This First Edition
reissue, logically garners three substantial
Persichetti scores recorded between
1954 and 1970. Two are in mono. The
Eighth Symphony is in stereo.
The succinct little
Serenade No. 5 is part of a sequence
of six serenades for various media.
The first was written when Persichetti
was fourteen and the last, for trombone,
viola and cello, in 1950. There are
six separately banded movements. None
is longer than 2:19 and most are circa
1:47. Little they may be but their emotions
are not out of the toy-box. The stomping
thunder of the Prelude gives
way to the storm-clouds of Poem -
an overwrought episode lacking true
peace. Interlude in its guileless
tunefulness recalls that innocent dance
tune in the finale to Piston's Second
Symphony. This is a cassation with some
carefree moments but with much that
probes deeper and touches off emotional
wellsprings. The idiom veers around
softer focus Pulcinella-era Stravinsky,
Piston, Britten, Kodaly and Nielsen.
The Symphony
for Strings is Persichetti's
No. 5. It is in a single movement with
five tempo-mood differentiated sections
each separately tracked. The music in
the two allegros is athletic, big and
supercharged. In the first allegro the
Louisville strings show themselves a
desperately impressive group demonstrating
that this work is well up there with
another tensile American Fifth for strings:
Schuman's Fifth. There is a bleak sostenuto,
a discordant adagio suggestive
of a Midwest prairie landscape hung
with threatening cumulo-nimbus and a
sinuous andante of dissonant
expression. Impressive stuff undeserving
of its neglect.
Both the Serenade and
the Symphony for Strings are world premiere
recordings and Louisville commissions.
The cool and contained
Eighth Symphony is the result
of a commission from the Baldwin-Wallace
Conservatory in Ohio. The first movement
is a mosaic of wisps of melody; it speaks
of the open air but it's the open air
of a city. The andante sostenuto
has a spiritual gait blended with
the finest instrumental colours occasionally
viewed through a serial 'glass'. In
common with those of many successful
American symphonies the finale is brisk
and seething with life. Its jazzy propulsion
works rather well but this is a symphony
for urbanites not a symphony of Thoreau's
wilderness. Stereo separation achieved
by Howard Scott and his team is exemplary.
It plays to the bejewelled strengths
of this work which celebrates a craftsman's
inspired attention to detail.
The veteran Robert
Whitney conducted the other two works
but this 1970 session was directed by
Jorge Mester. As he had already demonstrated
in his Louisville versions of Surinach's
Feria overture and the Sinfonietta
Flamenca, Whitney drove his orchestra
like a fury. Mester's hand was less
volatile; less hectically driven.
Strange how the Columbia
Auditorium in which the other two Persichetti
works were recorded delivered a more
lively yet distanced sound. The Macauley
Theatre in Louisville produced a slightly
dry image but with lots of detailed
analytical life.
An essential centrepiece
to a Persichetti collection. Time for
the rest of the symphonies and the complete
piano music.
Rob Barnett
Louisville Orchestra/Robert Whitney, Jorge Mester
