This entry in Klavier’s Wind Recording Project Series presents quite a fascinating and diverse group of compositions for winds. The bright, cheerful Aegean Festival Overture started life as an orchestra piece, commissioned by the National Symphony Orchestra in Washington, DC, where composer Andreas Makris served as violinist for many years. German composer Rolf Rudin has penned a Bacchannale with a drunken, demoniac middle section, followed by an uncharacteristic–and rather effective–quiet closing section. Most musical portraits of this sort of celebration end with everyone collapsed in a heap, but this one allows us to view something like “the morning after”. Ken Benshoof’s Out and Back Again has an unusual scoring: solo violin and cello, with 12 wind players. It is a wild and enjoyable mix of Americana that reminds us of Copland at times, Ives at others, yet just as you are trying to peg it, you have to acknowledge its originality. Vincent Persichetti’s grim, dissonant Parable is the only piece on this CD that I find rough going, and though others might be quick to disagree, we are sure to concur that the solid performance is excellent. Donald Grantham’s colorful fantasy on the famous Gershwin Second Prelude for piano rounds things out in a grand manner. It’s preceded on the CD by John Krance’s band arrangement of the original, a most thoughtful juxtaposition. As usual, the Texas musicians play exceptionally well for maestro Eugene Corporon and the impressive recording is warm, spacious, and resonant. The balance in the Benshoof piece is exemplary.
