Search - David Sampson, Alan Balter, Czech Philharmonic Orchestra :: Monument: The Music of David Sampson

Monument: The Music of David Sampson

Willa J. Conrad | USA | 01/27/2000

(4 out of 5 stars)

"This is a significant release for Morristown-based composer David Sampson, who is also a familiar face in the trumpet section of a variety of New Jersey ensembles. In five separate orchestral works, three featuring brass extensively, Sampson's rich, saturated voice comes through with crystalline purity, the mark of a composer entering his musical prime. He emerges here as both mystic and mourner, with an ear for melodic invention å la Bach, and yet his work is thoroughly contemporary in sound and texture. The recording, made in Prague with the Czech Philharmonic Chamber Orchestra in 1998, features excellent soloists, from trumpet player Raymond Mase of the American Brass Quintet to tuba player, one of the area's top tuba freelancers. The bright, young American conductor, Alan Balter, died just months after leading these studio sessions, and so the disc, which already includes "Monument", Sampson's deeply expressive tribute to the Vietnam Memorial in Washington, D.C., as well as his "Hommage JFK" for 14 brass and three percussion, has an elegaic quality. Sampson's writing for brass, as might be expected, is sure-handed and eloquent. What's surprising is how well he avoids the cliche of assigning only fanfares and solemn intonations of fate to brass instruments. His "Three Portraits for Tuba and Chamber Orchestra" is a beautifully constructed concerto for an instrument usually more felt than heard, woofing along at the bottom of an orchestra. Mendoker's work is thoughtful, warm and moving. "Monument" is an icy, restless work that gives strings the heroic role in traversing a variety of emotional cues emanating from the monument's cold stone. "Triptych for Trumpet and Orchestra," with Mase as soloist, is a more traditional trumpet concerto full of bright, explosive orchestral writing and bravado flourishes for the soloist. As a group, these five works show a strong idiomatic feeling for orchestration and particularly for the use of brass as primary actor in these short, musical plays. While the collection is generally more introverted and sorrowful in nature, the works also beat with a collective vitality that make this a crisp, satisfying disc."