Roanoke Times
                 Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.

DATE: TUESDAY, February 19, 1991                   TAG: 9102190311
SECTION: CURRENT                    PAGE: NRV-4   EDITION: NEW RIVER VALLEY 
SOURCE: SETH WILLIAMSON
DATELINE:                                 LENGTH: Medium

WORKS OF BLACK COMPOSERS PLAYED IN WELL CHOSEN PROGRAM

Some of the credit for this goes to Glazebrook's talent for choosing a well-balanced and interesting program. Three of the four selections were worthwhile but lesser-known pieces by composers not familiar to the public, while the fourth was from one of the great composers of the century, Edward Kennedy "Duke" Ellington.

First was "The Bamboula-Rhapsodic Dance," by English composer Samuel Coleridge-Taylor, whose short life lasted from 1875 to 1912 and who was reportedly described as "the black Mahler." The bamboula was a West Indian dance tune, four bars of which Coleridge-Taylor took as a seed-phrase for this fantasia. Though the tune has African roots, Coleridge-Taylor was a student of C.V. Stanford at the Royal College of Music and the treatment of the melody is orchestrally lush and thoroughly European. Throughout the piece the jaunty dance tune alternated with more romantic episodes, and the rich texture had a turn-of-the-century, almost over-ripe feel to it reminiscent of other period composers such as Edward MacDowell.

George Walker's "Lyric for Strings" was a discovery for this reviewer. Born in 1922 in Washington, D.C., Walker has been described as a neo-classicist, but this engaging little work instead reminded one more of the American neo-Romantic composer Samuel Barber. In fact, Walker's "Lyric" is suffused with the same elegiac tone that pervades Barber's "Adagio for Strings," and the final effect of rich melancholy is much the same. With the exception of a single bad entrance from the vicinity of the second violins, the New River Valley Symphony's strings turned in a powerful and moving performance.

In terms of absolute music, Duke Ellington's "New World a'Comin"' was the strongest piece on Saturday night's program. Though the work was largely lost for years, it was reconstructed by Maurice Peress in the early '80s, and his Musical Heritage Society recording with pianist Roland Hanna and the American Composers' Orchestra has made the composition familiar to a new generation of listeners.

It was also the only piece on the program that had a strong jazz feel to it, the bluesy piano part augmented by the addition of a trap set in the percussion section. This musical evocation of a reconstructed world without hatred and greed is a major piece from one of America's great composers, and Glazebrook led his players through a strong performance. Guest pianist Russell Wilson's playing was competent but not especially inspired.

The last half of the concert consisted of William Grant Still's "Afro-American Symphony," which despite its title was a return to a more European mode of composition. Still, who died in 1978, is not as familiar to audiences as Ellington, but his style is strongly reminiscent of George Gershwin. The first movement begins with a lazy Gershwin-style orchestral blues, moving thence to a romantic theme from the oboe and later to a striding blues featuring muted trumpets. The second movement was a kind of blues romanza.

Incidentally, though banjo players don't show up in symphony orchestras much outside of Gary Larson cartoons, Still wrote a third-movement part for plectrum banjo strummed ragtime style. Glazebrook recruited local guitarist Flip Schumacher to play the banjo, which he did quite solidly.

The third movement also featured a horn line that so strongly recalled George Gershwin's "I Got Rhythm" that it might have been a quotation. The final movement had a strong and mournful gospel ambience. The New River Valley Symphony's performance was convincing, and made one regret that Still's symphony is not currently available on CD.