Search - Del Tredici, Slatkin, Slso :: In Memory of a Summer Day

Epitome of Neo-Romanticism

Cory | Virginia | 02/16/2006

(5 out of 5 stars)

"Del Tredici was first of all fascinated with the Alice in Wonderland stories, characters, and scenarios surrounding the telling of these tales to young Alice Liddel. He built several works around this theme, including the Alice Symphony, Vintage Alice, and Final Alice. The first two were mostly atonal to the ear. It was during this time of writing Alice works that Del Tredici faced the dilemma of how to appropriately convey to mood which surrounds these children's tales: in a modernist approach or in a neo-romantic way. He ultimately rounded off his Alice series with the latter approach, and with these two tonal Alice works, "Final Alice" and "Child Alice" he was rocketed to fame.



Child Alice is the last major work in the Alice series. This disc presents part one (of four) from Child Alice, a full evening presentation. Part I, In Memory of a Summer Day, won Del Tredici the 1981 Pulitzer prize. This seemed to be an interesting turn for the pulitzer, reverting back to the earlier days of recognizing composers such tonal and romantic composers as Aaron Copland, Virgil Thompson, Douglas Moore, and Leo Sowerby. Del Tredici was nestled between the works of Sessions, Schwantner, and Zwilich, all apparent modern and post-modern composers.



In Memory of a Summer Day is 61 minutes long. It is a gorgeous tapestry of music that depicts the emotional undetones that girded the time Lewis Carroll spent telling stories to Alice. Del Tredici uses the poem that prefaces "Through the Looking Glass," interpreting the writing as a reflection of bygone days. He opens the work with distressing, yet reminiscently contemplative chord, which is soon followed by a simple dance-like theme depicting the simplicity of Alice. These two ideas are used throughout the work to convey the complex emotional development through three depictions with a soprano solo (including several instrumental sections): Simple Alice, Triumphant Alice, and Ecstatic Alice.



Simple Alice is fairly self explanatory: it forms the basis of the work, that of the simple pleasure of childhood dreaming. Triumphant Alice attempts to tell an Alice story never written by Carroll, known only to Carroll and Alice. The third excerpt is Del Tredici at his neo-romantic finest: it is a love serenade to Alice, a mingled daddy-daughter and husband-wife love. The complex love (which seems to be missing from the five commonly defined languages of love) is so vividly portrayed, somewhat in the style of Howard Hanson, yet with so much more depth, that there are few words to describe it (as there are few words to describe the emotion he is portraying).



One has to wonder what remains in the other three sections of Child Alice: Quaint Events, Happy Voice, and All in the Golden Afternoon. Unfortunately, those who have not been lucky enough to be at the premiere or a rare subsequent performance (such as myself) may never know. Perhaps Naxos would take up the challenge with its American Classics series? I'm surprised actually that Naxos has yet to record any of Del Tredici's music.



Unfortunately, this CD is hard to come by. It was released in the 80s before CDs were the "in" thing. Many more LP recordings were sold. Twice unfortunate is the rarity of a CD recording of Final Alice which is equally beautiful. As I understand it, there is some CD that was released in Japan of Final Alice on the London label in the early 80s, but it impossible to find. Both of these works are in desperate need of new recordings.



Without a comparison, it's hard to judge Slatkin's rendering of the score. I enjoy Slatkin's interpretations, and am thus far satisfied with his presentation. Phyllis Bryn-Julson's performance is also fine, giving special sensitivity to the work, yet so filled with raw emotion. I can imagine a better casted soprano, one with a still refined voice, but with a bit more innocence, say, perhaps like Beverly Sills? But then again, I'm not really complaining either.



Might I also add that this disc has a crisp, clean sound. Many of the best technical CD recordings were done in the 80s and early 90s. It's a shame so many companies have since gotten lazy on technological engineering.



This work is a most for the fan of neo-romanticism. Buy a recording before discs sink further into obscurity.



UPDATE: I asked Del Tredici after the NSO's May 2008 performance of Final Alice what the status is of getting the Alice series recorded, and he said, to my recollection, that Leonard Slatkin has expressed interest in recording the entire series, which I'm assuming will include the unrecorded Part II of Child Alice and the unperformed Tweedle Dee-Dum opera. Perhaps the Final Alice performance was a good sign of moving in this direction!"