Search - Lowell Liebermann, Andrew Litton, Dallas Symphony Orchestra :: Liebermann: Symphony No. 2 / Concerto for Flute & Orchestra

An early 20th century 21st century choral symphony

Edith Swanek | Anaheim, Ca | 11/28/2000

(4 out of 5 stars)

"Liebermann's Symphony No. 2 was written as a commission for the performing Dallas Symphony Orchestra, as a choral work on texts of Walt Whitman. The work shifts from massive choral sections through purely orchestral interludes. The "connecting tissue" is superb, the choral sections very heavy, with heavy, up-front percussion, sounding at times very much like Brian's Symphony No. 1 of nearly a 100 years ago. One wishes the composer had followed Mahler's also-100-year-old Song of the Earth instead, and turned most of the choral lines into soloist or vocal quartet work, reserving a full chorus only for the strongest possible emphasis. Then the percussion would not have to be so forward, either, to "keep up" with the massive chorale.Nonetheless, an important addition to the repertory, along with the Mahler 8, Vaughan-Williams 1 and Brian 1."

Eclectic; even derivative. But "a great wallow."

Bob Zeidler | Charlton, MA United States | 08/10/2001

(5 out of 5 stars)

"Had I listened to this premiere performance of Lowell Liebermann's Symphony No. 2 without benefit of album jacket, booklet notes, or any other information about Liebermann (including his name), I would likely have inferred from this work that he is British. Or perhaps "was" British.



The arch-Romantic Symphony No. 2 is a throwback to an earlier time (a point with which Liebermann, according to fine booklet notes by Peter G. Davis, has no problem). In typical post-modernist fashion, Liebermann freely borrows from earlier styles and genres associated with Romantic music of the 20th century, yet succeeds in coming forth with a respectably fresh-sounding work, thoroughly tonal, often bracing, and occasionally even inspired. Scored for large orchestra, chorus and organ, the work - written to celebrate both the millenium and the 100th Dallas Symphony Orchestra season - is set to and around texts of celebratory poems from Whitman's "Leaves of Grass."



My first thought - on listening to the opening bars of the work - was that Liebermann is a post-modernist working along the lines of the post-modernist style of recent works of Einojuhani Rautavaara (a Finn, and perhaps the most successful composer presently living and working who can derive unique, fresh and meaningful musical gestures and rhetoric while working in a totally tonal idiom). These opening bars have a vaguely "Nordic" feel to them, making this Rautavaara connection fairly straightforward. (In point of fact, given that Liebermann is American, I find it more than a little interesting that the music brings to mind Rautavaara rather than Howard Hanson, that arch-Romantic Nordic-American composer.)



But this sense only lasts a fairly brief while, and then veers off into idioms that sound thoroughly British to me. The second movement (Tempo di marcia) might well have been written by Sir Arthur Bliss more than a half century ago, sounding, as it does, much like the sinister march in Bliss's "Things to Come" suite (from the film of the same name).



The balance of the work recalls, for me, the work of George Lloyd, most especially his "A Symphonic Mass" of approximately a decade ago. Unlike the Lloyd work, this Liebermann symphony has no Elgarian "noblimente" grand theme. But it does offer an arch send-up of George Frederick Handel with a cleverly written choral fugue, and ends with a satifactory "pull out all the stops" wallop.



The discmate, Liebermann's Concerto for Flute and Orchestra, was commissioned for James Galway. Decidedly less "arch" than the Symphony, it is satisfactorily zesty, and of course virtuosic. I for one find it hard to believe that the famous bearded Irish leprechaun could have played it any better than does Eugenia Zukerman in this recording.



I don't know if the featured Symphony No. 2 on this CD has the "legs" to go the distance and enter the standard orchestral repertoire. Some might say that it is simply too accessible, and in any event it is probably too early for such a judgement. But an easy five stars for the fresh "throwback" work that it is, for the Flute Concerto (which ought to enter that instrument's standard repertoire), for the excellent playing and singing of the Dallas group (and of course Ms. Zukerman), and, finally, for the by-now-expected stunning sound that the Delos team has a track record of providing. When I say "a great wallow," I mean it in all of these respects.



Bob Zeidler"

Lowell Liebermann: Whitmaniac

Thomas F. Bertonneau | Oswego, NY United States | 04/30/2001

(4 out of 5 stars)

"The SYMPHONY NO. 2 (1999) by Lowell Liebermann (born 1961) requires colossal forces, similar to those of Mahler's Second or Eighth, although it does not match those works in compositional scale. To get to the point: Collectors should buy this disc in short order before it disappears. It will likely become a sought-after item when its production run is depleted. This is because SYMPHONY NO. 2, with choral settings of Walt Whitman, rejects the alienating devices of modernism for an audience-friendly vocabulary close in spirit to that, say, of Howard Hanson, or the other American composers of the Eastman school. With Liebermann, it's as though Roger Sessions and Milton Babbitt never happened; Liebermann ignores the modernist ethos with the same blitheness demonstrated twenty years ago by Lee Holdridge in his whalloping CONCERTO FOR VIOLIN AND ORCHESTRA NO. 2 (1978). (Glenn Dicterow recorded it with the composer conducting the London Symphony Orchestra and it has been available on a Citadel CD.) In four easily discernible sections (played, however, without pause), Liebermann's score begins with a long-spanned Moderato during which the chorus intones cosmic verses from "Leaves of Grass" ("O, vast rondure, swimming in space..."). It would not be out of place in a Gene Roddenberry flick with the "Enterprize" voyaging among ice-moons in a distant solar system. Following this comes a magical metallophone interlude in the style of Hovhaness, which in turn leads to a crescendo in the chorus backed up by the organ. The ensuing movement, in march time, introduces the element of conflict. Here, Liebermann makes full use of the offstage brass called for in his score. It must be thrilling to hear in the concert hall; the engineers have done a good job of recreating the three-dimensional "sound theater." The second half of the movement develops into an extended fugato, mostly in the strings, interrupted by an aggressive cortège. The chorus enters to extol music - and the beauties of all art and poetry - in a Whitmaniac effusion. The Largo returns to the meditative character of the opening movement, darkening the atmosphere somewhat. The Finale (in the tempo of the opening movement), dispels the gloom and piles up a great pyramid of sound. We rise again to the altitudes of the Transcendental Self and float, in a sci-fi scenario, among the stars. Along the way the chorus spin out a robust Handelian fugue. The critics (in "American Record Guide" and "Fanfare") have been reserved in their praise, suggesting that the SYMPHONY betrays an underlying naivety or too freely caters to its audience. I think that Liebermann's score tests the snob in us. It challenges the superciliousness of our "inner eyebrow," so to speak. If we can enjoy Randall Thomson, or Roy Harris, or Lee Holdridge, or Dan Welcher, then there is no reason save snobbery for not enjoying Lowell Liebermann. The FLUTE CONCERTO, played by Eugenia Zukerman, is another lovely, open work which there is no reason not to enjoy. Andrew Litton leads the Dallas Symphony convincingly. I predict that you will at first play this CD through four or five times, with enthusiasm; then it will go on your shelf for a while, but, periodically, you will come back to it."