William Wallace

* Concerto No. 2 for Piano and Orchestra
* Dance Suite
* Symphonic Variations
* Giga!
* Introduction and Passacaglia
* Epilogue for String Orchestra

Olga Dudnick, piano; Slovak Radio Orchestra/Kirk Trevor.  London Symphony
Orchestra/Boris Brott.  Warsaw Chamber Orchestra/Mark Sewen
Albany TROY557  Total time: 55:50

Summary for the Busy Executive: Curiously uninvolving.

I know of at least two composing William Wallaces.  This one studied
with Utah composer Leroy Robertson and with Edmund Rubbra in England.
The idiom is simultaneously modern and conservative, a bit like Rubbra,
actually.  Everything on here is extremely well-made.

All that said, I wish I enjoyed the program more, and indeed others may
very well like it better.  Furthermore, I have trouble putting my finger
on what bothers me.  It sounds handsomely, but after a couple of weeks
of hard listening, I just can't put a "face" to it.  Also, it simply
doesn't move me, although I sense the composer working to do exactly
that.  I feel as if I'm watching a George Peppard movie.

The piano concerto impressed me most.  The entire work grows out of three
very basic ideas -- no small feat.  The piano writing reminded me a bit
of Rachmaninov in the Rhapsody on a Theme of Paganini, especially the
quicker sections.  The work is nominally in three separate movements,
but the variations are so close to one another that it came across to
me as a one-movement concerto with pauses.

The Dance Suite pushed my Annoy button.  The movements -- titled
"Allemande," "Courante," "Minuet," and "Tarantella" -- mostly have very
little to do with the actual music, as if Wallace had no idea what an
allemande or courante sounded like.  The "Minuet" sounds more like a
courante, especially the kind that changes pulse from 3 groups of two
to 2 groups of three to the bar.  The only movement that sounds like
what it's called is the "Tarantella." Similarly, Giga!  (gigue, or jig)
sounds like the music for the "Tarantella." Of course, Wallace can call
his stuff anything he wants, including "Fred." Furthermore, if the music
had involved me, I probably wouldn't have flown off on this tangent.

The Symphonic Variations is essentially a nine-minute passacaglia for
orchestra.  It claims to pack a surprise, which I won't give away and
which an alert listener can get in the opening statement of the ground.
For me, it offers no more than that, so the interest bled out of the
piece pretty early.  Of course, I had recently listened both to Bach's
monumental c-minor passacaglia and fugue and to Lees's Passacaglia for
Orchestra and may have thus presented Wallace with too severe a test.

The Introduction and Passacaglia opens "very English" with Elgar
and Walton in their ceremonial robes.  The Introduction's a splendid
curtain-raiser.  Unfortunately, it raises the curtain on nothing much.
The Passacaglia's ground theme just isn't fascinating enough to sustain
interest in itself and allows the composer to fall into the standard
passacaglia trap of harmonic stasis.  It leaves you with a very short-winded
idea repeated over and over and over.

The joker in the pack's the Epilogue, originally written for string
quartet and performed here by string orchestra.  It's a lovely five
minutes, and for once the musical substance justifies all the craft.

All the performers deliver top-notch work.  Olga Dudnik is one fiery
pianist, suited at least for the Rachmaninoffs and the Tchaikovsky.
Kirk Trevor, a conductor new to me, gets the Slovak Radio Orchestra to
play probably better than they really know how -- as well as Boris Brott's
London Symphony Orchestra, for example.  Sewen, however, gets inside
you, most likely because the Epilogue does.  The recorded sound is very
nice indeed -- "creamy."

Steve Schwartz