Customer Reviews

Marion Bauer: American Youth Concerto

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Marion Bauer (1882-1955) was an obvious choice for exploration in Naxos's American Classics series, and I remain grateful for their enterprising attitude. Yet I fail to warm to Bauer's music and can give it only a guarded welcome. There are nice things here, to be sure, and Bauer's music does have a touch of individuality, but it also contains more than a touch of parochialism and the ideas are too often rather undistinguished. A Lament on an American theme that opens the disc (and is the oldest work here, dating from 1927) is a case in point. It recalls English pastoralism and Vaughan Williams, wistful, even plangent, with some interesting harmonic twists but little to remember it for.

The Concertino also espouses a romantic idiom, but with more modern touches when it comes to harmony (again, British composers such as Holst and Vaughan Williams, perhaps even Bliss, are brought to mind). It is generally lyrically discursive and rather well written for the instruments, but again with few things that stick in the mind. The Trio sonata, on the other hand, is spirited and enjoyable; again discursive, but this time in a post-impressionistic, very appealing, light and airy idiom; it is modest in scope, which belies its actual relative richness of content - possibly the main reason for acquiring the disc, and almost certainly not the work that people actually do acquire the disc for.

The symphonic suite opens with darkly distressed, chromatic but essentially romantic drama (again Vaughan Williams, or Hanson, seems a fair point of comparison), and is generally dark and oppressive. But also again, there is a shortage of memorable ideas and gestures. The Duo for oboe and clarinet is more impressive - leading me, based on the assessment of the Trio sonata as well, that Bauer was a better composer for chamber forces than orchestra, even if there is nothing wrong with here orchestrations per se. Here, as in the trio sonata, she utilizes the restricted range of the medium to the fullest, with fine, inventive solos and ingenious teamworks and interactions.

The American Youth, however, is clearly the least inspired and interesting work on the disc, even if it is her most popular and famous; empty and overblown and never going anywhere, with themes that are either undistinguished or banal and orchestral textures that are nothing but wearisome. Here as elsewhere the performances, however, are fine, although the orchestra sounds a little reticent at times; maybe that is part of the reason why I found the chamber works so much more attractive - these are really splendidly played, with spirit, verve and virtuosity. In any case, this is overall a modestly interesting and rewarding disc, but far from a great find, I think. It can still be recommended to the adventuresome, but then mostly because of the very fine trio sonata and duo.