Bert Bailey <[log in to unmask]> wrote:

>I'm glad that the parade of new composers keeps on coming ... here are
>some of my musical 'discoveries' of 2002:

Hats off to Bert!  I will take a hear at the works he's recommended
unfamiliar to me!

Discoveries are what have kept me going now into my 8th year of detailed
tracking and rating of new pieces.  2002 was somewhat of a thin year for
me, but I would like to share a few winners and one loser:

1. Geirr Tveitt's "Prillar" (BIS) and Suite #2 of Hardanger tunes.  It's
not for nothing that his Suites on Naxos made the top 10 classical list in
Britain!  A revelation for me in melody and orchestration.

2. While Tveitt was the only "home run" discovery for me, I did greatly
enjoy Hugh Wood's Symphony on NMC.  A bit dissonant, but powerful.

3. Heinz Tiessen's Symphony #2 and Hamlet on Koch was interesting from its
semi-cameleon stylistic affinities.

4. P. Peter Sacco's orchestral collection was uniformly attractive on
Albany/Troy, especially his first symphony--highly dramatic!

Biggest disappointment was Ernst Levy's Suite #3 on Opus One.  The CD
starts off with a long interview with a former associate that makes you
think the fellow was the greatest unheralded composer ever.  Then finally
comes the music: perfectly competent, neoclassic and ordinary.  Not
inventive and infuriating like Coates' or Rabinovitch's stuff, just the
yawning of an old age.

Another disappointment was the lack of recordings available for Christopher
Rouse. Two seconds after John Adams or Phil Glass write something, out
comes CDs.  Meanwhile, Rouse's "Rapture" plays to 18 orchestras, sometimes
in two cities simultaneously--and we get a recording of Torke's "Rapture"
instead.

Maybe this year ...

Jeff Dunn
[log in to unmask]
Alameda, CA