University of St. Thomas Symphonic Wind Ensemble: The Other Side
Innova

The University of St. Thomas Symphonic Wind Ensemble and its conductor Matthew George are nothing if not ambitious. Rather than offer retreads of too-familiar warhorses, the Minnesota-based collective upholds its reputation for commissioning and premiering new compositions, with more than ninety having been created since 1991. Admittedly, not everything on The Other Side, the group's seventh chapter in its UST Symphonic Wind Ensemble Commissioning Series, is an unqualified success, but the group, its members drawn from any number of study areas (not just music), nevertheless deserves credit for demonstrating an unwavering commitment to new material. (For the sake of clarity, the ensemble is not woodwinds-only: horns, percussion, piano, and harp appear, strings being the only section not involved.)

Four commissioned works are featured on the almost eighty-minute release, one each by Nigel Clarke and Kit Turnbull and two by Spanish composer Luis Serrano Alarcón. Though Clarke's Mysteries of the Horizon (After Four René Magritte Surrealist Paintings) isn't programmatic, he did attempt to impart to each of the movements the character of the painting in question. Cornet player Harmen Vanhoorne is front and center as the featured soloist from the moment his unaccompanied horn initiates “The Menaced Assassin,” his playing lithe, agile, and acrobatic as it carves a path through the alternately brooding and playful orchestral thickets etched by the wind ensemble. Its resplendent hues are heard to great effect in “The Dominion of Light,” which, while still retaining some of the agitation and drama of the opening part, slows the tempo for a brief second movement. Woodwinds and horns imbue “The Flavour of Tears” with a lustrous sheen that provides a warm foundation for Vanhoorne's lyrical, folk-tinged expressions, after which his embouchure is put to a serious test in the charging closer “The Discovery of Fire.”

A painting-related dimension also figures into Turnbull's Everything starts from a dot, the title in this case originating from a quote by Russian painter Wassily Kandinsky. Similar to Clarke's creation, Turnbull used painting titles as subtitles for his work's three movements; he also, like Clarke, chose to use the paintings as impetuses for musical ideas rather than attempt to create literal translations of the original imagery. Turnbull's three parts are aptly chosen, with “Staccato Dances” being a bright, spirited romp of sinuous design (and a perfect choice for a concert curtain-raiser), “Lighter-than-air” languorous and ethereal in its sombre unfolding, and “Capricious” jubilant, playful, and brimming with youthful energy. Kandinsky proves perhaps to be an even better choice than Magritte for a musical re-imagining, given the Russian artist's belief in the inextricably close connection between music and painting, Kandinsky even going so far as to speak of the “inner sound of colour” (synaesthesia).

The album's capped by Alarcón's four-part Second Symphony for Wind Orchestra, conceived by the composer as an homage of sorts to the great Russian symphonic composers. Befitting such a project, the music hews to the style associated with the nineteenth century in particular. Elegant, romantic, melodic, grandiose—all such epithets apply to Alarcón's creation as it advances through its contrasting movements, from the robustness of its spirited “Maestoso” to its rambunctious “Presto.” The impish “Con vivacitá” leaves a strong impression, as does the sober third movement, “Lento,” especially when it includes such expressively yearning horn playing.

If there's a questionable move here, it's Alarcón's B-Side Concerto – For Rock Band and Wind Ensemble. It's not the first time a piece has paired a rock band and orchestra (Metallica and Deep Purple are but two who've taken the plunge), but earlier examples have typically proved less than satisfying. The concerto's structured into three un-paused sections, but Foreign Motion (guitarists Cory Wong and Trevor Weist, keyboardist Kevin Gastonguay, bassist Jim Anton, and drummer Petar Janjic) and the UST Symphonic Wind Ensemble progress through multiple episodes during the work's seventeen minutes. It starts promisingly enough, the wind ensemble setting the scene effectively and the drumming less bombastic than feared. In these opening minutes, the integration between the forces is well-handled, though two minutes in troubling signs emerge in the form of a generic rock episode and solo guitar riffing, distortion dripping from the axe. Thankfully the second section arrives quickly, guitar more tastefully featured alongside jaunty Hammond organ and electric bass accompaniment in what gradually turns into a blues-inflected sequence. Jazz swing and fusion parts ensue, during which a Mini-moog solo appears as well as blues-shuffle noodling. Eventually all the forces converge for a dynamic climax, the guitar naturally at the forefront as the lead voice and the band executing its parts with muscularity.

May 2019