Prisma 2: Contemporary Concertos & Works for Orchestra
Iliana Matos, guitar. Zagreb Festival Orchestra/Miran Vaupotic
Barbara Hill, flute. Petr Nouzovsky, cello.
Moravian Philharmonic Orchestra/Petr Vronsky, Stanislav Vavrinek
Janacek Philharmonic Orchestra/Jiri Petrdlik
Navona Records 6232
Total Time:  52:31
Recording:   ****/****
Performance: ****/****

Prisma 2 brings together five new works for orchestra, three of which also feature soloists, in this new release from Navona.  The recordings were all made in the last year.

The album opens with a concerto for guitar and string by James Lentini.  Written in 1996, the three movement work features a blend of modal and traditional harmony, though often with more open intervals.  The first movement “Andante” has a sunnier quality with motive that helps unify it.  The central adagio takes on a slightly more somber tone with dissonance hovering at the edges and adding an emotional depth.  The final movement brings us back to more technical display with some interplay with the orchestra and an excellent cadenza that adds to the heart-warming quality of Lentini’s style.  Words cannot do justice to Iliana Matos’ interpretation and performance here.  The music’s accessibility makes for an immediately engaging opening to the album with the performances here certainly among the finest in Navona’s catalogue.  The recording is stunning as well with a perfect balance of the soloist.  As the most substantial work on the album, it is certainly well worth the price of admission to what follows.

Two shorter works for soloist and orchestra are interspersed with orchestral pieces.  First is Rain Worthington’s Full Circle.  The piece blends the cello solo with the orchestra in a more meditative work.  The orchestra is like a memory out of which solo ideas come to the forefront only to recede back into the texture.  The musical style is more contemporary than the opening work with fascinating timbral qualities and sounds explored in the fabric of the music while a particular line moves through them.  It makes for a rather intriguing and moody work with the dark colors of the cello heightening the dramatic flow of the music.  The performances here are superb bringing out Worthington’s expressive musical qualities well.  Peter Castine’s Aperture is constructed like a Baroque concerto grosso with a flute solo and string quartet set against the orchestral string ripieno group.  Because of this, the music tends to have a more intimate, and yet denser texture.  The three groups are in far greater opposition as the piece opens as if they are coming from quite separate directions often clashing together with pizzicato sections or sudden harmonic clusters signal a possible new direction.  The music is striking with its unrelentless intensity that also includes spoken text of encouragement and frustration.  All serving as an emotional response to the 9/11 attacks.  This is music at the opposite end of the spectrum from Lentini’s opening work.  Here, all sense of brightness has been removed as dense clusters and dissonance struggles against small cells of music trying to break through, or away.

Camerata Music (1990-orchestral version) by Jan Jarvlepp was premiered by the University of Ottawa Orchestra and subsequently by the Ottawa Symphony.  It takes some of its inspiration from Columbian folk music which infuses the work with a host of percussion and hand clapping, coupled with interesting rhythms.  The music works to provide contrast to what precedes it on the album.  Jarvlepp’s opening lyrical line moves against these rhythms exploring different solo expressions of the primary idea in gradually growing layers while the percussive elements punctuate and add rhythmic interest.  The album closes with Beth Mehocic’s Left of Winter (2014).  This seven-minute work was commissioned to serve as a prelude to Stravinsky’s Rite of Spring.  The piece though is also a reflection of young men going off to war as they head to the train station.  As they contemplate their lot, there is a sense of nostalgia for what they left behind, a setting in of the realization that they may not return and a trumpet call to gather them back from their musings before they march off the train.  Mehocic takes inspiration from the rhythmic ideas of Stravinsky (which is obvious from its opening bars and several musical references) and then melds them into her own style and narrative here which makes this like a score for a short film.

Prisma is actually a rather fitting title here for the different works that are included in this compilation of modern music.  Each presents a different aesthetic facet that allows us to reflect on deeper meanings, or simply enjoy the moment.  Each work receives excellent and committed performances and as a result the pieces come alive and encourage the listener to consider each on their own merits.

The Genius of Film Music: Hollywood Blockbusters 1980s to 2000s
London Philharmonic Orchestra/Dirk Brosse
LPO 0110
Disc One: Total Time:  54:12
Disc One: Total Time:  42:30
Recording:   ****/****
Performance: ****/****

Here is more music from the series of film music concerts held at the Southbank Centre’s Royal Festival Hall, London, in November 2013 as part of The Rest Is Noise festival inspired by Alex Ross’s book of the same title.  A previous set featured John Mauceri conducting the orchestra in a program of music from the 1960s and 1970s was released in 2015.  As with that earlier two-disc set, this one two features two less than full discs of music likely parallel to the concert program itself.  Dirk Brosse, who has been a part of the superb Ghent Festival compilations, and more recently subbed for an ailing John Williams, is on the podium here for a program that features some familiar favorites and a few surprising and welcome choices.  The music gives us an overview of composers working in the grand Hollywood style, more Italianate writing, and an eye towards shifting trends exploring post-minimalist and modern shifts.

The program is framed by classic music by Williams.  First is the Star Wars Symphonic Suite which covers three selections: the “Main Title”, “Princess Leia’s Theme”, and the “Imperial March” (leaving off “Yoda’s Theme” and the “Throne Room and Finale” otherwise included).  The familiar “Raider’s March” will bring disc two to a close.  These are fine performances with just a little added dramatic flair which works fine here.  But really one wants to move on to some of the more interesting program here.

The Williams’ suite is the opening work on disc one and is balanced by two additional suites.  In between are some familiar themes by Vangelis (Chariots of Fire) and Morricone’s gorgeous “Gabriel’s Oboe” (The Mission).  Love themes are alternated here for contrast with a wonderful choice in Hamlish’s gorgeous theme from Sophie’s Choice (with a moving cello solo) and then later the delightful theme from Bacalov’s beautiful Il Postino.  One of the nice surprises here is “Laura Palmer’s Theme” which appears as part of a Twin Peaks suite by Badalementi which Brosse included in his Ghent program back in 2008.  The music moves us into darker musical territory providing excellent contrast with its noir-ish style coupled with wonderfully romantic themes. A bit of romanticism edges in for the suite from Elmer Bernstein’s The Age of Innocence before we turn to Danny Elfman’s witty music for The Nightmare Before Christmas presented as an 8-minute suite (a rather surprising choice considering the options from the composer’s work in this time).  This serves though as a nice stylistic contrast to the close of disc one.

Disc two’s program begins with the simple pleasures of Piovani’s score for La Vita e bella.  The four-movements here include his wonderful love theme (“Buongiorno princepessa”), the “Grand Hotel Fox Trot”, a fugue and “Il carrarmato.”  The music here is a striking reminder how this stood apart from other 1998 scores in such a disarming way against the more serious story with its bend of romantic and dramatic scoring.  Jerry Goldsmith is represented with a suite (arranged by Alexander Courage) of his score and Matthew Wilder’s songs for Disney’s Mulan.  This presents part of a shift to adventurous film scoring that continues with Don Davis’ minimalist and post-modern styles that are represented in a fascinating suite of music from The Matrix Reloaded, another interesting choice.  Historical drama and adventure appear in the suite from Zimmer’s Gladiator score, important for essentially cementing the shift to the Remote Control/Media Ventures style of the following decade; though there is as much Wagner and Holst woven into the blend to connect with earlier Hollywood epics.  It brings us then to the aforementioned familiar Williams march.

All told, like its predecessor, this is a truly excellent survey of film music in equally fine performances.  As with most compilations, it has just enough of some common works to give it broad appeal while also including additional selections that will peak the interest of a larger film music audience.  The pieces chosen also open the listener up to see some of the general trends and shifts that were occurring in this historical period.  That said, one basks in this glorious, and loving music making.  Brosse draws out of the LPO some emotional playing, especially in the love themes on disc one, that feature well-shaped phrasing and attention to detail.  This is another excellent survey worth considering and one only wishes it were longer.  Here’s hoping more of the series appears soon.— Steven A. Kennedy