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Review of Symphonies #1 &
2 - Signature Boise Philharmonic, Billings Symphony
What are
the Great American Symphonies? For my taste the list begins with the Barber First, the Ives
First, the Hanson Second (Romantic), the Hovhaness Second (Mysterious Mountain)
, and the Hovhaness Ninth (St. Vartan). These are works I’ve heard half-a-hundred
times each and can’t wait to hear again. The list continues with the William Schuman
Third, the Copland Third (most especially the Minneapolis/Dorati recording unaccountably
out of print for nearly fifty years!), the Chadwick Fourth (Symphonic Sketches),
and the Hovhaness Fiftieth (Mount St. Helens). These works I’ve enjoyed often
and remember well*. I’ve
been listening to these symphonies by Jim Cockey over and over recently and fit them on
my list right about here. These works have that combination of lyricism, great
beauty, and moment to moment surprise and delight, even on repeated hearings, coupled with
a sense of inevitability in retrospect, that we find in great music. Jim Cockey was born in Baltimore, Maryland, studied composition
in Portland, Oregon, and currently lives in Idaho. The central tragedy in his life is that
his son, Israel, was born autistic. It is this Israel that is the dedicatee of this Symphony
No. 1, and it is that tragic experience that he seeks to allay through his music.
The first work I heard of his, his Elegy for string trio, was deeply introspective
and inspired in me visions of the late Shostakovich quartets. This Symphony is
somewhat more extroverted and less moodily tragic, yet still a remarkably personal work,
lightly scored and brilliantly crafted. Cockey asked his son what he should write about,
and the boy replied, "play" and "love" so the two middle movements of
the symphony are so titled. While the "Play" movement is a bright symphonic scherzo
with unmistakable echoes of Copland’s Billy the Kid and El Salón
Mexico, the Love described is a complex, anguished one, suffused with hope
and careful optimism with occasional wafts of Philip Glass and Leonard Bernstein. The Boise
Philharmonic Orchestra gives us a brilliant performance especially noteworthy for leader
Susan Duncan’s gorgeous singing solo phrases. The coughs and sneezes say little for
Boise in November as a healthy place to live. The
Second Symphony is more extroverted still, being something of a public celebration
for the City of Billings, named for Frederick Billings, the founder and President of Northern
Pacific Railroad. This work in its nineteen sections is similar in form to Honegger’s
Le Roi David or Walton’s Christopher Columbus, but briefer than either.
In 1886 the Billings family was living in Vermont, their 25 year old son Parmly was living
in Billings, Montana. He began a rail journey home, but fell ill and died in Chicago. The
texts of the symphony are taken from family letters. The work begins with very effective
and original railroad travel music that sounds nothing at all like either Honegger or Villa-Lobos,
then stops abruptly to suggest the interrupted journey, and we hear the fragile, birdlike
sound of the Native American flute suggesting the loneliness of the prairie, the loneliness
of death. The solo piano plays a sad, wistful salon tune**. The lightest moment is the depiction
of the 1886 Fourth of July celebration in Billings, described in Parmly’s letter home.
Beginning with popular dances, then with a few bars of Yankee Doodle, the movement continues
with authentic style Native American celebration music; in the cleverly crafted conclusion
the melodic lines merge and we come to see that all this music is the same music. Now Parmly’s
journey moves on to its tragic conclusion. Following the first alarming news of his illness,
the anguished appeals of the mother and father are sung in canonic counterpoint. Then we
hear hymns from the funeral, and a reprise of some of the earlier music in the finale.
That even the wealthy and powerful must experience tragedy,
the shared tragedy of the illness of a child unites this symphony to the rest of Jim Cockey’s
work. This Second Symphony is presented and recorded here live in the context of
a municipal festival; on first hearing some inanities may obtrude. But on repeated hearings
the force and power of music sweep all such considerations aside, and you are a stronger
man than I if you are not on several occasions reduced to helpless tears.
The legendary R. Carlos Nakai receives credit in the
liner notes, and it is likely that it is his development of the Native American flute (similar
at times in sound to the Japanese shakuhachi) and appropriate performance practice
that is being acknowledged. Suffice it say that Joseph Fire Crow, who has released a best
selling solo CD album, plays this difficult instrument with all the skill and beauty of
his illustrious predecessor. The instruments used in this performance were crafted by Barry
White Crow Higgins. Paul Shoemaker
*Most people would add the
Harris Third, although I’ve just never warmed to this work. And just to complete
my list: the Glass Symphonies do not represent his best work, gradually increase
in quality up to number three, and have fallen down considerably since them. The Antheil,
Thomson, and Cowell Symphonies are ingenious but difficult to remember. A good performance
of the Ives Fourth Symphony is an experience never to be forgotten, nor repeated.
The Bernstein Symphonies, again, are not his best music, and suggest that, like Samuel Barber
and Arthur Sullivan, in the end his talent may have been vitiated by excessive praise.
John Knowles Paine easily earned a B minus in the Write-Another-Mendelssohn-Symphony Contest.
**Whether this is an actual folk tune or an original
composition is probably impossible to determine. It is made up of every emotional phrase
from every folk-song you ever loved and as such pours right into you unimpeded by rational
considerations. Review of Elegy to an Ancient Battlefield
- Pensiero Langroise
Trio
Dvořák and Beethoven notwithstanding, the most substantial work
on this disk is the Cockey Elegy. On the model
of the late quartets, it is the string trio that
Shostakovich never wrote. Even the five movement form reminds one of Shostakovich’s
structural innovations in his later string works. Yet the work is authentic and original
and effectively projects the composer’s strong personal convictions. Not since Marga
Richter have we heard such authentic full brooding intensity from an American composer. Elegy for an Ancient
Battlefield, is an extremely personal work. The movement titles are taken from Stanley
Lombardo's stunning translation of The Iliad. Jim composed this work immediately
following an exhausting period of time with his autistic son, an experience which culminated
with his having to look at tragedy, unadorned, in all its bare honesty and simplicity.
"During the writing, I wondered where the beautiful sections were coming from and why
I was compelled to write them ... these moments come from the part of the self that makes
it possible to keep going during difficult times, the part of the self that holds on to
hope and vision." Paul Shoemaker Review of To the Wandering Hero of Distant Lands - Volante Langroise Trio
The first piece
by Jim Cockey that I heard was his String Trio #1: Elegy to an Ancient Battlefield
performed at a Langroise Trio concert. The composer had in mind the heroic struggles
of daily life as mirrored in great literature, specifically The Iliad. The overwhelming
beauty and emotional power of this work absolutely knocked my socks off. I immediately
wrote to the composer and subsequently obtained the only recording of his music then available5,
a CD of his first two Symphonies which I also admire very much.
When Cockey received a commission to produce a work for the Langroise Trio to play while accompanying
a performance at the Idaho Dance Theater, he decided that since he had “done” The Iliad,
he would now “do” The Odyssey, a parable for life’s journeys as The
Iliad is a parable for life’s struggles.
The result is this work, String Trio #2, To the Wandering Hero
of Distant Lands. Its origin as dance music is evident in all the movements. (I never saw
the dance performance, I was too ill to attend.) In the first movement, “???????”
(“of the man, tell me, muse,” the opening lines of The Odyssey)
I see a vivid picture of Odysseus before the War, dancing with his Greek male friends; everything is
stirring, virile, joyous, optimistic. They probably wouldn’t be wearing
white skirts and pompoms, perhaps wearing nothing at all. The second movement, “Farewell
Calypso,” is a lovely, sad adagio, some of the composer’s most melodic music. “The
Many Adventures of Our Hero,” not the longest movement, is a vigorous, active,
musical picture, a sort of En Saga for trio. “Ithaca,” the longest movement
is another adagio, uncertain anticipation, tinged with a sense of nostalgia, perhaps homesickness.
Finally “The Hero Returns” is a vigorous, joyous polyrhythmic celebration
containing curious interruptions. The three strings manage to sound like a full orchestra of instruments;
you’ll swear you hear brass and percussion. This is due not only to
the profound skill of the performers but also to the composer’s experience with teaching violin
and directing a string orchestra. Paul Shoemaker
Concert Review of Concerto Grosso for String Trio and Chamber Orchestra
- Langroise Trio, Boise Baroque Orchestra, Daniel Stern, cond.
The Cockey Concerto Grosso is in three movements:
Introduction and Fugue—Air—Rondo, played without pause. The instrumentation is for strings
and winds with harpsichord continuo, with solo string trio. From the first repeated pizzicato chords the
style is high Spanish baroque, unlike anything Cockey has previously written, but exhibiting his customary neo-romantic,
pantonal, polyrhythmic style. Since the form is not a strict ouverture, contrapuntal
passages gradually coalesce into a dense fugality coming to a sharp, slightly unexpected cadence, leading at
once to the aria. One who had never been to the movies could not possibly have written this
aria, but this aria with its apple cider harmonies and propulsive, slightly off the beat, adagio meter
could never possibly be used as a film score. The result is singing music of aching, sensual, beauty;
you want it to go on forever. There is a very subtle but uncanny suggestion of the spectral Fred Astaire
and Ginger Rogers circling forever in a heavenly—Spanish—ballroom. But, as before, it abruptly
ends on the first beat of the rondo which sweeps on energetically to a brilliant finale. The audience
leapt to their feet to give the artists and the composer a much deserved standing ovation. It should be
noted that a lesser composer might not have survived Mozart and Bach as warm-up acts. My advice
to you is to remember the name Jim Cockey. I think you’ll start hearing it a lot from now on. Paul Shoemaker
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