CLASSIC STRUCTURES
University of Michigan Symphony Band
Michael Haithcock, conductor

Guest soloists: Nancy Ambrose King, oboe
and Adam Unsworth, horn

Pulitzer Prize composer, William Bolcom, is joined by 2010 Pulitzer Prize composer, Jennifer Higdon, with composers Dana Wilson and David Ludwig in the first recordings of their terrific works presented by visionary conductor, Michael Haithcock, and the University of Michigan Symphony Band. The superb oboist Nancy Ambrose King and versatile hornist, Adam Unsworth, are featured in the Higdon and Wilson concertos respectively. The University of Michigan Symphony Band with its storied traditions continues to excel in advancing the repertory with these stellar performances under the baton of Professor Michael Haithcock.

REVIEWS

Notes & Reviews from FANFARE
CLASSIC STRUCTURES
Michael Haithcock, cond.; Adam Unsworth (hn); Nancy Ambrose King (ob); U Michigan S Band • EQUILIBRIUM® 97 (69: 54)
D. WILSON Horn Concerto. LUDWIG Missa Brevis. HIGDON Oboe Concerto. BOLCOM Symphony No. 1 for Band

If the Boston Conservatory CD I review in the Collections section seems too daunting, then this may be the perfect release for enjoying some fine contemporary music that stays within idioms that should be familiar, or at least congenial, to the less-exploratory listener. The collection is titled Classic Structures, appropriately enough. There are at least two names that will be familiar to many collectors, Jennifer Higdon and William Bolcom, and all four are well-regarded composers who work in fairly conservative styles. That said, there is nothing old-hat or unimaginative about any of the pieces here.

Dana Wilson, professor of music at Ithaca College, wrote his Horn Concerto on a commission by horn virtuoso Gail Williams in 1997. She premiered this version for wind ensemble in 2002 at the 50th anniversary celebration of the ensemble from Wilson's alma mater, the Eastman School of Music. Here, University of Michigan faculty member Adam Unsworth plays the technically challenging work with great feeling and apparent ease. The thrusting opening and closing movements, with their shifting time signatures and syncopations, may make the listener think of Bernstein's more exuberant scores. The latter begins with an arresting duet for percussion and fully stopped horn and reaches a crushing climax. The second movement, Plaintively, exploits the soloist's lyrical gifts. David Ludwig's voiceless Missa Brevis conjures intentional echoes of neoclassical – and occasionally more primeval – Stravinsky, the austere Mass being the acknowledged inspiration. Incorporated within the work are what the composer calls "snapshots" of Masses by Guillaume Machaut, around which the chamber group – 10 wind players, a cellist, and double bassist – then weaves the more modern score. Some of the Curtis faculty member and Ph.D. fellow's choices jar, as in the very dour Sanctus, and the almost perfunctory Agnus Dei, with little sense of pleading, but the Credo is appropriately proclamatory, and the whole is sternly moving.

I have been consistently disappointed by Jennifer Higdon's larger–scale works. Her compositions are generally admired — she received the 2010 Pulitzer Prize in Music for her Violin Concerto — and while I could never deny the beauty of much of the writing, and even listened and relistened to every recording that came my way to discover what others heard, it left me perplexed and unmoved. I was ready to say the same of the Oboe Concerto; I even submitted this review with that conclusion. Then I listened to the Violin Concerto last night, and suddenly something clicked. I loved it. I came back to the Oboe Concerto today, and behold, transitions that seemed forced and inorganic now made sense. Counterpoint that seemed arbitrary and undisciplined suddenly came into focus. Well, nobody ever said that this is an objective occupation. Along with the acknowledged beauty of sonority, I now hear intriguing and distinctive exploration of the concerto form. OK, all you who scratched heads at my incomprehension, it was me after all. I still think the ticking percussion motif is too close to being a Shostakovich pinch, but I really like the piece now. I'll have to go back to those other recordings, held back in case of an epiphany. There never was, by the way, any doubt regarding soloist Nancy Ambrose King. She is superlative.

I had no such struggles with William Bolcom's eclectic First Symphony for Band, actually his ninth symphony; the other eight are for orchestra. The retired University of Michigan professor is amusingly cheeky here on the surface, but the waters below are murkier. Maybe Bernstein in my ear today, but I hear a little of that composer's darker theater works in the first movement, titled with Cicero's famous outcry, Ô tempora ô mores (Oh the times! Oh the way we live!). The Scherzo tenebroso is, as the title suggests, darkly humorous, with a trio and conclusion that are pure thumb–on–the–nose burlesque. The Andantino pastorale indulges in musical surrealism, and the finale, Marches funéraires et dansante, depicts, by the composer's telling, a New Orleans funeral procession and joyful march back to town from the graveyard. He speaks of exuberance and hope, but I hear a samba on the lip of a volcano. All very unsettling and absolutely virtuoso.

Virtuoso is the term, as well, for the University of Michigan ensemble, and for director Michael Haithcock's shaping of these works. Equilibrium® is the University of Michigan home label, and the sound is, as in the other university–produced recordings I have heard, detailed and rich, but slightly claustrophobic, without enough stage depth and openness. The horn soloist is recorded a bit too closely, seeming in a different acoustic. These are mere niggles, though, in the face of such overall excellence. Enjoy.

FANFARE: Ronald E. Grames