Marcel Farago has an
interesting biography. He was born in
Rumania and, according to the booklet,
into a family of musicians. After the
war he studied in Hungary but left in
1948. As a professional orchestral cellist
he moved to South Africa to play in
the Cape Town Municipal Orchestra and
two years later to Brazil. He now lives
in America and has been a cellist in
the Philadelphia Orchestra. Throughout
all that time he has steadily composed
and, what is quite remarkable, he has
not held back on major and large-scale
compositions.
This disc was recorded
nine years ago and has only just been
submitted for review. The detailed notes
by Bernard Jacobson written in 1997
tell us, this kind of dual career is
in the tradition of Dvořák who
could, anyway, retire from the orchestra
at the age of thirty. I would
also add Nikos Skalkottas who as it
turned out never retired to compose
full-time. This experience obviously
gives any composer an inside knowledge
of orchestration and opportunities to
try out pieces even if they never materialize
on CD.
The first thing one
notices about this music is how brilliant
the orchestration can be, when the composer
lets his hair down. After that I am
struggling to be positive about much
of the music. I suspect that my favourite
work is the seven movement Divertimento.
Formally I wonder why we have as many
as seven movements. The first is an
Allegro of just about two and
a quarter minutes which comes out not
much different from the ensuing Allegretto
both with similar material and speed
(crotchet=152 and then 132) which lasts
just over one minute. The work revolves
around a deeply-felt Adagio which
is by far the longest movement. I felt
at the end that five of the movements
would have made more formal sense.
Terpsichore,
bearing in mind the composer’s biography
is an attempt, conscious or unconscious
I’m not sure, to combine eastern European
dance rhythms with a kind of Copland
Americana - open spaces, big orchestration.
The piece is a noble failure, not dislikeable
but just not very successful. Something
slightly akin to Bartók is felt
almost from the start, perhaps the Out
of Doors suite for piano or the
Dance Suite for orchestra, even
down to some of the figurations and
solo gypsy violin. By the time we reach
about 5:15 we are in the world of Appalachian
Spring or perhaps of the 2nd
Symphony of Charles Ives.
Acousticon which
opens the CD is, according to the notes
"not concerned with rhythm but
in sound effects". They go on to
say that the colours of "instrumental
families rather than individuals"
are stressed. I quite like this piece
but for the opposite reason: that I
find it rhythmically exciting! At about
3:30 I love the harp and sustained chords
against delicate woodwind solos!
Finally we come to
the Freedom Symphony. I am always
wary of speakers and speaking choruses
especially when backed up by an orchestra
that seems to do little more than add
a background atmosphere with no symphonic
development. It seems to me, that this,
how can I put it, frightful text - which
probably, quite wisely, Centaur do not
reproduce - based on a speech by Vaclav
Havel given soon after the collapse
of the Warsaw Pact should have been
left to moulder away in a long forgotten
manifesto cupboard. I’ll give you a
brief taste: "We have become morally
ill, ’cause we are used to saying one
thing and thinking another". The
chorus then repeat the last line, like
a group of extra-terrestrials, something
they are quite often asked to do. This
text is divided up by moments of sound
from chromatic timpani and tolling bells
as if to emphasise man’s doom.
The pace drags along
for over eighteen minutes in all with
lines from solo instruments, string
tremolandi. and long gaps before we
are treated to lines like "all
of us have grown used to the totalitarian
system" (gap) and accepted it as
a fact (gap) and therefore keep it going".
There are two more
movements and the pace quickens. The
speaking is finally silenced and just
as you think that the last movement
may be redeeming the work by a faster
pace, possibly inspired by another Rumanian
dance rhythm, it suddenly stutters to
another silence after a series of disjointed
melodies accompanied by triangle and
tambourine and after just four and a
half minutes ends with the chorus shouting.
‘FREEDOM’. I know exactly how they felt.
I had been really looking
forward to hearing and reviewing this
CD by a composer who seemed to promise
so much on paper but I’m afraid, as
you have gathered, I cannot recommend
it. It is unlikely that I will ever
listen to it again.
Gary Higginson
Gershon C. Perry (narrator) 
for
details
