Customer Reviews

Corigliano: Symphony No.1 / Of Rage and Remembrance

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It is amazing (although perhaps not once you hear this music) that a modern symphony dealing with a difficult and controversial issue like AIDS should be given not one, but TWO excellent recordings by major American orchestras (the other being the premiere recording with the Chicago Symphony and Daniel Barenboim). But that simply indicates the importance and magnitude of this piece. It is certainly one of the best symphonies by an American composer, possibly one of the greatest symphonies of the 20th century. And of the two recordings available, this is to my mind the finest. Slatkin's direction is much tighter, giving the faster more rhythmic sections more clout, whereas in Barenboim's version, the orchestra lacked that precision. Some might prefer Barenboim's Mahleresque sound (like an orchestra so big it can barely hold itself together) but Slatkin achieves amazing power through precision without sacrificing the work's epic breadth. As an added bonus, there is the choral work 'Of Rage and Remembrance' which you should listen to only after hearing the symphony.

The extra-musical considerations of these works are interesting in and of themselves, but they are in no way necessary for an understanding and enjoyment of these considerable achievements by Corigliano.

The composer has come some way from the piano concerto that Hilde Somer recorded in San Antonio back in the late '60s. There is the same rythmic pulse, the same intense desire to innovate while remaining accessible. There's more content in ideas and art surrounding those ideas that remind me strongly of Penderecki, Panufnik,Rieti, Nicholas Flagello and Creston without in the least way being derivative. Corigliano, truly an original voice, deserves to be in such distinguished company.

My only concern is that these works have been pinned as so occasional that they might meet the fate of period pieces, much as some of the fine 1970s works of Gould, Carter, or Gregg Smith: we don't hear them any more because they've been so oft-discussed and fraught with situational association.

The National Symphony has mended its somewhat slack ways proliferated under the Slavka regime. Antal Dorati would have been proud to hear the exquisite execution DC's superlative orchestra affords these affecting works.

John Corigliano's first symphony, "Of Rage and Remebrance", is an amazing piece of music. Corigliano attempts to capture the feelings he has experienced with dealing with the lost of his dear friends, who died of AIDS.

The first movement, titled "Of Rage and Remembrance" deals with the struggle of attempting to understand and accept the loss of his friends. The listener gets a sense of the conflicting feelings of sorrow and anger. Very powerful.

My favorite is the second movement, where he shows, musically, the decaying of the mind of his friend. His friend was a clarinet player and you can hear throughout the movement the nature of the carefree theme as it goes through fits of fast paced insanity and mind numbing slowness.

The cello solo in the third movement is one of the most hauntingly beautiful melodies I've heard. The entire piece ends with open muted brass sounds, representing the vastness of the ocean. This picture displays Corigliano's idea of emptiness but acceptance. This is a rather bleak view of death, but is honest with human emotions

A beautiful recording of an amazing piece

First off, this is one of the two only recordings of this piece. Second, this is the best performed and best recorded of the two. If you're not into extremely dissonant and modern classical, this piece might take some getting used to before its total effect can come across. Corgliano utilizes a huge orchestration including, antiphonally, just about everything that can possibly be imagined. It is very unique and inventive.

It is interesting, at a time when we are seeing compositions written about, dedicated to, and in memory of those lost in the September 11th terrorist attacks and the subsequent reactions, to go back to works written about WWI, WWII, and other wars that inspired so many great works. This CD of John Corigliano's Symphony No. 1, is a personal reaction to the loss of friends and family to the AIDS epidemic, during a time, a decade or two ago, when AIDS was a worldwide headline and crisis (It still is today, really). The image of the AIDS quilt on the cover of the CD brings back many of the feelings the nation had at that time. This highly personal and intense symphony spurned a 12-minute cantata based on the symphony's 3rd movement, which vocalizes with words, the powerful impact of the loss of life to AIDS.

Each movement of the 40-minute Symphony No. 1, has a personal reference to someone Corigliano has lost to AIDS. The opening movement is subtitled Of Rage and Remembrance, and the rage can be seen on page 1 with a score marking of "ferocious". Aleatoric elements give a fearful tone: playing with string vibratos, odd wind rhythms, brass slidings, and percussion clatterings. The Rage section also has instrumental instructions such as hysterical and nasty, which lead into the cacophonous poundings. The middle section has long sustained strings, but in the distance, is an off-stage piano playing Issac Albeniz's tango, a favorite piece of one of Corigliano's pianist friends. The dissonant strings continue the minds' rage (almost creepily) while the remembrance in a fog is represented in the tonal and major-mode piano work. The opening hysteric poundings and aleatoric elements return, but all ends with the distant piano, as if in a distant memory. The second movement is a tarantella, an Italian dance form, taken from a set of piano pieces. The tarantella was dedicated to a friend who eventually succumbed to the AIDS virus. A bouncy and tuneful theme is varied amongst more aleatoric extra-musical devices, like string and brass glissandi and constant speeding and slowing of the dance tempi, often give way to freneticism. The horrific and often grotesque dance is attributed to his friends' madness as a direct result of the disease. The third movement's melody, subtitled Giulio's Song, was taken from a tape Corigliano was reviewing of he and his friend, Giulio Sorrentino, improvising at college in 1962. Giulio also died of AIDS, and the cello, he was an amateur cellist, represents his friend. With long sustained chords, Corigliano adds soloists, and printed in the score, remembers other friends who have died from AIDS with each solo entrance. Eventually the pounding and throbbing from the first movement, reprised in the second movement, finds its way here too. The short fourth movement epilogue is announced by sustained falling brass clusters and a reprise of the Albeniz piano solo, cello solo, and other previous themes, ending in the finally silenced cello solo. Scored for large orchestra, a large battery of percussion (including anvil, flexatone, whistle, whip, and ratchet) a string section including mandolins, the music is intense, often dissonant mixed with polytonality, and exhibiting great tunefulness with energetic rhythmical themes, not to mention many "chance" techniques. The music is highly personal and intense.

The accompanying 12-minute cantata, scored for low strings, chorus, solo mezzo, chimes, and timpani, is entitled Of Rage and Remembrance and opens with an impassioned mezzo solo, a vivid textual depiction of Corigliano's feelings in the symphony. Various soloists recall Corigliano's friends who died and were marked in the symphony's score of the 3rd movement. The chorus, in musical aleatory, recall those they personally lost to AIDS through chanting; and in a haunting ending, a lone boy soprano quotes Psalm 23 in Hebrew. Perhaps even more moving than the actual symphonic movement, Of Rage and Remembrance is a deeply-felt addition to the disk.

Leonard Slatkin and the National Symphony Orchestra out of Washington DC with various Washington choruses and soloists, give sincere and electric performances. Sonically and overall, this RCA disk surpasses the earlier world premier on Erato with the Chicago Symphony under Barenboim with Slatkin's extroverted style. Even though this work was written in the late 1980's and first performed in the early 1990's, the subject and intense personal connection holds up. Gritty and sentimental, the symphony is a masterpiece.

These works have to be viewed from two perspectives: as purely musical works and as personal reflections on the impact of AIDS. The Symphony is certainly strong enough to stand on its own merits. Are the struggles in it timeless enough to affect anyone in any age? I think so. It can transcend its programme if need be. The influence of Shostakovich on Corigliano is certainly evident here. So it's a winner from that perspective. And who better to conduct such a wrenching modern work than Slatkin? It should be noted that the recording of the Symphony is a LIVE, not STUDIO performance. What a concert it must have been! The tension in the audiance and orchestra is palpable. This live recording enhances the work's power. But what of the chaconne "Of Rage and Rememberance?" Can a work so completely wrapped up in the personal tragedy of AIDS speak to a listener like me, who has never suffered any AIDS losses? I must confess I felt disconected from it. All this angry mourning over people I'd never met or heard of. I felt as if I were intruding on someone else's tragedy. Maybe it won't affect you in the same way. Maybe its impact will be different for each person. You may find it heart-rending or just melodramatic. I don't know. I'll leave that decision to you.

In the fifteen years since its premiere, Corigliano's AIDS symphony has achieved 800 live performances, giving it claim to being the most established orchestral work since Lutoslawski's Concerto for Orchestra. The reason, I think, is that Corigliano has written a work whose emotional range and depth of intention rise to the tragic occasion. This is the greatest work of art inspired so far by AIDS, along with Tony Kushner's "Angels in America."

I heard a performance in San Francisco last week with the same forces on this CD--Slatkin and the National Symphony--and Corigliano's music still had the power to deeply shock and move a listener. The "metal percussion" battery in the first movement is ear-splitting and unnerving, an outcry of rage that alternates with the lyrical expressions of remembrance--the twin themes of the symphony. Other reviewers have already pointed out the musical landscape of the work. The ghostly off-stage playing of an Albeniz tango (a favorite piece of the dead pianist who hauants the first movement), the frightening fractured tarantella in the second movement that vividly depicts both AIDS-induced dementia and a dance of death, the lonely solo voices in the third-movement chaconne that each stand for other departed friends: these are enduring musical gestures of pity and love.

The idiom of this work is essentially tonal and therefore easy for audiences to grasp. But it's not "soft" tonality, or regressive in any way. One can ponder why Corigliano hasn't lived up to the enormous potential of his First Symphony, just as Kushner hasn't lived up to the potential of his play. Leaving that aside, the music endures and will continue to as long as the plauge is with us.

Several years ago I recommended the debut recording of this work, an Erato release featuring the Chicago Symphony Orchestra under the baton of Daniel Barenboim. Those who own that CD need not run out and buy this one, because the Erato was a fine performance in splendid sound that is not superseded by Slatkin and his forces. Yes, there is an additional work on the new RCA release, but Of Rage and Remembrance is not a work that many folks will want to listen to more than once. However, given that the Erato disk is probably next to impossible to find, while the newer RCA disk is on sale virtually everywhere, and given that the Corigliano First Symphony is a work of great power and wonder, I can end this review on a positive note by recommending this disk to those who do not already own the Erato version.

Of Rage and Remembrance is a great piece, very interesting techniques used, worth checking out!

I fully agree with the other reviewers that this symphony is a remarkable work and a significant contribution to American symphonic literature, but I do not understand the title. "Grief and Remembrance" would make sense to me, but "rage" demands an object. Does anyone know toward what Corigliano's rage is directed - his friend? the principle of cause and effct? a universe in which there is fatal sickness?