Lou Harrison’s original compositions for gamelan are wonderful, but I wouldn’t recommend listening to them all at a single sitting since the limitations of the idiom can turn monotonous. Start with the splendid Piano Concerto. This is a major work, some 25 minutes long in the traditional three movements. If you like Colin McPhee, then you’ll love this. The central slow movement is particularly lovely, and it’s marvelously played by Adrienne Varner and the members of Gamelan Pacifica.
The vocal works take a bit more getting used to. A Soedjatmoko Set sets a mythological text about Rama mistreating his wife, Sita, then finding out that he was wrong all along and behaving badly and trying to destroy the earth in a rage. It’s fun, and Jessika Kenney sings the part of Sita with appealing vulnerability and an apt touch of tremulousness to her tone. The Scenes from Cavafy, translations of Greek poetry that Harrison made himself, sound suspiciously like A Soedjatmoko Set, except that John Duykers sounds awfully old, and in both pieces the Gamelan Pacifica Chorus hardly competes with the best chamber choirs out there today.
One of the more appealing aspects of this recording is the stunning engineering, capturing the low frequencies of the various gongs, drums, and the bass register of the piano with amazing richness and fidelity. So although this isn’t as good as it might have been vocally, everything else is so outstanding that there’s simply no way that I can’t recommend it enthusiastically to Harrison’s fans and admirers. [9/27/2010]
