Dallas Chamber Symphony: Chasing Home
Albany Records

Chasing Home is titled after one of two works featured on the Dallas Chamber Symphony's Albany Records debut, the titular one by New York-based composer Joseph Thalken and the other Aaron Copland's Appalachian Spring. As different as they are, a number of things connect them: both works were created as ballet scores, and both explore the migrant experience, with Thalken's based on the plight of migrants fleeing the Syrian Civil War and Copland's the movement of Americans within their own country. Both also receive terrific performances by the Dallas Chamber Symphony and its conductor and Music Director Richard McKay, with Thalken's the world premiere recording.

The seed for Chasing Home, composed in 2017, was planted when Thalken, a pianist and conductor as well as composer, performed at a Dallas gala for Bruce Wood Dance and was so taken by the company's approach to contemporary choreography proposed the idea of writing a piece for it. A commission followed that saw the Dallas Chamber Symphony and dance company joining forces and music by Thalken coupled with choreography by one of its members, Albert Drake. Cognizant of the Syrian migrant crisis receiving prominent attention in the media, the collaborators decided to ground their work in the subject matter. Interviews by the composer with refugees who described leaving their original home for a temporary one before reaching a permanent one prompted Thalken to adopt a similar structure for the ballet. Chasing Home dramatizes the transitions further by working in an anxious initial escape, a wedding at the refugee camp, and a dangerous water crossing to reach new land. Sonically, the Middle Eastern locale is evoked by including oud with the chamber orchestra. When it emerges, Carlo Valte's string instrument effectively evokes nostalgia for the home left behind. Prominent too is the flute (played by Margaret Fischer), which looks ahead to the home refugees are striving to reach.

Thalken's professional world includes writing for the classical stage but also the theatre, and evidence of that seeps into the work with respect to its melodic vitality and action sequences. That Chasing Home is an accessible, listener-friendly work is no knock against it, however, and neither does it impair the integrity of his creation. The choice of subject matter alone ensures that the work possesses significant emotional heft and conveys the suffering and loss refugees endure. While the chamber size of the orchestra bolsters the intimacy of the work, the Dallas Chamber players bring an exuberance and vigour to the dynamic parts to suggest the playing of a larger unit. Valte, Fischer, and nine other players participate in this McKay-conducted performance.

Establishing the work's tone instantly, Valte introduces it unaccompanied with a heartfelt expression before the others enter at full force with an impassioned statement. The mood quickly turns tender, however, as the work transitions into “Escape,” the music insistently advancing as solo flute and orchestra breathlessly anticipate a daring departure. “Impossible Romance” slows the pace for a plaintive, strings-heavy movement that achingly couples woodwinds with tremulous strings and then oud. “Military Base” is fraught with turmoil and anxiety, but its brief tenure is quickly supplanted by a portrait of life in the refugee camp, the oud again heard alone until the ensemble's soothing presence suggests the refugees' capacity for perseverance and adaptation; even in such imperfect circumstances, children play, life goes on, and a wedding happens. With danger looming, a sea journey's undertaken and the longed-for destination successfully reached.

The idea of partnering Chasing Home with Copland's beloved Appalachian Spring (here in its suite version) was inspired; it was also canny and strategic for the fact that Copland fans drawn to the recording will also be exposed to Thalken's piece. Ostensibly about early pioneers lured westward by opportunity and open spaces, the ballet was written for Martha Graham's dance company in 1944. Like Chasing Home, Appalachian Spring is a work that connects instantly with listeners, especially when it's rich in pastoral beauty and its elegiac aura so potent. Copland fashioned the narrative around a soon-to-be married couple in the Pennsylvania hills in the early 1800s and was influenced also by the song “Simple Gifts,” written in 1848 by Shaker elder Joseph Brackett, and the Shakers humble way of life. Scored for flute, clarinet, bassoon, piano, and a nine-piece string section, the modest instrumental resources perfectly match the humility of the material and its nostalgic evocation of an idyllic era. Appalachian Spring never sounds like a pastiche, though it is possible to hear similarities between the syncopated rhythms used by Copland and Stravinsky.

Like Thalken's, Copland's sets its aching pastoral mood right away, in this case with fragile strings, woodwinds, and piano and music that slowly opens its eyes to a wondrous and soul-replenishing outdoors scene. Peace is interrupted, however, by the abrupt arrival of aggressive string figures, dance gestures, and the stirring polyphony of robust themes. The music turns romantic during the third movement as it focuses on the bride and her husband-to-be, though the sweetness of imminent betrothal is tempered by passages of foreboding. The subsequent “Fast: The Revivalist & His Flock” sees Copland injecting some Hoedown-like dance moves into the work and sprinkling the music with romping piano and folk fiddling. As engaging as its rousing passages are, including the bride's spirited solo dance and the infectious folk melodies that grace the penultimate movement, it's ultimately the tender themes (like those voiced in “Meno mosso”) that give the work its deeply affecting and elegiac character. There's also no denying the majesty of the closing movements and the hushed beauty of the coda.

November 2024