exploring sections of the orchestra and following interesting musical gestures developed across the brief tribute.  In Memoriam continues this thematic sense of remembrance.  Douglas Anderson’s work though came out of a response to the 9-11 attacks and a personal sense of loss that might help heal and remember those lost.  The work opens with a chime and a cluster of sound that then opens into a warm string sound with delicate wind and brass lines floating through the texture in this moving work.  Film music fans will likely recognize the name Bruce Babcock.  He is an Emmy-winning composer who also has numerous orchestration credits over a career spanning some 40 years.  Event Horizon, recorded in 1984 with the Wembley Players, is his personal nod to the many film composers and teachers he has learned from and loves.  The work opens with unsettling and eerie string writing against brass.  It has a serial feel and is the most atonal of the pieces on the album (think some of Goldsmith’s Alien score).  Interestingly enough, the piece does reflect the sort of orchestral writing that was common in orchestral concert music at the time.  The final work is Stephen Lias’ Crown of the Continent.  The piece is an example of landscape-inspired orchestral music.  Here it is of Glacier National Park and the “old West” vistas of Montana.  The style is akin to that for the modern Western in scores like those by Bruce Boughton (Silverado).

The performances here feel as if they were rehearsed well and the result is that the music is quite engaging.  The sequencing also works to draw the listener into the modern styles and then begin to strip things away gradually.  It all works quite well.  Many, if not all, of these pieces, could fit very well in any number of symphony programs both serious and light connecting to a specific theme.  Composers tend to be forced into smaller forms to find space on modern symphony programs and perhaps pieces like these might open the door a little wider for those represented here to try their hand at larger scale pieces.  Certainly, Sparks is an important collection of new voices for any music lover wanting to support modern orchestral music.  Checking out the links at their website even lets you explore some of the scores.

One of Akira Kurosawa’s finest films from the latter part of his career, Ran (1985) is considered the director’s last epic masterpiece.  The film can be experienced as a reimagining of Shakespeare’s King Lear now set in Medieval Japan (though Kurosawa denied this parallel).  In Ran, the great Lord Hidetora Ichimonji (Tatsya Nakadai) divides his kingdom between his three sons who are soon overcome with their own aspirations for power and begin turning on one another.  By the mid-1980s, Japanese composer Toru Takemitsu (1930-1996) had achieved international acclaim for his concert music and film work.  His modernist writing, combined with the sounds of Japanese traditional music, explored electronics, and even Baroque orchestral writing.  He was equally adept in popular and jazz styles as well.  Takemitsu’s score won Best Music awards from the LA Film Critics Association and the Japanese Academy.  That said, Kurosawa’s demands did not always sit well with the composer—a test of wills of two great artists.  The biggest challenge was in the almost Mahlerian musical vision the director had.  The great irony is that Takemitsu, who in his earlier career had eschewed folk and native music, turned to the gestures of Japanese music and theater combined with grander orchestral textures to craft this fascinating work that also features some sound effects (mostly wind).

This new re-issue from Silva Screen Records  features the two larger suites that first appeared on the Philips release of the score.  The first one runs to about 18 minutes (side 1), and the other to about 15 (side 2).  The suites give one a more connected overview of the composer’s various cues edited together to form a narrative flow.  At the center of the first suite is some of the bigger orchestral music that takes on the folk motif in bigger swaths of orchestral writing.  This becomes more pronounced in the second suite.  The music here is arranged differently than the concert versions that popped up on a Chandos release a decade or so ago.

The score proper is spread over 14 tracks.  Japanese flute inflections can be heard in the somewhat atmospheric “Opening Credits” but more traditional music is on perfect display in “The Flute Orchestra.”  The Japanese flute, the “shinobue”, has its roots in Noh and Kabuki theater and this is an apt place for Takemitsu to begin in the score which will gradually add more orchestral color.  The ideas tend to be like little brushstrokes providing a sense of color perhaps calling attention to a particular inflection.  This approach mimics the stunning visuals created by Kurosawa in the film.  In “Kyouami”, there is a brief hint of the orchestral swath that will become an important motif, almost creating a gothic atmosphere of gloom that offsets the seemingly light and brilliant Japanese theater musical elements.  The Mahlerian orchestral moment comes in “Hell’s Picture Scroll” which features an oboe line against string textures and thematic development in a sinuous musical line.  It is one of the big highlights of the score and begins the gradually-increasing tension of this thematic thread with kabuki-like percussion gestures.  In some ways, it has the quality of a gothic horror score, somewhat appropriate to the chilling sequences.  One must also reset their ears a bit for musical sequences of drumming, or slowly-unfolding rhythmic patterns.  The overall flow of the score does work on its own fairly well, but having the suites to latch onto will create a deeper appreciation for the way the tension between the “Japanese” and “Western” elements play out in the score.  That said, it is also very worthwhile to view Ran to gain a further sense of the melding of image and music occurring in Kurosawa’s vision.

Ran is an important film score for one of the great Japanese films of the last quarter century.  Takemitsu manages to find a way to create subtle gestures as well as move into larger-scale string orchestra moments to add a sense of drama.  In a way, these Western orchestral styles (hinting at Mahler) combined with these Asian moments actually sets up the transcendence that the story is trying to communicate.  Sound quality is also quite good in this re-issue.  Silva’s release creates a perfect opportunity for new fans of film music to discover this score.