LOUDSPEAKERS: Does the Totem Mani-2 still rate as one of the ...

Software
Feedback
Poetics
Corporon/North Texas Wind Symph.
Klavier K11153
Rejskind: This is one of a long-running
series of wind recordings on Klavier by
this first-rate orchestra. I think the title
may have been chosen at random, but
what it contains is worthy of anyone’s
attention for both musical and sonic
reasons.
The first reason to get it, I think, is
Joseph Schwanter’s Percussion Concerto.
Now the percussionist in a symphony
orchestra is not the one groupies mob
at the stage door. Garrison Kiellor once
said that the triangle is an instrument
for a saint (he said the same thing about
the harp, for a different reason). The
percussionist is important, but only once
in a while. Perhaps that’s why, in 1995,
Schwanter was commissioned to write
an extended solo piece for the principal
percussionist of the New York Philharmonic,
Christopher Lamb. And what a
piece it is!
Schwanter says he has long been
fascinated by the timbral aspects of
music and been attracted to the richly
varied sonic resources of percussion.
What he composed is nothing less than
a masterpiece, drawing on an astonishingly
diverse panoply of instruments.
They are here played by Christopher
Deane, backed up by the band’s regular
percussionists to say nothing of the rest
of the orchestra.
Listen for yourself. He marshals
three tom-toms, timbaletas, bongos,
a marimba (the only amplified instrument
in the work), a xylophone which is
sometimes struck and sometimes bowed,
ULTRA HIGH FIDELITY Magazine
and a varied set of drums of all shapes
and sizes, including a bass drum you’ll
feel as much as hear. But Schwanter has
done more than make noise, for that
would be all too easy. He juxtaposes
dense and sophisticated melodies for
brass and woodwinds with contrapuntal
percussion effects. The result, across
three movements that occupy more than
a half hour, is impressive, sometimes
disturbing, often viscerally beautiful.
The playing is wonderful too, and
that goes both for Deane and the large
ensemble, conducted masterfully by
Eugene Migliaro Corporon. The engineering,
by Bruce Leek, is as good as it
gets.
But wait a minute, there’s more!
Steven Bryant’s Stampede has a sort
of rodeo atmosphere to it, reminiscent
of the music of Aaron Copland. Michael
Gandolfi’s Vientos y Tangos (“wind and
tangos”) is not always rhythmic, but
much of it is. Gandolfi has used famed
concert tango composer Astor Piazzola
as a model, and I liked the piece very
much.
I’m less enthusiastic about Franco
Cesarini’s Poema Alpestre, whose length
exceeds its breadth, but even without
him this recording is chock full of goodness.
The first time you’ll play it for the
sound, but I predict you’ll come back for
the music.
Film Spectacular II
Black & London Festival Orch.
FIM XR24 070
Rejskind: My first impression, if you’ll
pardon the pun, is that nobody does
music like this anymore. They sure used
to. Films had lush ballads as scores, and
there were countless orchestras that
would bring out collections of these
hummable tunes. Percy Faith was one,
Billy Vaughn was another, and Stanley
Black was yet another.
This one, from 1963, is special for
being part of London/Decca’s “Phase 4”
series. Of course Phase 4 did not feature
four channels, and the reason for the
name is a mystery. Decca (the British
company, not the American one of the
same name) was known for its realistic
ffrr recordings, intended to sound the
way an orchestra might from the eighth
row of a good hall. Phase 4 was Decca’s
attempt to live down that reputation.
The technique was totally opposite:
use a lot of microphones, each one very
close to an instrument, and dial in lots of
stereo separation. Crank up the volume
on the pressing, to overcome rumble,
hum, whatever. The results were spectacular,
though not perhaps truly hi-fi.
It had been many years since I had
listened to a Phase 4 recording, and
of course I had not had the advantage
of listening with gear like the Omega
reference system. Notwithstanding the
very close-in sound, these recordings
really did sound good. The dynamics are
overwhelming, probably difficult to get
onto modern digital (First Impressions
Music has used xrcd to do the job). And
Stanley Black, here conducting the Royal
Festival Orchestra, was a really talented
bandleader.
This CD is a reminder that writers
of film music back then were not
too shabby, and it did my heart good
to hear them again. Here’s Lawrence
of Arabia, Gone With the Wind, The
Magnificent Seven, a suite from My Fair
Lady, and even the haunting score from
Hitchcock’s Spellbound. I hasn’t heard
any of them in a while.
I also couldn’t help noticing that,
despite my impressions of the old LPs,
they are not truly recorded in ping pong
stereo. When there is a clash of percussion
or brass, you can hear it travel all
the way to the other wall and back again.
The original engineer, Arthur Lilley,
knew what he was doing.
No, nobody does music like this
anymore, but a modern engineer, or
musician for that matter, could learn a
lot by listening to this CD.