David Froom wrote:
Ray,
...
The point of this series is to take chances, knowing it has a generous
audience. Bunch is a serious composer with a solid background. I've heard
respectable pieces by him in other contexts. He was suggested to the series
by the Ahn trio, who, under the right circumstances, play a bit better than
you suggest -- at least on their recordings. We do agree that they are VERY
nice to look at!
If history is any judge, most new works will have a very short life, as we
all know. And we know you have to make room for the crap so some good stuff
can come through. That's the big problem with premieres. And, whatever
else you say about the Bunch -- in the context of a conversation that has
included slinging arrows at composers who are accused of ignoring their
audience -- he is clearly someone who knows what some in the audience want
to hear (maybe, in some cases, to the extent of pandering? Or maybe he
likes what he does? I prefer to hope for the latter).
I'm sure Bunch acheived what he set out to acheive, and some people may
like it - but I would describe it as it is a "Bugler's Holiday" for the
new milennium, only without any originality. It would be fine for pops
concerts.
In this digital age, recordings are, too-often very little indication of
how players can really play, especially for a small group like this. I
stand by my assessment of the Ahn Trio based on their live perfromance.
Their encore, after they turned to page 28 or so in their gig book (did
they think our subscription concert was a wedding reception?), was a the
slowest, most carefully played rendition of "Orange Blossum Special" I
have ever heard. But the keyboardist managed to get the most bounce out
of her hair (and everything else) that she could on those oompahs, I
tell ya. And it was LOUD, with that god-awful amplified violin sound.
Even in one of the places we did that concert, which is a VERY live, 500
seat concert hall at a local university (probably where we played your
piece, David). Sheesh.
If you want to hear an extreme version of sounding better on record than
live, listen to our recording of the Morton Gould viola concerto. The
soloist, who name I, and everyone else, has forgotten, had dug up the
piece that Morton had written back in 1940 or so and forgotten. Said
violist played the first movement wth piano somewhere and Morton either
heard it or heard about it. Somehow, Morton suggested him to record it
with us as part of our Gould recording project. Problem was, the guy
couldn't QUITE play the piece (he couldn't quite COUNT!). At the
(pre-digital) recording session, we did just the ending something like
20 times. Our producer, Andy Kazdin of Columbia records, has since been
quoted as saying that editing the resulting product was his greatest
career accomplisment. This is a man who worked with everyone from Glenn
Gould on down! Anyway, Kazdin told me that it was somewhat of an
ethical delimma for him - in his words "This guy will probably get jobs
from this recording."
But at least he didn't dress like this:
http://www.ahntrio.com/projects.html
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