Archer 2

Rec.: Southern IL University Edwardsville

    This piece is a perfect example of the problem I have with a lot of modern symphonies, especially ones for band. I absolutely love the music of each music independently, but I'm not sure it congeals as a full work. The most obvious examples of this to me are the Daugherty Metropolis symphony and the de Meij Symphony #1 - Lord of the Rings. These are pieces, like this one, where every movement stands on its own, making it sound like a series of pieces that may have a common external theme, rather than a single piece in multiple sections.

    But like said, each movement is great in its own way. The first movement, March, is a raucous circus march that reminds me of Ives. There are a lot of twists and turns and some irregular metric pulses, little humorous solos pepper the movement. The alto sax gets a fair amount of love in here as well. Given the material in the following movements though, this seems an odd way to start the symphony since it is considerably lighter in character and style than the other two. In a four movement symphony this would be a scherzo movement, but here it leads off.

    The second movement, by the composers own admission, is patterned after the music of Philip Glass. The orchestration in this movement is probably the most subtly interesting of the symphony. It is also nice to have some more minimalist music in the vein of Glass for wind ensemble. Once again though, I'd rather hear an extended work in this style, rather than the imitation of another composer stuck in the middle of a symphony.

    The final movement is a theme and variation and strikes me as the closest to something that feels of the scope of a symphony. The theme is developed well and the orchestration is solid and interesting. It has a satisfying conclusion.  Oddly though, if there were another movement of this scope in the symphony I think this would have actually made a really solid opening to a symphony.

    Again, I feel like I've been kind of negative this week, but I must again stress that I love music here, just not the labelling. Maybe over the course of this year I'll be able to more clearly define and articulate what makes something symphonic to me.

Tomorrow: Libby Larsen Solo Symphony