Rainbow Body / Blue Cathedral / Symphony 1 / Appalachian Spring Suite

Christopher Theofanidis (Composer), Samuel Barber (Composer), Aaron Copland (Composer), Jennifer Higdon (Composer), Robert Spano (Conductor), Atlanta Symphony Orchestra (Orchestra) | Format: Audio CD

Product Details

• Orchestra: Atlanta Symphony Orchestra
• Conductor: Robert Spano
• Composer: Christopher Theofanidis, Samuel Barber, Aaron Copland, Jennifer Higdon
• Audio CD (May 27, 2003)
• SPARS Code: DDD
• Number of Discs: 1
• Label: Telarc
• ASIN: B000096FU3
• Average Customer Review: 4.1 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (15 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #66,087 in Music (See Top 100 in Music)
  • #72 in Music > World Music > North America > Appalachian

Track Listings

1. Rainbow Body

2. Symphony No.1, Op.9

3. Suite From Appalachian Spring

4. Blue Cathedral

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

55 of 57 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars An Utterly Winning Disc!, November 4, 2003

By 

J Scott Morrison (Middlebury VT, USA) - See all my reviews
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Amazon Verified Purchase

This review is from: Rainbow Body / Blue Cathedral / Symphony 1 / Appalachian Spring Suite (Audio CD)

This disc is both oddly and creatively programmed. Oddly, because for a CD buyer it combines two very familiar American orchestral works, many-times recorded--Barber's First Symphony and Copland's Appalachian Spring Suite--with two brand new pieces. One wonders who would buy it; most of us probably already have the older pieces, and would ask ourselves whether we should buy a new CD with only about 25 minutes of unfamiliar music on it. [My own personal answer would be 'Yes!'] Creatively, because the two new pieces--Chris Theofanidis's 'Rainbow Body' and Jennifer Higdon's 'blue cathedral' (don't ask me why no caps in the title)--are quite similar to their older discmates and the programming calls attention to that. How similar? Well, they are utterly tonal, as are the Barber and the Copland, have an unmistakably American sound, and are original in their impact, as were the older pieces when they were new.

The two new pieces are also alike in that they are among the better products of the so-called New Romanticism and, further, partake of another rather more European trend, the New Mysticism, like that of pieces by Tavener or Pärt, or closer to home, the ecstatic mysticism of American Richard Einhorn, whose 'Voices of Light' (happily introduced to me by fellow Amazon reviewer Bob Zeidler) has become such a phenomenon.

The two standard works on this disc--the Barber and the Copland--are given sterling performances here by Robert Spano, that extraordinarily talented American conductor, and his fine Atlanta Symphony, and the sound is also sterling, something we have come to expect from Telarc. These performances rank with the best ever made. Certainly, if you don't have recordings of either of these pieces you will not go wrong obtaining this CD.

Chris Theofanidis is a young American (born 1967) whose music is getting around quite a bit these days. He has had the usual run of honors, stipends, fellowships (including Charles Ives, Guggenheim, and Fulbright fellowships, as well as the Rome Prize). This is, however, the only piece of his I've ever heard. I was immediately quite attracted to it and my fascination has remained with many hearings. One could characterize this piece as one that uses extremely slow harmonic motion--typical of the music of folks like Tavener and Pärt--with an ever-changing panoply of musical events above the slow-moving mostly string-tone harmonic cushion (and in this eventfulness alone it differs considerably from the mentioned European composers). His use of brass, wind and percussion color is striking. The piece is based on a chant by Hildegarde of Bingen, 'Ave Maria, O auctrix vitae,' which recurs in various forms throughout the 13-minute piece. There are several climaxes arrived at primarily by the resolution of long-held harmonic suspensions--think of the resolution to a glorious C-major chord of the so-familiar section of Strauss's 'Also sprach Zarathustra.' This is assisted by a technique in which a chord is held onto softly for a moment after the rest of the orchestra has moved on to the next chord, a sort of harmonic nimbus. The tension generated by each suspension does not become at all intolerable, and each resolution is as refreshing as a summer shower. Theofanidis has a real talent for forward motion leading to emotional satisfaction, a talent not present in many modern composers. I truly believe this piece could have a vigorous life on orchestral programs fully the equal of, say, Adams's 'Short Ride in a Fast Machine' or Torke's 'Javelin.'

Jennifer Higdon's 12-minute 'blue cathedral,' written on commission for the 75th anniversary celebration of the Curtis Institute, has a very personal meaning for her. Her brother, Andrew Blue, a clarinetist, had recently died. In the course of the piece a flute (Ms Higdon's instrument) discourses with a clarinet and eventually, as in life, the flute becomes silent while the clarinet continues upward, as if to heaven. Again, one of the most striking things about the piece is the slow harmonic motion set against which there is plentiful upper instrument melisma. Complex added-note chords abound, leading to an occasional uncertainty about tonality, although this is never unsettling; rather, it adds some spice to the otherwise fairly tonal landscape. The overall tone is a gentle and melancholy ecstasy peppered with almost frantic brass or wind outbursts. Throbbing chords sometimes suggest subdued weeping. Again, I can easily imagine this piece becoming a regular visitor to American orchestral programs. One hopes that this splendid CD will spur that development for both 'blue cathedral' and 'Rainbow Body.'

One last thought: the two new pieces are the musical great-grandchildren of Ives's 'The Unanswered Question' [harmonic stasis punctuated by upper-instrument frenzy] by way of, yes, the utter American-ness of Copland's and Barber's two pieces included here.

Strongest recommendation.

TT=69:06

Scott Morrison

26 of 28 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Another winner from Spano, Atlanta, & Telarc!, May 29, 2003

By A Customer

This review is from: Rainbow Body / Blue Cathedral / Symphony 1 / Appalachian Spring Suite (Audio CD)

Conductor Robert Spano, his Atlanta Symphony Orchestra, and Telarc brought home, not one, not two, but 3 Grammys with their previous release, Vaughan Williams' A Sea Symphony: Best Classical Album, Best Engineered Album, and Best Choral Performance (of course the Atlanta Symphony Chorus had a prominent role in that case). And it deserves every bit of the wild, unanimous acclaim it's received (just take a look at the customer reviews of that recording here on Amazon!)

This new release is certainly a worthy successor... let's hope there are many more to come from this masterful team. I just can't stop listening to it. The choice of repertoire is brilliant in its novelty and variety, yet coherence and pacing. The Theofanidis title track is, for severe lack of vocabulary, drop-dead dazzling. It moves compellingly from ravishing, breathtaking beauty to spine-tingling, hair-raising power. It's especially enjoyable to listen to in conjunction with Hildegard's "Ave Maria, O Auctrix Vite" (as on Sequentia's Canticles of Ecstasy), the chant which inspired and permeates the piece.

Jennifer Higdon's blue cathedral is every bit as irresistibly gorgeous and effective. You really MUST hear these pieces, especially performed at this superb level of musicality and recorded in Jack Renner's customarily peerless sound.

In case the new stuff isn't enough to persuade you to purchase, you should know that the accounts of Barber's First Symphony and Copland's Appalachian Spring Suite are unsurpassed in the recorded catalog. There... intrigued?

13 of 14 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Classic and Cutting-Edge American Music Done Full Justice, November 11, 2003

By A Customer

This review is from: Rainbow Body / Blue Cathedral / Symphony 1 / Appalachian Spring Suite (Audio CD)

This is an exciting program that juxtaposes fresh-minted, and very fresh-sounding, American works with American classics, in the case of Copland, almost an American warhorse. However, in Spano's beautiful and sensitive reading this warhorse sounds about as fresh as the new music here. I'm talking about "Appalachian Spring," just about everyone's favorite Copland but a work that is so ubiquitous, thanks to the setting of "A Gift to Be Simple" it contains, we often forget just how marvelous a work it is. Unless someone comes along with the gift to play it with the kind of intensity and sense of discovery usually reserved for new music. I think that characterizes Spano's approach, and this is one of the very best recordings this oft-recorded work has received.

On the other hand, Barber's First Symphony has been well served on disc; there have been fine recordings from the likes of Leonard Slatkin, David Zinman, and Marin Alsop. If Spano and Atlanta have nothing especially new to add, theirs is a handsome performance full of the tragic drama that has commended this work to listeners since it was written.

But many will come to this disc for the new music primarily. Be assured it doesn't sound out of place in such august company. Christopher Theofanidis's "Rainbow Body" takes as its point of departure a piece by the medieval mystic and composer Hildegard von Bingen. The melody is fragmented, then put back together in music that builds to an intense pitch. "Rainbow Body" sometimes sounds like Hovhaness, but that is mostly a matter of a similar reliance on a modal melody and strangely similar orchestral garb in which the melody is clothed at each of its appearances. Otherwise, this muscular and direct music is unlike the usual, well, noodling that Hovhaness is too often guilty of.

Similarly, "Blue Cathedral," written as a tribute to the deceased younger brother of composer Jennifer Higdon, is a work with a "high concept." Higdon tried to suggest what it would be like to enter a transparent cathedral among the clouds, and she conveys the imagined feeling of awe and celebration in a work that doubles as a marvelous mini-concerto for orchestra. Flute and clarinet have prominent solos; the extramusical reference is to the instruments that she and her brother play or played. If Theofanidis's music has an American sensibility about it--recalling not only Hovhaness but perhaps more "athletic" composers such as William Schuman and Peter Mennin (and inescapably, I guess, minimalists or minimalist fellow-travelers such as John Adams and especially Michael Torke)--Higdon's work is less immediately American sounding, more cosmopolitan. Maybe there is some small influence of the tintinabular style of Arvo Part and others, but again fortunately, for me at least, "Blue Cathedral" has much more momentum than Part usually has. Perhaps that is the American element in the work, a quiet impatience to just get on with things that dogs even this largely contemplative, ecstatic music.

Anyway, both compositions are fine additions to the orchestral repertory. And both seem to have the perfect advocates in Spano and in his orchestra. Having lived with the Atlanta Symphony for the last seventeen years, I am happy to have heard it grow into a body that can be trusted to do full justice to important music like that on this CD. Telarc's sound is superb, even by its usually excellent Atlanta standards. How wonderful to hear every element of the music emerge with utter fidelity and clarity, yet in a fully natural ambience.