Search - Don Ray, Derek Gleeson, Dublin Philharmonic Orchestra :: Don Ray: Homestead Dances

Down-Home Feel-Good American Orchestral Music

J Scott Morrison | Middlebury VT, USA | 07/11/2007

(4 out of 5 stars)

"Unlike Brooklyn-born Aaron Copland, who invented an 'American' sound based on a nostalgic recreation of music he imagined Americans of an earlier age must have made, the music of Don Ray (1927-2005), a native of Southern California with roots in other parts of the American West, is the real thing. That is to say the music heard here is much simpler than Copland's but much truer to its origins in the Scots-Irish folk music of an earlier age.



There are two suites on this CD, both played nicely by the Dublin (Ireland) Philharmonic Orchestra conducted by Derek Gleeson. The nine-movement 'Homestead Dances', for string orchestra augmented by two oboes, contains a number of dances one might have encountered at such pioneer gatherings as a barn raising, a square dance, a church social, quilting bee or the like. Mostly they are straightforward presentations of eminently hummable (and rememberable) tunes tricked out in variegated orchestral garb. There is both tenderness and naivety in the music, but Ray gets in a few good-natured nudges at 'The Ladies of the WCTU' (Women's Christian Temperance Union, for those of you who have never encountered that abbreviation); in this piece the sneaky harmonic side-slips surely are meant to suggest that the Ladies are not entirely without knowledge of the Demon Rum. The final number, Farmhands' Dance, is a rousing hoedown with a tipsy off-kilter rhythmic complexity.



Suite No. 1 from 'Family Portrait' contains five portraits of Ray's own grandparents and other relatives of their generation who homesteaded in Idaho. It concludes with a portrayal of a 'Family Picnic.' One wonders what sort of fellow 'Fred' was, and even more one wishes one might have spent some time with 'Leah' who, I'm guessing, could play a mean ragtime on the old upright. And I'm imagining that 'Ruby' was a kidder. There is a Second Suite from 'Family Portrait' also, recorded by the same forces: Don Ray: Piano Concerto; Suite No. 2 from Family Portrait.



Don Ray was primarily known for his TV and movie music; he wrote for such TV shows as Hawaii Five-O, Playhouse 90, Gunsmoke and Twilight Zone. He also taught at UCLA and in Dublin, Ireland. His music reminds me somewhat of Don Gillis whose music has been recorded so beautifully in another series on the Albany label, e.g. Don Gillis: Symphonies 1, 2 & 5 1/2. This is not profound music; it is, for Americans at least, an evocation of a simpler time. As someone who grew up in the rural Southwest it brings back lots of memories of prewar, pre-TV America.



Scott Morrison"