Customer Reviews

Wuorinen: Piano Concerto No. 3 / The Golden Dance

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In the course of Wuorinen's four-year residency with the San Francisco Symphony, he wrote the Golden Dance (another piece which came out of his collaboration with Herbert Blomstedt is the monumental Genesis). The Third Concerto he wrote for Garrick Ohlsson to play for a consortium of five orchestras: in Albany, Hartford, New Haven, Springfield (MA) and the Hudson Valley Philharmonic. (Wuorinen's piece is apparently one of six works which this consortium together commissioned, the idea being to share the cost of the commissions, and each orchestra would have six new works to present.)

The first thing, it seems to me, to keep in mind about Wuorinen is, that he himself is an accomplished pianist (he wrote his first two piano concerti, to play himself). The rigors of his musical language are not baked in some insular laboratory; he is above all a practical, practicing musician.

The second thing is, of all the composers who make use of the twelve-tone system, Wuorinen impresses me as the one who makes the most strikingly musical application of the sound-world.

He writes: "I don't always pay much attention to the set once it's there. Working out its various forms is mostly just a habitual ritual for me now. It doesn't determine every detail; still, it is everywhere in the piece."

The Third Concerto is not an easy piece to play; but Ohlsson makes it, we cannot say "easy," but fluid and musical. The first movement is an unrelenting romp, a "post-Prokofievan" toccata which begins as a rumble in the piano and percussion, gradually folding in other sections of the orchestra. When at last the strings are brought in, the pace slows down, and the long-breathed, sinuously evocative second movement begins. Stravinskyan good-humor opens a finale characterized by further virtuosic agility. This piece is so well-crafted, so clearly defined, and so assured in design, as to be really the first serious contribution to the piano-concerto literature by a US composer. It is a historical piece; and what is more, it is robustly musical -- which makes it all the more historical, for a work freom our era.

Perhaps the finest achievement of Blomstedt's tenure as music director of the San Franciscans -- is this super CD. Kudos to Nonesuch for this one!

This is not the music to which I normally gravitate. However, it is well worth the effort necessary to listen to and appreciate the two compositions on this CD. The investment in time and effort will be rewarded.