Customer Reviews

Daugherty: Metropolis Symphony

5 star:		(5)
4 star:		(4)
3 star:		(0)
2 star:		(3)
1 star:		(0)

 

 

This disc is fantastic: 2 energetic pieces by a gifted American composer, performed by an excellent orchestra under an exciting new conductor. Sonically, the performances are beautifully captured, top to bottom, and the recording sounds great on 5-channel surround. The nuances the composer points out in the liner notes are easily heard in the mix, and the Nashville Symphony's sound is balanced and full. Just a beautiful recording, and an excellent addition to a growing and impressive catalog from Music City's excellent orchestra.

As for the pieces themselves, the Metropolis Symphony, though not program music, certainly evokes images of the mythology to which it pays tribute: sounds of a busy city, soaring melodic lines, bright horns, and robust orchestration. It is beautifully and ably written.

The piano concerto, Deus Ex Machina, is another brilliantly rendered composition--in response, in the composer's words, to the world of trains. The highlight here is part II: The Train of Tears, "music for a slow-moving funeral train"--specifically, the train that carried Abraham Lincoln's body from Washington, DC, to its final resting place in Illinois. The movement is dark, brooding, lonely, and fatalistic. Terrence Wilson (piano) plays very well throughout the whole emotional and stylistic range of the concerto.

For some reason, I mistakenly connected Michael Daugherty with the Bang On A Can crew. He is post-modern, though, in the sense of using materials from everywhere. From Wikipedia, the background details most revealing about his music was that he learned to play piano himself ("Alexander's Ragtime Band") via the family player-piano, that he wanted to become a composer after hearing a performance of Sam Barber's Piano Concerto, studied with Charles Wuorinen, and had a stint at IRCAM where he encountered Gerard Grisey and Frank Zappa.

Leonard Bernstein told him to combine American popular with concert music. He worked on his Yale dissertation about the connection between Mahler and Ives, and Emerson and Goethe. Well-rounded is what I'm aiming at, musically and otherwise. Clearly you'd want to be seated next to him at a dinner party. But how goes the music?

Wonderfully! This will be on my 2009 Best List. The slipcase cover of Metropolis Symphony loudly declares its intent and content: a red-caped Superman-like character in rapid flight over a metropolitan skyline. The composition is in five movements, they are non-programmatic, and each may be performed (or, at home, played) individually.

"Lexx" opens with a police whistle; right away there's trouble afoot. There's only the broadest minimalist reference of a broadly repeating phrase, and just for a minute or so.

"Krypton" opens with a police siren, then darkly ominous strings, very realistically captured fire bells, triangles and other percussive materials. Think: Appalachian Spring gone askew thanks to spiraling string glissandi and Mary Kathryn Van Osdale's violin, ending with a siren going off in homage to Varèse's Ionisation.

"MXYZPTLK" is more chamber-like with its flutes and piccolo and ends with a crack. "Oh, Lois!" offers swirling strings and that wind-swirly-whistling thing (forgive my technical exactitude), following by a manic brass chase that starts to sound like the well-known bumblebee flight, then quickly shifts off into it's own wild-ride.

"Red Cape Tango" is appropriately slow and insinuating, with a reprise of the previous bells.

Deus ex Machina for Piano and Orchestra: It begins with Henry Cowell-like strums inside the piano, followed by an intricate, rapidly-ascending line that simultaneously recalls Nancarrow and ragtime. The orchestra with piano is truly grand without being grandiose or bombastic; a great accomplishment. The piano solos evoke tender emotions, until it thunders up spiral staircases to Hollywood action-film evocation. You hear Barber, you hear lots of Bernstein, some Rachmaninoff in the piano.

Each of the movements is meant to be "a musical response to the world of trains." You already know the famous works which do this.
The first movement, "Fast Forward," stands up to all of them. It's very loud, exciting stuff, inspired by Italian futurist painters. The "Train of Tears" uses "Taps," what the composer refers to as his own "ghost melody" and other elements to evoke Lincoln's funeral train.

The closer, "Night Steam," uses 20th Century American-style rhythms and speed in response to photographs of the motion of the last steam locomotives. Terrence Wilson does a fine job with the modernist piano part; I'd love to hear him tackle a Rachmaninoff concerto or the Barber sonata.

I'm not rushing this review for musical lack of quality, but rather, the adrenaline each work brought out in me forces me to walk away from the keyboard now, sit in front of the audio system, and enjoy another go-round for pure, close-listening pleasure.

If you've read this far, just get it. Worth more than twice the cost of Naxos' list price of nine bucks, available in NYC for seven or less. I look forward to hearing more of his Naxos recordings, and seeing his opera Jackie-O.

Editor, AcousticLevitation dot org

I am very pleased with the quality of the recording and especially the performance level the Nashville Symphony delivers. The Metropolis work is interesting - I'll have to live with it a while longer to decide but the Deus Ex Machina I am already quite drawn to. I find it superior to Metropolis and Bells for Stokowski. I do suggest hearing this album for that second work and to enjoy a thrilling performance from an American regional orchestra. Excellent job, Nashville!

the Metropolis Symphony captures perfectly the mood and feeling of classic superman comics. Big bold themes painted in vivid primary colors suck you and leave you wanting more. Sometimes classical music takes itself so seriously, it is a nice change to have a work that doesn't. The score is very evocative, kind of like good soundtrack music. But whereas soundtrack music is hamstrung by the fact that it is totally subordinate to the visuals it is trying to enhance, this work gets to play through without any of that.

Just for fun, I pulled out my copy of John Williams 1978 score to the rather dated Christopher Reeve Superman movie. I think Daugherty's work does a better job at, as the composer wrote, "expressing the energies, ambiguities, paradoxes, and wit" of the pop icon that is Superman. There is no super sticky melody, like Williams' classic Superman phrase. But the Superman soundtrack suffers from an inability to create, explore, and play with themes and ideas because its main purpose is to help tell the story of the movie. So one feels the heavy hand of forced emotional manipulation and artificiality; all in all I was unsatisfied at the end of that disc. Don't get me wrong, as far as soundtracks go, Superman is in the top tier, and it's not a fair fight pitting a symphony against a soundtrack.

Deus ex Machina has it's own vibe, quite different from Metropolis. Its inspiration was trains. In the very early part of last century, trains were the most vital and important agents of change and modernization. They symbolized the future. The first movement makes use of this potent symbolism and transmutes it through the lens of the composer's manifesto: abstract musical lines, mechanical velocities, contrary vectors, polyrhythmic vibrations, and fragmented reverberations. The second movement uses the 'Train of Tears' as its inspiration. The Train of Tears was the train that carried the body of Lincoln to various parts of the country so people could mourn and pay their respects. It is a slow moving dirge incorporating Taps. The final movement uses the end of the steam locomotive era as its inspiration. By the 1950's, most trains were diesel or electric. There were a few of the old steam engines still in service and photographer O. Winston chronicled the last days of the steam era. Using these images as a guide, Daugherty attempts to create the feeling of these beasts of burden as they hurtle to their end.

The Deus half of the album isn't as successful as the Metropolis part. I wasn't as engaged and it may have more to do with my mood that day then the music itself, nonetheless I'm deducting 1 star (not that it matters, LOL).

Oh and the sound quality is excellent. You'll have no complaints no matter what your set up.

All in all, a fantastic disc at an amazing price.

This is a lot of fun. If you like modern composers such as John Adams (Short Ride in a fast machine) and Jennifer Higdon (Blue Cathedral & Concerto for Orchestra), You'll like this.

I continue to be blown away by Iowa-born composer Michael Daugherty. His music tells a uniquely American story and that appeals to me very much. Most recently it was a recording of his Fire and Blood, a muscular violin concerto inspired by Diego Rivera that grabbed my attention. This time it's the antic and frantic Metropolis Symphony, an orchestral extravaganza inspired by the 1938 debut of Superman in comic books. I love the very notion of a giant orchestral work inspired by American pop culture and can almost see the sneers of Euro-snobs and the pasty-faced, self-appointed American guardians of modern music.

Metropolis Symphony is in five movements, each one inspired by a Superman character or theme. Lex, the opening movement, is a deliriously diabolic romp for solo violin and percussion-laced orchestra that captures the manic evil of arch-baddie Lex Luthor. Here's the smack-mouth drive that made Fire and Blood so thrilling. The solo part is played with guts by the Nashville Symphony's Mary Kathryn Van Osdale. More subdued but equally evocative is Krypton, an eerie tone poem that opens with sirens, gongs and disturbing string glissandi. There's more terrifying solo fiddling, snippets of what sounds like "Silent Night" and an apocalyptic finale that gives the Rite of Spring a run for its money. MXYZPTLK, the nasty imp from the fifth dimension, is a mercurial scherzo-like third movement that showcases the orchestra's flute section. The fourth movement entitled Oh Lois! evokes the comic's heroine alongside Clark Kent. Here's another wildfire rave-up with a tempo marked "faster than a speeding bullet" that plays out as a delicious example of orchestral slapstick. The closing Red Cape Tango is a moving elegy that evolves into a tango-inspired dance of death with Daugherty quoting the Dies irae.

Daugherty's Deus ex Machina for piano and orchestra, which rounds out the recording, is the composer's take on the world of trains with each movement focusing on a train or railway. The first movement Fast Forward conjures up images of the avant-garde and displays the rhythmic firestorm that is found in many of Daugherty's works. The second movement Train of Tears refers to the funeral train that carried Abraham Lincoln's body through seven states. Here's Daugherty in an elegiac mood that will remind some of Copland but there is nothing derivative here, Daugherty's superb orchestration and emotional depth rise to the top throughout. The finale, Night Stream, is Daugherty's tribute to the coal-burning locomotives of the Norfolk and Western lines and here's more of the hard-driving, blues-inflected virtuosity that make his music so thrilling.

The knuckle-busting piano part is played with breath-taking skill by Terence Wilson and the Nashville Symphony, conducted by its new music director Giancarlo Guerrero,
proves once again that it is one of America's finest orchestras. Superbly engineered and nicely packaged this is another gem from one of our finest composers.

I heard a guy call Spanish gibberish because he couldn't speak it. So much for the rewards of reading "100 Years of Solitude" in the original tongue.

Most folks think of comics as kids' stuff, a hand-me-down impression from the 1940s. But art and prose are high forms, and the synthesis creates a unique vocabulary that has said great things in recent decades. Michael Daugherty is conversant with present culture and it informs his lexicon. Translating modern myths, his "Metropolis Symphony" is a terrific homage to the legend of Superman, done as five pieces in a narrative symphony. We're used to symphonic scores for Superman's film adventures, but it's especially refreshing to hear a classical composer's evocation of the hyper emotions and thrilling velocity of these new myths.

Comics aren't static panels, they're emotion pictures, a sophisticated and kinetic visual language creating its own ecstatic landscape. Daugherty undertands this, turning those etched motions into scored movements. His textural sounds capture their adventurous pace, theatrical sweeps, dramatic beats, and visceral exuberance. "Lex" is all pressure and pursuit, hemmed in by police whistles. His central voice as the emphatic, hectic violin is terrifically played by Mary Kathryn Van Osdale. "Krypton" is a dark build, with desperation in its melodies, almost Roman fanfares for its falling civilization, and a furious sprint to escape the inevitable climax. "MXYZPTLK" is furtive and catastrophic mischief in reckless swathes, with a surprisingly poignant penultimate flute solo, and then out quicker than you can say "Kltpzyxm!" The stellar recording of this disc jumps out on this track, compelling you to grab headphones to savor its riches. "Oh Lois!" is leaps and bounds through tight escapes, punctuated with fast moves and faster dialogues. Very clever, very fun. So the closer "Red Cape Tango" comes as a surprise, an elegant elegy to the day Superman died. It is knell, liturgy, and tango between intensely competing forces as our hero faces down Doomsday. Full of foreboding, tense with conflict, strangely bittersweet. There is a quietly triumphant undercurrent, because you can't really kill hope's champion.

The second suite "Deus Ex Machina" is a trio about metaphoric trains, and equally excellent. "Fast Forward" is the Futurists' hope for an interconnected world, surging ever forward, brightly. "Train of Tears" about Abraham Lincoln's funeral train ride is a languid beauty, wounded but reverential. Terrence Wilson's brilliant piano gives this piece its deep compassion. "Night Steam" takes us round the bend with the end of coal trains in one last panoramic hurrah. The melodic nature of this trio really moved me, and doubled the enjoyment of this terrific disc. Great price for greater music!

All I knew of the Metropolis Symphony by Michael Daugherty was that it was written in 1988 as a celebration of the 50th anniversary of Superman's first appearance in comics. So I began with Daugherty's liner notes: "The symphony is a rigorously structured non-programmatic work, expressing the energies, ambiguities, paradoxes, and wit of American popular culture." To test this I put down the notes, plugged in to my iPod, and went for a 42-1/2 minute walk in the rain. My findings from the first listen? Energies? Check! Ambiguities, paradoxes? Check! Wit? Check!

Maybe, though, Daugherty saved some of the wit for the sentence I quoted above, for as mythic as this music is, it's still programmatic. The second movement, for example, is a representation of the trickster MXYZPTLK (the second in music history if you count Bruckner's 7th Symphony, which I don't). The imp's multi-dimensional nature is mirrored in the aural spaces Daugherty creates. That's a much more sophisticated programme than Carl Stalling's Looney Tunes scores (or Beethoven's Scene at the Brook), but it's a programme nevertheless.

A non-musical aside: Daugherty assumes that the Superman myth is particularly American, though all Canadians know that Superman was first drawn by Torontonian Joe Shuster. Clark Kent's first job was with the Metropolis Daily Star, whose name was taken from the Toronto Daily Star where Shuster worked, and the Metropolis skyline was modelled after that of Toronto. Perhaps Superman is American, but Clark Kent is Canadian. Obvious, eh?

The other work on the disc, Deus ex Machina, is shorter but more profound, and more in line with Fire & Blood, which I reviewed last month. Both works make reference to the visual arts: Fire & Blood to Diego Rivera & Frida Kahlo, and Deus ex Machina to the Italian Futurists. Daugherty's three train pictures in the form of a piano concerto are in the honourable tradition of Honegger and Villa-Lobos, and will probably bear more repetition than the Symphony. The Naxos disc shows off the splendid Nashville Symphony, who shone in their 2005 recording of the Villa-Lobos Bachianas Brasileiras (also for Naxos), music as rhythmically complex, if not always as boisterous, as this. The orchestral and solo playing (by pianist Terrence Wilson) is excellent. Conductor Giancarlo Guerrero seems to have everything in hand, and Naxos has engineered and packaged another winner here.

Driving along listening to NPR and this gorgeous music came forth. What is that? Have only heard it once sitting quietly and will do again post haste. No specifics just an enjoyable listen trying to imagine Superman jumping over tall buildings.

In spite of Michael Daugherty being the hot new thing in American music, I find his 'Metropolis', the work which first brought him to wider attention, to be gaudy and vulgar. There is no question that he is a master of orchestral effects, although I could do with less use of police whistles, sirens, whips and flexatones. The comic book ethos of 'Metropolis' is, for this over-seventy listener, barely tolerable. I am more than willing to accept that there may be those for whom this music is appealing in its wacky emptiness. But really what is there under its shiny surface? Not much that I can find -- and I've been trying for the past couple of days (days I'll never get back, alas) to discover any deeper meaning to the music without any success. I must be missing something.

'Deus ex Machina' is a piano concerto in the usual three movements which is, according to the composer, a response to the world of trains. Villa Lobos and Honegger did trains better, I fear. The work's sound world is not all that different from that of 'Metropolis' and I found it a great bore.

Guerrero and the Nashville Symphony outdo themselves and give these pieces exceptional performances.

Scott Morrison