John Williams
Music for Cello
* Concerto for Cello and Orchestra
* Elegy for Cello and Orchestra
* Three Pieces for Solo Cello
* Heartwood
Yo-Yo Ma (cello); Recording Arts Orchestra of Los Angeles/John Williams.
Sony SK 89670 {DDD} TT: 66:45
Summary for the Busy Executive: Much more than you might expect.
I first heard of John Williams as jazz arranger Johnny Williams for
the likes of Mel Torme. Later, he substantially reworked the music
for the movie version of Fiddler on the Roof, a Broadway show I sneer
at. Williams, however, managed to turn the bland into the brilliant by
revealing hitherto unsuspected musical links to Prokofiev. I've been
interested in his activities ever since. We all know his spectacular
movie career, which he's been beaten up for. I grant that some of his
film scores are worse than others, but to my mind he has at least a dozen
classics, including Dracula, 1941, A. I., The Fury, Close Encounters of
the Third Kind, Family Plot, The Long Goodbye, and The Reivers. The movies
may not have all rung the bell, but at least they had marvelous music.
His career outside of films has been a bit schizophrenic, careening
from cotton-candy to thistles and thorns. He obviously made all the
money he needs a long time ago, and I think it does him credit that he
continues to compose for concert venues. I don't grudge him the money.
At this point, however, he's a composer split. He wants to communicate
with a wide audience, but he also wants to stretch himself. The first
tendency sometimes results in blush-making junk (e.g., "Summon the Heroes"
for the L. A. Olympics), the second in crabb'd and cramp'd music that
assembles various technical gadgets which add up to nothing other than
their presentation (e.g., the trumpet concerto). Nevertheless, when
these two traits come together, the results are at least interesting.
I don't hesitate to call the cello concerto one of the best for the
instrument. It may even become a classic on the order of the Dvorak
or the Elgar. Who knows? Williams shows a mastery in his writing, not
merely in his orchestration, which you'd expect to be wonderful or at
least effective. He lays it out in four movements, played without pause.
Each movement exhibits unusual structural features. The opening, "Theme
and Cadenza," combines a muscular allegro with a thoughtful cadenza, each
part taking roughly half of the section's nine minutes. The cadenza itself
shows Williams's willingness to take risks -- a solo cello holding the
musical interest for a longer-than-normal time. The second movement,
"Blues," conjures up a smoke-filled club near closing, without resorting to
jazz evocations at all. Williams suggests Ellington and Strayhorn, which
comes through in the reed voicings, but the movement consists mainly of
isolated chords held together by the cello line. It serves as a transition
to a driving, sinister scherzo, the showpiece movement of the concerto,
both for the orchestra and for the soloist. Williams ends, courageously,
with a slow movement, "Song." His idea was to create long lyrical lines
for the cello, and he does this without conventional song. I'd call the
movement a recitative rather than an aria, but it's the deepest part of
the concerto. Its eleven minutes (the longest stretch of the work) never
bog down, for some reason probably not readily apparent to "eye-analysis."
It deals in shapes and intervals, rather than in themes. Williams wrote it
with Ma in mind and cites in particular Ma's "ability to connect personally
and even privately" to each member of the audience. Ma does not
disappoint. This is both a passionate and a coherent reading of a
complicated work.
The Elegy works on a less ambitious scale. In idiom, it reminds me
of the late-Romantic idiom Williams developed for the Dracula score.
Nevertheless, it sings beautifully and avoids the easy and the obvious.
To me, the music sounds genuinely heartfelt. Again, Ma plays soulfully
and sans schmaltz.
American slavery inspired the Three Pieces for solo cello. For me,
it's a mixed bag. The first movement starts off with an evocation of
a work-gang song, punctuated by either the slaver's whip or the fall of
a twelve-pound hammer. It begins and ends well but wanders aimlessly in
the middle. The second movement, "Pickin'," stands as the most coherent.
Williams means to depict a banjo or guitar; perversely, I hear a fiddle.
Indeed, I hear mainly not Black or Delta music, but Appalachian music in
all three pieces. I don't mark Williams down for this. Indeed, I give him
credit for coming up with something that refers so widely. The finale,
"The Long Road Home," inspired by a Rita Dove poem, starts beautifully as
a lullaby or even as a lament. It falters a bit here and there. That is,
occasionally it goes on for no good reason other than to mark time, but
this may arise from momentary lapses in the performance. For the most
part, it conveys a feeling of nobility and quietude.
Heartwood has a "spiritual" program -- it was inspired by an art book
of photographs of live oaks -- which I simply don't connect with. Any
interest the piece has for me is purely musical. It's fifteen minutes
of slow, a substantial risk. Something inspired by in essence a
coffee-table book might lead you to expect coffee-table music --
exquisitely made and dead from terminal good taste. Williams, despite
a long, ruminative introduction (a dreamier version of the opening to
Honegger's second symphony) and the pictorial inspiration, nevertheless
understands that the music has to go somewhere and move with a purpose.
The piece seems to be written in a grand arc, with the climax splendidly
waxing and waning over a long span.
Ma's at his best in the concerto and in the Elegy. The performances of
the other pieces seem less focused. Williams does his usual thoroughly
professional, though not particularly inspired job conducting. I'd like to
hear someone like Thomas take the concerto on. The recording is a bit too
spectacular for my taste. I've never heard a live orchestra, not even the
Berlin Philharmonic, sound this good.
Steve Schwartz
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