Sequenza21/The Contemporary Classical Music Weekly

Tuesday, February 08, 2005

John Frandsen, Orchestral Works

Dacapo

Writing something for orchestra these days is a tricky thing to do. Listeners of any stripe carry an immense bag of associations for anything using a string section, particularly if it includes a singable line and a few triads. If it doesn’t sound like a Mahler symphony, it sounds like something by Stravinsky, or maybe Prokofiev, or perhaps a Wagner overture. It might even sound like John Williams. Avoiding sounding derivative is quite a feat. John Frandsen, despite his penchant for melody, has managed to pull it off. It doesn’t happen immediately on Orchestral Works, his latest CD, but it does, quite beautifully, happen.

The CD opens with the three movements of the Danish composer’s first and only symphony thus far, entitled “The Dance of the Demons” and written between 1986 and 1988. Frandsen’s technical facility is readily apparent in these pieces. Some nice part writing and skillful timbral blending, particularly with percussion, produce some wonderful gestures, but Frandsen falls into the orchestral pit-trap. The symphony’s gestures evoke other composers, Mahler and Stravinsky primarily, rather than coalescing. The listener is left feeling directionless, and the music is left sounding anti-climactic.

Fortunately, Frandsen remedies the stylistic vertigo in “At the Yellow Emperor’s Time,” an aria from his 2003 opera I-K-O-N. The voice of soprano Djina Mai-Mai gives the composer a chance to flex his melodic muscle with extremely satisfying results. A nicely unsettled texture emerges in the orchestra before the soprano is allowed to enter with a melody that’s repetitive, but builds nicely. Mai-Mai delivers the memorable melody nicely, maintaining a direct, focused vibrato. The arch of the line drives the piece and allows the orchestra freedom to wander around Mai-Mai’s voice.

The next work of the CD, the “Amalie Suite,” dates from just before the symphony. It comes from Frandsen’s first opera, which he wrote in 1985. Despite its chronological proximity to the symphony, this piece avoids the faults of Frandsen’s symphony. Perhaps because of the piece’s smaller ensemble (decet with percussion) or shorter length, here Frandsen’s skills with texture do manage to unify the piece. The suite proves quite suspenseful. Brief suggestions of resolution that are quickly pulled back into the disquiet heighten the effect.

The CD’s real triumph, though, comes with the final piece, Frandsen’s “Hymn to the Ice Queen,” a concerto for cello and orchestra from 1998. From the opening orchestral phrases, it’s clear that for this piece Frandsen has chosen to invoke the Romantic tradition (predominantly the late Romantic). As the work begins, the strings suggest a fragile tranquility, and the entrances of other instruments confirm the feeling. A slow crescendo brings the mood to a head, and signals the entrance of the cellist, Svend Winsløv. The interaction between the cello and the orchestra throughout the piece is striking, and Frandsen makes full use of the cello’s range and timbre. As in “At the Yellow Emperor’s Time,” the use of a dominant voice unleashes Frandsen’s melodicism. The melodic lines for both the solo cello and the orchestra are often rich and chocolaty, though Frandsen provides plenty of contrast to avoid sugariness that often accompanies references to the Romantic.

Overall, Orchestral Works displays Frandsen’s compositional and orchestrational skills clearly. His gift for melody and his effective use of the instruments of the orchestra are obvious. What's more, the strength of the most recent works suggests that Frandsen is already, despite the obstacles, well on the road to developing a unique and identifiable orchestral style using his talents. For this reason alone, Orchestral Works is well worth a listen.

posted by Lanier Sammons 1:06 AM