Steve Schwartz <[log in to unmask]> wrote:

>Summary for the Busy Executive: Curiously uninvolving.

You bet!  Wallace strikes me (should say imperceptably brushes me) as
the grayest of "gray flannel" composers.

>I know of at least two composing William Wallaces.  This one studied
>with Utah composer Leroy Robertson and with Edmund Rubbra in England.

There's the third, William Vincent Wallace, English opera composer who
died in 1865.

>The idiom is simultaneously modern and conservative, a bit like Rubbra,
>actually.  Everything on here is extremely well-made.

Very much like Rubbra in that the orchestration, while competent by the
book like his teacher's, is even more unimaginative: a grapey puddle on
the floor that could have been a different vintner's champagne in a
bottle.

>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.

Yes.  It is to your credit that you listened to it so many times, giving
him a fair chance to speak to you.  He spoke to me.  He told me about
how many buttons there were on his gray flannel coat and what the weather
was like the last 12 foggy days in a row, and about shovel manufacturers
and how many tree rings show on the handles.

This music is a testament as to why craft alone will not make good
music.  There must be distinguished motivic/melodic ideas.  At least
Rubbra had those.  And exciting orchestration never hurt.  Why have an
orchestra if you don't use it?  Better stick to chamber works, where
Brahms was best.  The chamber scoring of the "Epilog" piece saves it
from flannelization.

Jeff Dunn, who wants his money back from the ARG reviewer who recommended
this yawn on a lawn.
Alameda, CA