Robert Starer (b.1924) composed Samson Agonistes as a ballet for Martha Graham in 1960 and revised it for full orchestra in 1963. It is very much in the dissonant-but-lyrical style of the period, sounding very much like Leonard Bernstein’s dramatic music. In fact when the piano enters with its jazz passages, it brings clearly to mind Bernstein’s Age of Anxiety symphony. The Concerto for Two Pianos and Orchestra (1996) launches with a catchy, jazz-influenced tune with a romantic counter-melody. But the main substance of this work is Bartokian rather than Gershwinian. Nonetheless, Starer maintains a rhythmic and melodic freshness throughout the four brief movements, and the antiphonal writing for the two pianos (played commandingly by Joshua Pierce and Dorothy Jonas) is brilliant.
The overture Lightning, by William Thomas McKinley (b.1938), was composed in 1993 and is a “metaphorical simulation…one of Earth’s most frightening and primordial forces.” Whooping horns and percussion simulate the sound of lightning strikes, and the piece as a whole is highly dramatic, colorful, and dissonant, and would be perfectly at home in any of today’s thriller motion pictures. The 1987 Adagio for Strings is nothing like the Samuel Barber work of the same name. This 20-minute piece explores the gamut of human emotions in string writing that varies from lyrical to rapturous to harsh. The Czech Radio Symphony Orchestra, led by Carlos Piantini (Concerto) and Vladimir Valek, plays these very American works with consummate mastery and admirable zeal. The recorded sound is natural and impactful.
