Koss Totem Mani-2 User Manual

Page 78

Poetics

Corporon/North Texas Wind Symph.

Klavier K11153

Rejskind: This is one of a long-running

series of wind recordings on Klavier by

this first-rate orchestra. I think the title

may have been chosen at random, but

what it contains is worthy of anyone’s

attention for both musical and sonic

reasons.

The first reason to get it, I think, is

Joseph Schwanter’s Percussion Concerto.

Now the percussionist in a symphony

orchestra is not the one groupies mob

at the stage door. Garrison Kiellor once

said that the triangle is an instrument

for a saint (he said the same thing about

the harp, for a different reason). The

percussionist is important, but only once

in a while. Perhaps that’s why, in 1995,

Schwanter was commissioned to write

an extended solo piece for the principal

percussionist of the New York Philhar-

monic, Christopher Lamb. And what a

piece it is!

Schwanter says he has long been

fascinated by the timbral aspects of

music and been attracted to the richly

varied sonic resources of percussion.

What he composed is nothing less than

a masterpiece, drawing on an astonish-

ingly diverse panoply of instruments.

They are here played by Christopher

Deane, backed up by the band’s regular

percussionists to say nothing of the rest

of the orchestra.

Listen for yourself. He marshals

three tom-toms, timbaletas, bongos,

a marimba (the only amplified instru-

ment in the work), a xylophone which is

sometimes struck and sometimes bowed,

and a varied set of drums of all shapes

and sizes, including a bass drum you’ll

feel as much as hear. But Schwanter has

done more than make noise, for that

would be all too easy. He juxtaposes

dense and sophisticated melodies for

brass and woodwinds with contrapuntal

percussion effects. The result, across

three movements that occupy more than

a half hour, is impressive, sometimes

disturbing, often viscerally beautiful.

The playing is wonderful too, and

that goes both for Deane and the large

ensemble, conducted masterfully by

Eugene Migliaro Corporon. The engi-

neering, by Bruce Leek, is as good as it

gets.

But wait a minute, there’s more!

Steven Bryant’s Stampede has a sort

of rodeo atmosphere to it, reminiscent

of the music of Aaron Copland. Michael

Gandolfi’s Vientos y Tangos (“wind and

tangos”) is not always rhythmic, but

much of it is. Gandolfi has used famed

concert tango composer Astor Piazzola

as a model, and I liked the piece very

much.

I’m less enthusiastic about Franco

Cesarini’s Poema Alpestre, whose length

exceeds its breadth, but even without

him this recording is chock full of good-

ness. The first time you’ll play it for the

sound, but I predict you’ll come back for

the music.

Film Spectacular II

Black & London Festival Orch.

FIM XR24 070

Rejskind: My first impression, if you’ll

pardon the pun, is that nobody does

music like this anymore. They sure used

to. Films had lush ballads as scores, and

there were countless orchestras that

would bring out collections of these

hummable tunes. Percy Faith was one,

Billy Vaughn was another, and Stanley

Black was yet another.

This one, from 1963, is special for

being part of London/Decca’s “Phase 4”

series. Of course Phase 4 did not feature

four channels, and the reason for the

name is a mystery. Decca (the British

company, not the American one of the

same name) was known for its realistic

ffrr recordings, intended to sound the

way an orchestra might from the eighth

row of a good hall. Phase 4 was Decca’s

attempt to live down that reputation.

The technique was totally opposite:

use a lot of microphones, each one very

close to an instrument, and dial in lots of

stereo separation. Crank up the volume

on the pressing, to overcome rumble,

hum, whatever. The results were spec-

tacular, though not perhaps truly hi-fi.

It had been many years since I had

listened to a Phase 4 recording, and

of course I had not had the advantage

of listening with gear like the Omega

reference system. Notwithstanding the

very close-in sound, these recordings

really did sound good. The dynamics are

overwhelming, probably difficult to get

onto modern digital (First Impressions

Music has used xrcd to do the job). And

Stanley Black, here conducting the Royal

Festival Orchestra, was a really talented

bandleader.

This CD is a reminder that writ-

ers of film music back then were not

too shabby, and it did my heart good

to hear them again. Here’s Lawrence

of Arabia, Gone With the Wind, The

Magnificent Seven, a suite from My Fair

Lady, and even the haunting score from

Hitchcock’s Spellbound. I hasn’t heard

any of them in a while.

I also couldn’t help noticing that,

despite my impressions of the old LPs,

they are not truly recorded in ping pong

stereo. When there is a clash of percus-

sion or brass, you can hear it travel all

the way to the other wall and back again.

The original engineer, Arthur Lilley,

knew what he was doing.

No, nobody does music like this

anymore, but a modern engineer, or

musician for that matter, could learn a

lot by listening to this CD.

ULTRA HIGH FIDELITY Magazine