Subject: Innocence and Experience
Date: Fri, 9 Apr 2004 18:13:15 +0000
Content-Transfer-Encoding: quoted-printable

My cousin just wrote me to tell that she had attended a concert of
William Bolcom's Songs of Innocence and Experience, a long, two-and-a-half
hour work. It is impossible for most concertgoers not to fidget in
their seats at such an endurance test, but it was worth it, she said.
Bolcom's ability to set poetry to music is almost unmatched.

I've heard only small portions of the piece, on the radio. I'm afraid
it left no impression. Luckily, Slatkin and the 450 musicians are
set to record the work, too. Perhaps I'll soon get a chance to listen
to the work on my stereo, and fidget all I want, in private.

Bolcom is a major talent. He is one of those composers whose taste
and nerve run across the musical spectrum, from pop tunes to avant-gardish
gesturing. The best place to start in his oeuvre is probably his
Graceful Ghost Rags (as played by Paul Jacobs) or his Open House,
a song cycle on Theodore Roethke poems.

Bolcom was born in Seattle, where Alan Hovhaness died. I'm pleased
about the recent performance. Would that more of Hovhaness's bigger
works get such loving attention!

twv
www.wirkman.net



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