Catching a musical wave

American Rapture: Higdon Harp Concerto; Barber Symphony no. 1; Harlin Rapture

The literature for Harp and Orchestra is amazing, and amazingly under-valued. One work which I admire most highly is Alberto Ginastera's Harp Concerto, written in 1956 and revised in 1968. Our harpist in this new CD American Rapture, Yolanda Kondonassis, recorded a very fine version of this work, released in 2016 for the Ginastera Centennial. Another is Heitor Villa-Lobos's Harp Concerto, written in 1953 for Nicanor Zabaleta. This is not as good a work by any means, but it's completely typical of Villa's late period when the bulk of his composing time was taken by commissions. Jennifer Higdon's Harp Concerto was written for and dedicated to Yolanda Kondonassis; it was commissioned by a consortium of orchestras - the Rochester Philharmonic Orchestra, Harrisburg Symphony Orchestra, Baton Rouge Symphony Orchestra, Fargo-Moorhead Symphony Orchestra, Lansing Symphony Orchestra and the Oklahoma City Philharmonic Orchestra. It receives its first recording here. It's full of vitality, ingenuity and sentiment, and shows off the many sounds this remarkable instrument is capable of. When Kondonassis described what she wanted from the composer she said "... it should have a groove that allows the harpist to catch a musical wave with the orchestra once in a while." That's one of the great thing about the concerto form; I've been very much aware of trying to describe those moments while listening lately to Mozart Piano Concertos for a review. Higdon jams so much into this twenty minute work, but there's a coherent structure to the piece that becomes evident after a few listens. The final movement, Rap Knock, is a stand-out; the witty, percussion-based music looks to Leonard Bernstein as much as the more avant garde sounds Ginastera included in his Concerto. The Rochester Philharmonic, under the direction of Ward Stare, provide able support in a work that occasionally calls for virtuoso playing, especially from the percussion section.

So check out Harp Concertos; I know you'll thank me. I'll link to some recordings of other composers' works below, but begin with the Higdon, please!

After the Ginastera, I'd place the Harp Concerto by Reinhold Glière. There's a fine disc played by Anneleen Lenaerts that also includes the Concertos of Joseph Jongen and Joaquín Rodrigo. The fine Harp Concertino by Germaine Tailleferre is played by the great Nicanor Zabaleta, along with Boieldieu's Concerto. People don't value the music of Canadian composer R. Murray Schafer highly enough, and his Harp Concerto deserves to be much better known. Perhaps Yolanda Kondonassis could champion it next!

Alberto Ginastera wondered about what tied together music from the American continents, from Alaska to Tierra del Fuego; this remained for him, and of course remains for us, an open question. American Rapture is about a subset of that really big thing, which he termed estadounidense. This disc is generously filled with works that explore this particular geographical and cultural space, from Samuel Barber's folk-infused First Symphony, written in 1936, to the intensity of Patrick Harlin's Rapture, which like most of this fine young composer's work has a special link to the soundscapes of the natural world. With three such interesting works the question of their American-ness becomes less important. At the very least there are two things these three works have in common: the magical richness of musical imagination and very fine performances.