John Corigliano: Tournaments Overture; Elegy; Piano Concerto; Gazebo Dances [Original recording remastered]

John Corigliano (Composer), Lawrence Leighton Smith (Conductor), Sidney Harth (Conductor), Louisville Orchestra (Orchestra), James Tocco (Performer) | Format: Audio CD

Product Details

• Performer: James Tocco
• Orchestra: Louisville Orchestra
• Conductor: Lawrence Leighton Smith, Sidney Harth
• Composer: John Corigliano
• Audio CD (March 11, 2003)
• SPARS Code: DDD
• Number of Discs: 1
• Format: Original recording remastered
• Label: First Edition
• ASIN: B00006C2PV
• In-Print Editions: MP3 Download
• Average Customer Review: 4.0 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (2 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #234,871 in Music (See Top 100 in Music)

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

4 of 4 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Engrossing, September 11, 2008

By 

David Saemann - See all my reviews
(VINE VOICE)    (TOP 1000 REVIEWER)    (REAL NAME)   

This review is from: John Corigliano: Tournaments Overture; Elegy; Piano Concerto; Gazebo Dances (Audio CD)

The works on this CD come from early in John Corigliano's career, but demonstrate that he already had found a convincing voice for his music. The Tournaments Overture, from 1965, is a busy, brilliantly orchestrated work that for some reason only received its premiere in Louisville in 1980, shortly before it was recorded. The Elegy, also from 1965, is dedicated to Samuel Barber, an homage on Corigliano's part that seems totally appropriate, given the solemn and lyrical flavor of the piece. Given the dominance of serial composition at that time, a dedication to Barber might have seemed quite unusual for a young composer. Both these works are conducted by Sidney Harth; the string sections are weak sounding, but still the works are effectively conveyed. The Piano Concerto, from 1968, was one of Corigliano's first hits, and is the only work here that is not a premiere recording. I remember a recording on Mercury by Hilde Somer. The work is completely engrossing, with 12 tone bits and tone clusters seemlessly integrated into the dramatic whole. James Tocco plays brilliantly, and the orchestra under the wonderful Lawrence Leighton Smith is superb. I used to hear Smith conduct the N.J. Symphony when he was its principal guest conductor, and his concerts were wholly memorable. He also conducts brilliantly the 1974 Gazebo Dances, a celebration of outdoor summer music making that has touches of Rossini, a waltz, and a tarantella. Corigliano demonstrates that when required he has the light touch that so many of our contemporary composers lack. The sound engineering throughout the CD is full and agreeable. The CD is a wonderful representation of one of our best composers.

5 of 7 people found the following review helpful:

3.0 out of 5 stars The Piano Concerto is the piece of substance here, January 9, 2008

By 

Discophage (France) - See all my reviews
(TOP 500 REVIEWER)   

This review is from: John Corigliano: Tournaments Overture; Elegy; Piano Concerto; Gazebo Dances (Audio CD)

The compositions gathered on this disc come from two sources: Tournaments Overture and Elegy (both written in 1965) were recorded in 1980 by the Louisville Orchestra conducted by Sidney Harth (who appeared in a number of Louisville recordings as violinist) and were first published on LP on the orchestra's famous label, Louisville First Edition Records, as LS 771 with Martinu's Oboe Concerto (the latter now available on a similar Louisville-Martinu collection, Bohuslav Martinu). The Piano Concerto from 1968 and Gazebo Dances from 1974, both conducted by Lawrence Leighton-Smith, were recorded in 1992 and 1993 and had their first release directly on CD, as LCD008, one of a small batch of ten which Louisville's First Editions Recordings published between 1989 and 1995 (listed on this site under two entries, Music of Corigliano and Corigliano: Gazebo Dances/ Voyage/ Summer Fanfare/ Prom Overture/ Piano Concerto). They were then coupled with the composer's "Voyage", "Summer Fanfare" and "Campane di Ravelle" (which I assume also got their first outing there, as I have found no trace of them among the Louisville LP catalog which I've collated).

Of these four works, the Piano Concerto (the only one not to be a premiere recording) is the most advanced in its language, the most demanding and ultimately the best. At 32+ minutes, it is also the longest work on this CD. On the opposite pole, the Gazebo Dances (after the open air band stands found in town squares across rural America) remind me of Otto Luening's Kentucky Concerto, featured on another Louisville CD from this short series, LCD006, which I reviewed recently (Joan Tower Island Rhythms, Otto Luening Kentucky Concerto, Sofia Gubaidulina Pro Et Contra - Louisville Orchestra): it is symphonic music for the barn, Appalachiana forty years too late - at least Luening's had the excuse of having been written in 1951. Tournaments Overture is a "brilliant orchestral showpiece", as they say, deftly constructed but stylistically veering between Stravinsky, Hindemith (the scurrying fifes at 1:34 are very typical), Broadway boisterousness and a lyrical quasi-Waltz also smacking of Broadway sentimentality. Elegy is a more introspective piece, rising to great desperate intensity, but, save the boisterousness, the same stylistic traits are present. Pleasant, but nothing original - granted, it would be unfair to demand of a young composer to be original in his first works, but even the models chosen by Corigliano to imitate were pretty backward looking by 1965. But that was probably implied already by his choice of composition teachers: Luening, Creston and Gianini - hardly cutting edge compositional personalities.

The Piano Concerto is something else: powerful, dissonant, busy, pounding, with a no-holds barred exuberance reminiscent of young George Antheil. There are also moments of lyrical repose in the first and third movements in which the more Romantic Corigliano resurfaces, at the risk of creating jarring juxtapositions. And let me make it clear that I have nothing against lyricism and Romanticism. I just object to repeating compositional gestures that were already clichéd and trite two generations before. Still the Concerto is a fine composition, worthy of almost any written in those years. The composer of Tournaments shows a remarkable stylistic development in the course of three years. How he could have - what word should I use? - reneged and relapsed into writing the Gazebo Dances 6 years later,will remain an enigma. Henry James once wrote something to the effect (I don't have the exact quote) that the creative process isn't about producing - it is about self-critical discarding. Obviously Corigliano didn't see it that way. The problem may also come from the very nature of the recording process, which gives a permanence to pieces conceived as Gebrauchsmusik, music for an occasion, that are better served when quickly heard, quickly forgotten.

TT 67:44, good sound, excellent notes.