Sequenza21/The Contemporary Classical Music Weekly

Dispatch from BAM

The Brooklyn Phil put on a great show last night featuring music by Daniel Roumain, Leonard Bernstein, and Thea Musgrave. Under guest-conductor Chelsea Tipton, II, the orchestra's playing was rich and impassioned and definitely worth crossing the East River to hear.

The program opened with Roumain's "Hip Hop Essay." A twenty-minute flip-flopping from one drum-set driven ostinato to another, the whole thing feels pretty disorganized. With greater attention to harmony, Roumain could establish much more momentum than he does: as it is, the piece is all bark and no bite. A squawky little clarinet solo, though, makes for a surprising and well-timed ending, and, if a work ends effectively, I say it can't be all bad.

Bernstein's Symphony No. 1 "Jeremiah" followed. The passion and lyricism were refreshing after the Roumain, as was the much broader gestural and harmonic pallet. I'm not satisfied by the work's two-movement structure -- the first movement being for orchestra alone, the second featuring a mezzo-soprano (Pamela Dillard in this performance) singing excerpts from Lamentations -- and the grand, mid-century American idiom sounds a bit dusty these days. But if you're going to play a piece like this, you better go for every gush and swell, and the Brooklyn Phil did exactly that.

By far the evening's most accomplished music was provided by Thea Musgrave, who arranged some excepts from her 1985 opera "Harriet Tubman: A Woman Called Moses" for concert performance. Entitled "Remembering Harriet," the work is scored for orchestra, chorus, soloists, and narrator. The result is an exhilarating and searing forty-five minutes of brilliant orchestral writing, searing vocal lines, and unrestrained, unaffected passion. If anything, the music could use one or two more moments to cool off. But, after a fabulous and gutsy performance like the one delivered last night (special mention must be made of Cynthia Haymon's glorious soprano voice), one doesn't feel in any mood to complain. If the opera is anything as good as these excerpts suggest, I haven't a clue why opera companies don't jump on Musgrave's work. Her idiom is accessible without being mawkish and her command of dramatic flow seems complete.

P.S. Opted for Junior's cheesecake instead of the post-concert discussion with Musgrave. Can I ever be taken seriously again?

posted by David Salvage 5/14/2006