Mount Rushmore

Album review

The pieces on this Naxos release, issued in 2013, were all quite new works by American composer Michael Daugherty at the time; all were world premieres, and all marked new departures from his usual style of somewhat Stravinsky-ized American pop culture motifs. Time will tell whether they attain the familiarity of such works as Dead Elvis or the Metropolis Symphony, but all stretch in new directions, and none feels tired. Mount Rushmore (2010) is a grander, less bracing work than one is accustomed to from Daugherty; it is a choral-orchestral depiction of the four U.S. presidents on the face of the titular mountain, with relevant musical material for each woven into a larger structure. The texts are various and unexpected: Washington is given the not-quite-appropriate New England hymn Chester, while the Jefferson music is set to fragments of text, including an Italian-language song sent to Jefferson by Maria Conway in Paris. Theodore Roosevelt's words come from one of his stirring speeches, and Lincoln's words are from the Gettysburg Address. Radio City is, as its subtitle indicates, a musical survey of conductor Arturo Toscanini's musical life in America; unlike most of Daugherty's works it presupposes a good deal of musical knowledge. Perhaps the highlight of the set of The Gospel According to Sister Aimee, for organ, brass, and percussion. "Sister Aimee" is evangelist Aimee Semple McPherson, and this work is an ingenious combination of music from two sources: the tradition of oversized Romantic organ music with ensemble and American popular hymnody; as in the best of Daugherty's works the combination is seamless. There is nothing to fault in the performances by the Pacific Symphony under Carl St. Clair, which have the right balance between brashness and control, and the big solo organ part in The Gospel According to Sister Aimee, whose idiomatic writing is impressive in itself, gets the weighty treatment it needs from organist Paul Jacobs. Recommended, especially for performers looking for a really unusual and fresh work for brasses and organ.

© TiVo