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By BILL F. FAUCETT and JUDITH BUHRMAN
Published January 30, 2005

WILLIAM BOLCOM, SONGS OF INNOCENCE AND OF EXPERIENCE, CONDUCTOR LEONARD SLATKIN (NAXOS) William Bolcom's Songs of Innocence and of Experience is by turns inspiring, unsettling and disturbing.

Using poems by the English mystic William Blake (1757-1827), Bolcom's 47-song cycle - one of the grandest achievements in the genre by an American composer - encompasses a dizzying array of musical styles. While many are expected, many more are surprising, and unexpectedly effective.

The cycle is akin to a musical journey through life, starting with pastoral songs reflective of childhood and adolescence, then progressing to denser musical explorations of adult themes, including parenting, old age and, of course, death.

Bolcom's writing is inventive and unfettered by convention. Among the songs of innocence, The Shepherd will at first remind one of a simple country melody in the Hank Williams Sr. mold. But it is cleverly framed by dissonant orchestral strokes influenced by Charles Ives, whose monumental 114 Songs has clearly left an impression on Bolcom.

My Pretty Rose Tree and Ah! Sunflower are a hauntingly beautiful pair of choral treats, simple in their structure, but demonstrating Bolcom's utter mastery of harmony and text setting.

Some of Bolcom's most compelling instrumental writing is heard in The Clod and the Pebble, a brief, rhythmic song that uses a variety of special techniques and includes inspired writing for the winds. The Tyger, one of the most memorable pieces in the cycle, features the motoric chanting of men's voices to the accompaniment of relentless tom-toms.

Some of the CD's Broadway-style settings are cliche-ridden, and Vocalise, a segment of irritating choral shouting, doesn't add to the whole.

One must also grapple with the fact that, ultimately, Blake's poetry is dark, defeatist and even cynical. The final selection, A Divine Song, is not a pretty picture of human nature and, while Bolcom attempts to uplift the poetry by cloaking it in the garb of a reggae beat, he cannot hide Blake's apparent contempt for the human condition.

Naxos' wonderfully produced three-disc set features Leonard Slatkin leading admirable performances by numerous soloists, choruses and the orchestra of the University of Michigan. GRADE: A-

- BILL F. FAUCETT, Times correspondent

KURKA, SYMPHONY NO. 2, GRANT PARK ORCHESTRA, CONDUCTOR CARLOS KALMAR (CEDILLE) Not prone to infatuation, I have on occasion succumbed to a lush chorus or a seductive melody that would later prove to be a passing crush. So after my first hearing of this new release, I had to listen again (and again) to be sure I wasn't simply besotted. Besotted I am, but I have happily concluded that this is the real thing.

Others wrote overtures; Robert Kurka wrote a postlude for a towering classic of a play. Julius Caesar: An Epilogue after Shakespeare, in its recording debut, opens this valuable addition to any music lover's collection of orchestral music of the 20th or, indeed, any century. Written in 1955 and numbered Op. 28, Julius Caesar distills in less than nine minutes the overweening pride and bloody downfall of a dictator and the spiritual peril of the conspirators who brought about his end.

Following this dark, sardonic commentary is Kurka's 2nd Symphony. Lean, plain-spoken, muscular, and often beautiful, this work should be in every orchestra's playbook as an example of the best of American composition in the 20th century. In three succinct, skillfully crafted movements, we hear accessible, virile music that is food for head and heart. There is a delectable passage in the last movement, marked Presto gioioso, that made me think of the bubbly joy of wren song.

The short and sometimes acerbic Op. 11 Music for Orchestra from 1949 follows. Also a premiere recording, it reinforces my gratitude to the nonprofit Cedille Records (www.cedillerecords.org) for making this collection possible. The final four-movement Serenade for Small Orchestra is so purely, exquisitely American in its rhythms and sonorities, in its deft seasoning of jazz licks, that when I learned from the liner notes that Kurka's program notes were quotations from Walt Whitman's poetry, it was no surprise at all.

And now the sad part: Born in 1921, Robert Kurka succumbed to leukemia in 1957, 10 days short of his 37th birthday, leaving us to wonder what further marvels he might have wrought. A+

- JUDITH BUHRMAN, Times correspondent

[Last modified January 27, 2005, 09:55:03]