I haven't gotten around to visiting the Tucson music festival, but there is obviously some fine music-making going
on out there. This disc was made at the March 1997 concerts, and if you have a spark of adventure in you, I do
urge you to sample this totally enjoyable release. The Bartók immediately grips your attention, with its
earthy and lively opening Hungarian melody played with great pungency. The work was inspired by the great jazz
clarinetist Benny Goodman, and it is a sense of improvisation that characterizes this account, with Patricia Shands
providing the agility and vivacity the outer movements require. Carmit Zori does have a moment of questionable
intonation in the first movement, but elsewhere her playing is excellent. Ensemble is not quite as tight as one
would expect from studio sessions, and if it does not match the inspiration of the Szigeti/Goodman/Bartók
recording, it is certainly up there with the best of the rest.
Twilight Music was written to a 1984 commission by the Chamber Music Society of Lincoln Center, and is a listener-friendly
score that speaks in a new idiom while retaining a flowing melodic invention as the motivating force. The music
is depictive of three musical voices meeting at dark: They converse, argue, and in the end go their separate ways,
a story line that allows John Harbison ample scope to explore the range of sonorities of each instrument. Rosenthal
is the fine violinist who, as the music demands, gets blown away by Todd's suitably aggressive horn, Blaha acting
as the soothing voice in the fracas.
The German-Swedish composer Ingolf Dahl spent much of his time conducting and teaching, the second half of his
life spent in the United States, where he died in 1970. He would have wished to spend more time composing, and
after this introduction to his music, we can equally share his regret. He was known as a person of a jocose personality,
and that sense of fun propels the three-movement concerto. There is a strong influence of Stravinsky: The jagged
rhythms and the violin solos strongly remind one of The Soldier's Tale, to which Dahl has added his own brand of
jazz syncopations. The Zori-Shands partnership is here joined by Rejto's suitably piquant cello, the crunchy harmonies
perfectly captured.
Pan Dreams is the odd man out. Jon Kimura Parker's 1989 score is framed in a more progressive modernism. It is
the story of Pan's awakening, and it ends in a frenzied dance. The Walker/Fitz-Gerald duo brings vivid animation
to the score, though toward the end those hectic flute passages do not always find the instrument clearly speaking.
Tucked away in a corner in small print is the name of the producer and engineer, Matthew Snyder. Any other release
with such outstanding sonics would have his name in headlines. He may have used a simple microphone setup, for
there is a natural balance between the instruments, and a meticulous balance between clarity and warmth that you
rarely encounter.
David Denton
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