What the hell, let's do one more.
Vincent Persichetti deserves a huge revival. This is such a fascinating work, clearly owing a huge debt to Bartok's Music for Strings, Percussion and Celesta and Honegger's Second Symphony, but also owing much to much more conservative composers from Vaughan Williams to Barber, I don't think it's exaggerating to say that there is a bit of Bernard Herrmann's Psycho in there too. It's done complete justice by the Philly O strings and Riccardo Muti on his best behavior, doing a too rare outing in contemporary music.
On the one hand, Persichetti clearly sounds related to Copland, William Schuman, and Piston, on the other hand, polytonality everywhere, bitonality, 'pandiatonicism', here it is: the mythic composer who could combine American populism with European modernism.
Persichetti was known better as a legendary composition teacher at Juilliard, and taught everyone from Philip Glass to Einojuhani Rautavaara to PDQ Bach.
As a composer, Persichetti's uniquest contribution is for concert band. Like Karel Husa, it is amazing how so many college and high school bands went in for music that is so dark, but apparently they relished the challenge.
It's easy to rag on the American modernists, they can sound music composed by the Rand Corp or a board room, but they were the World War II generation and clearly had dark experiences to process. We of a freer world (at least temporarily) cannot understand how the experiences formed them. This is anything but anonymous modern drudgery. This is music that takes European pessimism upon itself, but simultaneously lets in mid-century American optimism. What a work.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PyawKc8njSo
No comments:
Post a Comment