Customer Reviews

Hoiby: Piano Concerto No. 2; Violin Sonata; Narrative; Schubert Variations

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Lee Hoiby is a member of that generation of American composers who came of age in the 40s and 50s and whose melodic and well-crafted music was shouldered aside by the ultimately self-destructive academic music that followed. These pieces are all delightful. The piano concerto is played magnificently by Stanley Babin. Hoiby himself, no slight pianist, plays the other selections (and accompanies the violin sonata). This is amusing, charming, solid music that needs to be heard. Don't hesitate.

While Modernists were gutting some of the basics of musical discourse, Lee Hoiby stayed true to the muse of Rachmaninoff and other conservatives lambasted by Adorno festishists.

The Piano Concerto and "Narrative" honor 19th-century ideals without sounding like pastiche. For those of you who think good music stopped being written after 1910, listen to Hoiby, the "other" Samuel Barber.

This sonata should be a staple of every aspiring and accomplished violinist's repertoire. It is at once challenging and lyrical, beautiful and exciting. It is a supreme, or one of the supreme, works of art for the violin. This performance is vibrant and right on, showcasing Hoiby's immense compositional talent in writing both technically and musically for the violin, and matching it equally with the piano.

And by the way, his Piano Concerto #2, also on this CD, is a work of pure genius. (And played as such.) It is joyful, passionate, and delicate, and should be heard regularly in major concert venues. Surely any pianist worthy of the keyboard would love to play this very serious, yet beautiful, concerto.

It is time that Lee Hoiby is recognized for the American musical genius that he is. He should be ranked among the very best composers of any generation in America. Boo hiss to any of the political musical powers that be who have or would preclude Mr. Hoiby from taking his well deserved and long overdue place in the American canon of composers.