Search - Alec Wilder, Richard Auldon Clark, Manhattan Chamber Orchestra :: Such A Tender Night: The Music Of Alec Wilder

Held back one star for the poor quality of program notes

M. Carter | USA | 12/11/2008

(4 out of 5 stars)

"This performance of Alec Wilder's chamber music is unique, engaging, witty, and thoroughly entertaining. The CD pulls you in with the first track, "The Children Met the Train," which combines an unlikely combination of harpsichord, oboe, clarinet, bassoon and flute into a delightfully tuneful melody. Quite an opener. The second track, "Such a Tender Night," features a similarly quirky instrumentation that surrounds the ear with the most sumptuous of aural textures. The Nonet doesn't fail to entertain, comprised of four short movements, each with a distinct personality. "Her Old Man was Suspicious" brings back the quirky woodwind ensemble to work out a jazzy lick passed between the group, resulting in a truly fresh mix of sounds.



The only drawback to this recording is the very poor quality of the program notes. One would expect the program notes for pieces that are this obscure to be teeming with detail on these delightful little gems of music. Sadly, the program notes are 100% about Alec Wilder himself -- pieces of biographical information we could find on any Web site or book. There is absolutely no information in the program notes about the music itself: no background information, no context or explanation about the composer's reason for penning the works, nothing about how the works were received upon their publication, etc. In that sense the program notes are a waste of precious space and paper.



And on top of that, as if to add insult to injury, the program notes contain a number of glaring errors: repeated sentences, spelling errors, and an misleading track listing (the movements aren't numbered according to the tracks on the CD, meaning you have to count tracks every time you want to verify which piece you are listening to). Whoever edited the liner notes for this recording should issue a correction."