I'm not quite sure what all these pieces are doing on the same CD, a statement that applies to either of the above collections. But there is a link, because each features a recent composition by a well-known Utah composer.
In the case of the second, that is Henry Wolking's "Pangaea," an instrumental evocation of the primeval supercontinent that is thought to have separated into the land masses we know today.I like its exotic orchestration and Joan Tower-like expansions of energy and sound, here projected with cinematic vigor by another former Utahn, Madeleine Schatz, and her orchestra in Fairbanks, Alaska. But the frequent alternations between tranquility and explosiveness, depicting the various forces at work, lend it an episodic structure not even Tower's music always avoids.
At least it moves, something I cannot say of Irwin Swack's Symphony No. 2. A late-romantic essay for strings, the latter shifts from Shostakovich to Berg to Mahler, then back again. But in David Amos' performance it all just kind of lies there, even in moments of psychological unrest. Some lovely string sonorities, though.
If these are the "virtuoso works for orchestra," the others must be the "virtuoso works for clarinet." Because even these incorporate an unaccompanied opus, Stravinsky's Three Pieces for Solo Clarinet, which clarinetist John Russo turns out in darkly atmospheric fashion.
Elsewhere his sound tends to be brighter, particularly in the Donizetti Concertino and Debussy's "Premiere Rapsodie," here a bit stark in its impressionism. The prize in this collection, however, is the Concertante for Clarinet and Orchestra of Norman Dello Joio, an appealingly tuneful work (originally written for Artie Shaw!) served up with spirit and style.
Even more varied is the MMC collection, in which no two pieces share the same performers or the same aesthetic.
Thus we have a work for a cappella chorus, "Song of the Goddesses" by Utah's Marie Barker Nelson, alongside Robert Stewart's polytonal "Idyll" for strings, Thomas M. Sleeper's "Dunsmuir" Piano Quintet, Jerome David Goodman's "Montsegur" Suite and Albert Tepper's Concertino for Oboe and Strings.
Crafted in a mostly conservative 20th-century American choral idiom, Nelson's piece moves from the sliding harmonies of "Artemis" to the quick exclamations of "Hera" and tragic cacophony of "Demeter" (who, like Nelson, lost a daughter), only to have spring return via "Persephone."
Performances are likewise notable for their sensitivity and discipline, though a printed text would have helped in those places where the Slovaks do not project the English with absolute clarity.
Stewart's piece also embeds its emotion in a basically meditative context, only one that is serially derived. Sleeper's is more agres-sively compact, to the point of abruptness in the outer movements, the last of which seems strangely cheerful compared to what has gone before.
By contrast Goodman's suite, depicting the tragic final seige against the heretical Cathars in 1244, is strangely cheerful throughout, at least in view of the subject matter. I like what he has done with the lower voices, however, as well as the overall imagination - this from a former child psychiatrist.
Again, though, the winner to my ears is yet another Concertino, the Tepper work for oboe (here uncredited) and strings. At least I find myself won over by its pastoral, semi-rustic air and general lack of pretension. Yet the adventurousness is there, only in a way that is more likely to draw listeners in than to put them off.
Would that more composers had that ability.