Delights & Dances: Music by Abels, Lees, Huang, and Bernstein (arr. Fleischer)
Harlem Quartet, Chicago Sinfonietta/Mei-Ann Chen
Cedille Records 90000 141
Total Time:  64:10
Recording:   ****/****
Performance: ****/****

Those fortunate enough to enjoy the Chicago Sinfonietta’s concert season already know the benefits of their unique programming.  Others will get a chance to discover it on this new release from Cedille that features unusual music for string quartet and chamber orchestra.  The present release features a local favorite work by Chinese composer An-Lun Huang and includes a new arrangement of music from West Side Story for chamber orchestra and string quartet.  Alongside these more popular pieces are two serious and rarer pieces for the same forces and while the Lee has appeared on disc before, one might say these are essentially all “premieres” of a sort (though the Abel and Bernstein arrangement are identified as world premiere recordings).

The disc opens with the piece which lends its name to the release’s title, Delights and Dances.  The work was commissioned by the Harlem Quartet from the young African-American composer Michael Abels.  The challenge here is to help offset the quartet from the string orchestral accompaniment.  A cello line begins the work moving ever upward with the line becoming more lyrical as a duet occurs between viola and cello.  This is the intimate quality of smaller chamber music indicated here until the full quartet appears, though the orchestra itself accompanies in jazzy pizzicato rhythms while the opening idea turns into a bluesy melodic idea.  Each solo instrument is given a chance to “improvise” its own exploration of this thematic idea.  From blues to bluegrass and a more hoedown-like quality, the we move through a variety of accessible harmonic language and engaging virtuosic writing that grows in intensity in its final section.  The Americana string feel for the later sections is firmly rooted in folk orchestral music of the 1940s/1950s.  Overall, this is a really delightful opening work  with a thrilling finale sure to please audiences.

The music of Benjamin Lees, an American composer (though born to Russian-Jewish immigrant parents in China) is also relatively rare on disc.  Lees (d. 2010) spent some time with George Antheil and fellowships in the 1950s allowed him to further explore and develop his avant-garde musical language.  His 1964 Concerto for String Quartet and Orchestra features asymmetrical meters that, coupled with the use of semi-tones, certainly add to the unsettled nature of the music at times.  The work appeared on a New World Records release, now OOP.  Here it forms an interesting musical contrast to the opening work.   The two outer movements are in a perpetual motion sort of mode, though the final movement has a rondo structure.  Its center is a more lyrical, song-like movement marked “Andanate cantando.”  Though we are far from the modernism of the 1920s, there are certainly suggestions of that style mixed with a harsher Neo-Classical feel.  Lees’ harmonic writing though, while using semitone inflections, still manages to fall fairly within an accessible language.  It is the rhythmic sense coupled with fascinating orchestral  interjections that makes this a rather wonderful discovery especially with the brass writing and percussion additions.  The second movement places these orchestral ideas sometimes as smaller motivic fragments now cast in the string quartet, but also occasionally appearing in the fabric of the orchestra as well.  It is a very dramatic movement where the quartet has a chance to shine a bit more soloistically.  The final movement feels a bit like a cross between Shostakovich and Prokofiev minus some of the sardonicism of the former.  It’s incessant march-like ostinato is rather fascinating in alternation with larger orchestral sections and harmonies.  This too is a rather intriguing discovery that should hold up well on repeated listens coming from that mid-century milieu of composers revisiting concerto grosso form with the Baroque and Classical influences in modern dress.

After these heavier and more serious works, the album has a brief audience favorite, Huang’s “Saibei Dance” from a suite including the same name to provide a little “encore” of sorts before the final piece, the West Side Story Concerto.  The dance selection surely has a pops-like orchestral feel and allows the winds to shine a bit more.  One certainly wishes to now hear the complete work, and or suite, from which it is taken.  The “cushioning” effect of placement here in the program works to transition out of the more modern Lees work into this delightful excerpt.

More recently, arrangers have begun to try recasting Bernstein’s larger stage works for more intimate ensembles.  Paul Chihara provided the Orpheus Chamber Orchestra with an arrangement of music from the composer’s lesser known one-act opera, Trouble in Tahiti.  An earlier arrangement by Randall Craig Fleischer, West Side Story Concerto, appears here.  Fleischer has created a work for string quartet and chamber orchestra that hits the highlights of this classic score.  The main melodic ideas work well in this context and quartet writing helps class them up just a bit, but really the interest lies in that Fleischer has created a nice smaller orchestral work for ensembles not large enough for the Symphonic Dances.  It makes for a really enjoyable finale to a really great hour or so of contemporary music.

The Chicago Sinfonietta continues to expand recorded repertoire with this release that features music influenced by dance rhythms and styles.  The Lees is likely to be the biggest welcome surprise along with the Abels work.  The second half of the disc might feel like a reward with the more familiar Bernstein melodies creating some musical familiarity and comfort.  In short, a rewarding release regardless of which half of the program you will prefer.

The Golden Age of Hollywood ****

JEROME MOROSS/MAX STEINER/MIKLOS ROZSA/BERNARD HERRMANN/DMITRI TIOMKIN/ERICH WOLFGANG KORNGOLD/RICHARD ADDINSELL/ELMER BERNSTEIN

RPO 017

15 tracks – 77:26

The Royal Philharmonic Orchestra averted disappearing altogether decades ago when Louis Clark and the ensemble released the multi-million selling disco album, Hooked on Classics.  Over the years the orchestra has classed up what used to be referred to as “elevator music” while still maintaining a number of superb classical releases.  It is this versatility which can sometimes be overlooked for “serious” ensembles.  Film music collectors may recall several fine film music compilations with the orchestra under the baton of Elmer Bernstein, Carl Davis, and John Scott.  Over the past decade, the orchestra has released on its own label a variety of contemporary film music, often conducted by the composers, from their concert series.  The discs have been exclusively available from the orchestra’s website.  The Golden Age of Hollywood comes from their Here Come the Classics series of which this 2006 release is volume 17!  One can hope that more film compilations will find their way to the states. 

The current release will best be enjoyed if one simply forgets its title and just listens to the resulting music since much of the music comes from the late 1950s or 1960s.  The oldest music represented here is Gone With the Wind whose requisite “Tara” theme must appear.  The album is bookended by music from two classic Western scores, Jerome Moross’ The Big Country and Elmer Bernstein’s The Magnificent Seven (in an arrangement by Paul Bateman).  The former makes for a fine opening, though the Warner Brothers fanfare in the following familiar Casablanca suite might have worked better.  The performance of the suite is filled with sliding strings and a bit too much bass, but manages to work just fine once the suite settles in to its more pop music big tune “As Time Goes By”.  Personally, it always is fascinating that any of Steiner’s music shows up at all as the orchestra could have simply played a banal arrangement.  But it is a reminder at the effectiveness of borrowed tunes and Steiner’s reworking of them that still makes Casablanca a classic score and film. 

The suite from Korngold’s The Sea Hawk is a welcome departure from more Robin Hood music, though one does wish for a bit more Korngold.  The big romantic cinema concertos from Rozsa’s Spellbound score (which sounds like there is a theremin being used and Addinsell’s “Warsaw Concerto” from Dangerous Moonlight (Suicide Squadron) are well performed with great rubato by the orchestra and Roderick Elms.  The familiar “Love Theme” and “Parade of the Charioteers” from Ben-Hur also make their requisite appearances here.  The “Love Theme” features a rather gorgeous violin solo and quite moving performance.  Rozsa’s parade work must not be difficult as it seems to receive fine performances on disc a lot and this one is just as good as many others with fine brass playing. 

The odder choices, though no less well-performed, are the main theme from The Guns of Navarone.  Its appearance after Herrmann’s suite from Psycho allows for an interesting comparison of styles.  While having some Herrmann on the release, neither selection is arguably “Golden Age” material—especially his music for Taxi Driver which appears as a lengthy seven-minute track here.  The work is an intriguing choice and some of the swells are really well done.  Phil Todd’s saxophone solos sometimes feel a bit too harsh at times missing some of the noir-ish flavor of the original.  The selection itself just sort of ends rather oddly as well making the following Korngold selection a bit jarring.  The interpretation and music simply are out of place in the context of the rest of the music on the disc which hurts it more than is perhaps fair.

The recording features fine performances of all this music in richer acoustics that sometimes make climaxes a bit compressed.  Some purists may also take issue with the flexible tempos but again the intent here is to present these works as concert pieces more than to remain terribly faithful to original film tempi.  The dynamic range is most pronounced in the selections from Psycho.  Serebrier proves to have some feel for these works and shapes the music perhaps more than some might like in the more romantic-tinged selections.  Apart from the quibble with many of the actual selections not being really Golden Age music, one can still enjoy this lengthy concert of great film music played by one of Great Britain’s premiere orchestras.