Albany already has an excellent recording of Don Gillis’ Symphony No. 10, subtitled “The Big D” (Dallas, that is). It’s a delicious, largely humorous work very much in the spirit of the sort-of-famous Symphony No. 5 1/2, particularly in its tipsy third movement (“Conventioneer”). The previous performance, with the Albany Symphony, is very good, and so is this one. In fact, this latest Gillis release generally features sonics that are a bit sharper and dryer than previously, which perfectly suits this rhythmic, jazzy music. Tulsa: A Symphonic Portrait in Oil might be thought of as a sort of mid-Western 1812 Overture, at least to the extent that Gillis includes a fusillade of six-shooters (here replaced, as so often in the Tchaikovsky as well, by additional percussion). It’s a typically ebullient essay in a populist style that, because of its genuineness of feeling, no one did better.
Gillis’ first three symphonies were all written by the time he was 30, and all reflect a spirit of optimism in troubled times (at or around the start of World War II). The title “A Symphony for Free Men” suggests some sort of patriotic potboiler, but in fact the music is predominantly reflective, with only occasional flashy outbursts. The entire work is based on a short, wandering motive in the bass that sounds strikingly similar to late Shostakovich (the third movement of Babi Yar, for example). Of course, the treatment is entirely different. It’s much less gloomy for one thing, but the problem here is that Gillis repeats this bit of non-theme endlessly throughout the work, leaving the listener crying for the real, long-breathed melody that the style seems to promise but never quite delivers. This makes the symphony a bit of a let-down compared to Gillis’ other pieces, but it’s one of those works that you feel he had to write, if only to gain more experience in working with large forms. In any case, it’s extremely sympathetically played by Ian Hobson and Sinfonia Varsovia. So if you’re collecting this wonderful and very important series, give it a shot and see what you think.
