Richard Pennycuick wrote:

>I heard on the radio Ewazen's Violin Concerto, a most beautiful work
>apparently influenced by Vaughan Williams' Tallis Fantasia and Dives and
>Lazarus.  I tracked down the contents of the rest of the Albany CD, and
>there was information about Ewazen's career at his website.  There are
>a number of CDs of his music available but I hadn't heard of him before
>and Classical Net's search engine hadn't either.  I'm interested to know
>if the violin concerto is typical of his style or, if not, which other
>composers he might be compared to.

I don't know his Violin Concerto.  I do know his Trombone Sonata, along
with a few other works for bass trombone (actually, I've listened to
only half that disc) and I recently played his Symphony for Brass.  He's
got a lot of Hollywood in him, sort of along the lines of Elmer Bernstein.
His music combines a feel for open spaces and a lot of syncopation but
not really that much jazz.  A lot of it sounds alike and I've heard some
complain that, while it's attractive, it's not all that deep.  I haven't
made that decision yet, though I suspect that's true of the Symphony,
though I still like it, especially the often hymnlike slow movement.
I keep fooling with the Trombone Sonata but have not really taken it
up--that's one work I have not come to grips with, and that's after
hearing the Joe Alessi recording.  But I do like what I've heard of that
bass trombone disc.  Some of it sounds like the Symphony, but there's a
bit of pseudo-impressionism in one of the pieces that I really find
attractive.  The Violin Concerto sounds interesting.  I don't hear much
VW in the Ewazen works I know, but given the modal nature of some of his
scale writing, I'm not surprised to hear that description applied to a
concerto for a string instrument and orchestra, as opposed to works for
brass.  For what it's worth, the concerto sounds as if it is a deeper
work, with less Hollywood, than the brass pieces.

Come to think of it, I've played a few more Ewazen works.  A trombone
octet and another work for trombones.  (He can't be all bad.) Those I
have to admit I didn't care for much, but we were just reading them--he
can be vapid at times, though that judgment may be unfair, given the
brief acquaintance I had with those two works.

Roger Hecht