Jonathan Leshnoff: Elegy, Violin Concerto No. 2, Of Thee I Sing
Naxos

Of the many albums featuring the music of Baltimore-based composer Jonathan Leshnoff (b. 1973), the fifth to appear on the Naxos label is clearly the most elegiac. Building on themes of remembrance, memorialization, and hope, the three works—Elegy, Violin Concerto No. 2, and Of Thee I Sing—also clearly show why the Grammy-nominated Leshnoff is regarded as one of today's leading American composers. All three receive sterling performances from the Oklahoma City Philharmonic and conductor Alexander Mickelthwate, with Noah Bendix-Balgley, the North Carolina-born First Concertmaster of the Berlin Philharmonic, the soloist in the Violin Concerto and Oklahoma City's Canterbury Voices included on Of Thee I Sing.

The latter, which Leshnoff dubbed “the most serious commission I have ever received,” was written when Mickelthwate asked the composer to create a memorial piece in anticipation of the twenty-fifth anniversary of the bombing of Oklahoma City's Alfred P. Murrah Federal Building. Like it, the other two are commissioned works, Elegy a co-commission by the Tennessee Holocaust Commission and the Bellingham Symphony Orchestra and Violin Concerto No. 2 also a co-commission, this one from the Dallas Symphony Orchestra and Harrisburg Symphony Orchestra. As much as some of the material originated out of unspeakably tragic circumstances (the 19 April 1995 Oklahoma bombing resulted in 168 deaths, including nineteen children), its life-affirming tone celebrates the indomitability of the human spirit. In incorporating Samuel Francis Smith's 1831 poem “America (My Country, 'Tis of Thee),” Of Thee I Sing, for example, less focuses on the horror of the event and more the greatness of the country and its enduring promise of freedom.

The elegiac tone is immediately established by Elegy, written, the composer states, “in memory of the thousands of nameless people who suffered under oppression” and in the tradition of Barber's Adagio for Strings and George Walker's Lyric for Strings. Scored for string orchestra with the addition of harp, timpani, and four horns, the nine-minute setting begins with a sombre, supplicating theme and oscillations between yearning, hope, and sadness before slowly blossoming into a dynamic affirmation.

Pitched as a four-movement “symphony-concerto,” Violin Concerto No. 2 establishes its character quickly with the solo violin voicing a unifying theme that will appear in three movements. The pace increases rapidly when staccato horn blasts punctuate the violin's lyrical dance, Bendix-Balgley impressing for the agility and authority of his playing, and the orchestra becomes a surging counterpoint to the soloist. The elements form a perpetual motion machine that, despite the various tendrils entwining within it, advances breathlessly like a wholly integrated entity. Following that presto-styled intro, the work segues into its aching slow movement, the soloist accompanied by harp and strings only and given by the composer deeply plaintive material to perform. The brief scherzo acts as a playful, light-hearted counterpoint to the emotionally exhausting adagio, after which the finale reinstates the driving intensity of the opening movement for six high-energy minutes, the work's theme making a final appearance to bring things full circle.

Armed with a pulsating intro one might mistake for one by John Adams (circa Nixon in China), Of Thee I Sing begins by conveying the turmoil of that April day before pivoting to a slower section featuring swirling strings and dramatic brass. Ample ground is covered as the work undertakes its twenty-two-minute journey and progresses through peaceful and aggressive episodes, the sombre sections registering as convincing articulations in sound of the tragedy and the recurrence of the intro material lending the work shape. Smartly, Leshnoff holds off on having the singers appear until the fourteen-minute mark, at which point their hushed utterances amplify the elegiac tone. Building in intensity step by step, their phrases take on a majestic power consistent with Smith's poem, the climax reached with “Let rocks their silence break” and the piece stirringly resolved in a brief epilogue.

June 2023