‘Thomas L. Read was born in 1938 in Erie,
Pennsylvania. He studied violin, composition
and conducting at the Oberlin, has been a member of the Erie
Philharmonic, Baltimore Symphony, Boston Festival Arts and Handel/Haydn
Society Orchestras, Vermont Symphony, and the Saratoga Festival
of Baroque Music, and following his appointment as Assistant
Professor at the University of Vermont in 1967, his innovative
series of new music concerts and lectures (Symposium on Contemporary
Music, held annually from 1968 until 1991), in addition to his
activities as teacher, violinist, conductor and clinician, led
to his reappointment as Professor of Music in 1976; Professor
Emeritus, 2008. He continues to be active as a violin soloist
and conductor as well as a composer.’
‘Over
the past three decades he has created a body of music that
projects a consistent and distinctive personal style while
embracing a variety of New Music idioms and techniques. Critics,
while noting its lyrical qualities, have called his music
"substantive and meticulously planned, with a wide expressive
range leaving a feeling of rich satisfaction." His seemingly
free lyrical forms are the outcome of "compositional
strategies that engender multidimensional and fascinatingly
equivocal emotional states".’
I
quote the foregoing from Mr Read’s website for it seems to
me to be a better introduction to his music than anything
I could write. My reason for this is simple, and I have said
it before: everything on this disk has been done before and
we’ve heard it a thousand times, and from more proficient
hands. Far from Read “… embracing a variety of New Music idioms
and techniques …” the music presented here is monochromatic,
dour and deriving from a non-tonal base which has been overused
in the years following the Second World War. There is no variety
between the works, for instance, The Dancing Air could
quite easily fit into Piano Music: Volume II without
any sense of its being a separate composition.
In
a note in the inlay. Carson Cooman states, “From the light,
festive joy of Christmas Variations to the intense,
abstract trajectory of Piano Music: Volume II, Read’s
music seduces with its supreme attention to detail, its naturally
unfolding lyricism, and its deeply musical voice.” Cooman
is correct when he uses the word light for the Christmas
Variations for it would be impossible to be otherwise
in a composition for clarinet and cello but when compared
to Hindemith’s (9 duos) Musikalisches
Blumen – Gärtlein und Leyptziger Allerley there’s
no comparison, the German showing much more variety and expression
in his miniatures. As to the “naturally unfolding lyricism” of Piano Music: Volume II I am
at a loss to hear it for the seven pieces are so similar in
language, gesture and effect that there is no chance for any
real lyricism to emerge.
J
Rosen, in MLA Notes writes that "Read…has his own distinctive
voice". I cannot find it. Indeed, this music seems quite
faceless and without charm. I recently reviewed a CD by another
American whose name quite escapes me, and found his work to
be as dull as what we have here. It’s one thing to be able
to construct a piece of music – which is not the easiest thing
in the world – but it’s quite another to create something
of lasting worth. I fear that there are many people working
in academe in America - and I have heard much like this on
American radio stations - writing in exactly this same style,
and gaining performances and critical appraisal, yet without
being able to add that special something which makes a musical
composition totally satisfying.
The
performances are, I am sure, very good, but would that that
energy had been lavished on something more worthwhile: a disk
of Henry Brant’s music would be much more welcome.
Bob
Briggs
