Search - Don Gillis, Sinfonia Varsovia, Ian Hobson (piano) :: Don Gillis: Symphony No. 4, The Pioneers; Concerto No. 2 for Piano and Orchestra

Don Gillis: Symphony No. 4, The Pioneers; Concerto No. 2 for Piano and Orchestra
Don Gillis, Sinfonia Varsovia, Ian Hobson (piano)
Don Gillis: Symphony No. 4, The Pioneers; Concerto No. 2 for Piano and Orchestra
Genre: Classical
 
  •  Track Listings (2) - Disc #1

In an essay in the program booklet called Revelry's Ringmaster Ray Bono writes: "The gift of creating music that is immediately likable, that brings a smile to the listener's face on first gearing, is a gift not bestowed o...  more »

     
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All Artists: Don Gillis, Sinfonia Varsovia, Ian Hobson (piano)
Title: Don Gillis: Symphony No. 4, The Pioneers; Concerto No. 2 for Piano and Orchestra
Members Wishing: 0
Total Copies: 0
Label: Albany Records
Release Date: 12/28/2004
Genre: Classical
Styles: Forms & Genres, Concertos, Symphonies
Number of Discs: 1
SwapaCD Credits: 1
UPC: 034061072928

Synopsis

Album Description
In an essay in the program booklet called Revelry's Ringmaster Ray Bono writes: "The gift of creating music that is immediately likable, that brings a smile to the listener's face on first gearing, is a gift not bestowed on all composers, not even all the great ones. But in 19th - century Europe such congeniality did shimmer in the works of composers like Offenbach, von Suppe and the Strausses. In 20th -century America, their counterparts included individuals who frequently alternated between the concert hall and the pop-culture domains of Broadway, Hollywood, radio and television - individuals ranging in renown from Gershwin and Bernstein to John Williams, Leroy Anderson, Ferde Grofe and Don Gillis. Donald Eugene Gillis was born in Cameron, Missouri and studied trumpet and trombone in school and by his early teen years was composing dance-band music. His family moved to Texas, where he earned his degrees at Texas Christian University in Fort Worth and North Texas University in Denton. Before moving to Manhattan in 1944 to serve as producer, scriptwriter and commentator for NBC radio programs (including those of the famed NBC Symphony Orchestra under Toscanini), the multitalented young man had already worked as a jazz musician, a band and symphony orchestra organizer, an arranger, a conductor and - for station WBAP in Fort Worth and then NBC in Chicago - a radio production director. Amid all this and while raising a family, he pursued an energetic composing career. His early works already point to Gillis's most memorable characteristic of all: an untrammeled love of the lighthearted, laced with a dislike for pomposity. As he himself put it, speaking of his household's musical preferences: 'We hate stuffed-shirtism in musicians, and phony artistry, and anything but the fact that music is a normal function of people's living. Gillis thrived during his New York decade with NBC. Following the 1954 retirement of his much-admired Toscanini (who called him 'Jeelee'), he went to Michigan where from 1958 to 1961, he was vice-president of the Interlochen Music Camp. He then assumed a succession of academic chairmanships at Southern Methodist University in 1967, the Dallas Baptist College in 1968, and in 1973, the University of South Carolina in Columbia. The composer appears to have been as unaffected and good-humored as the music he wrote. 'I am convinced,' Don Gillis once said about music 'that it is the heart which must speak - and not the brain alone.'" This says everything there is to say about the music on this disc, which will make a perfect gift for the music lover on your list for whom you have no idea what to get for Christmas. This is music which is well crafted and enjoyable. The gifted English pianist and conductor plays this music as if he has lived with it all his life. This is the first time the Symphony No. 4 has ever been performed, let alone recorded. There will be more of Gillis's music appearing in 2005.
 

CD Reviews

Interesting Symphony, Insipid Concerto
David DeLucia | East Haddam, Ct. United States | 07/01/2006
(2 out of 5 stars)

"I had originally thought that Gillis' Encore Concerto was the worst piano concerto ever written, but this woof-woof makes the earlier work sound like a masterpiece. At least the movements of the first concerto were mercifully short. Here, you have up to 15 minutes of the most hackneyed, trite material imaginable, dished up with lackluster orchestration that is repetitious in the extreme. The first movement of this disasterous effort almost starts to sound like watered down Rachmaninoff, then quickly disintegrates into a weak musical figure which is repeated on and off for 4 excruciatingly long minutes. I lost interest after that...I guess the last 5 minutes or so were an attempt to reprise the beginning, with minimal impact. The second movement waltz sounds like a mixture of honkey tonk piano, "circus music" and something an organ would play at the 7th inning stretch at Fenway Park. It's so bad it's good, making Grofe and Anderson sound profound by comparison. Nothing ever happens in this music, just the ultra sweet waltz theme played over and over again lest we forget how wonderful (!) it is. In the last movement, which is episodic to the extreme, there is actually a part which sounds like Habernera from Carmen. (hint: Carmen is better) I actually burst out laughing in the last minute or so, which is basically a five chord going to a one chord....SEVERAL times. Why any orchestra or soloist would waste their time on this honeyed cow slop is a real mystery. Even the God-awful Grofe piano concerto has this turkey beat by a mile!



The fourth Symphony is better (It's hard to imagine anything worse than the 2nd Piano concerto.) I particularly like the slow movement, which is elegaic in tone and actually moving here and there. In the other movements, Gillis resorts to the same tired patterns he uses in his other symphonies- bombastic brass fanfares, "pseudo -Hoe Down" riffs, endless boring sequences. The end result is interesting now and then but really doesn't add up to more than the sum of its parts.



How sad that the performances and recording are nothing short of phenonenal. They deserve 5 stars, but the icky sticky cutesy tootsy music barely rates 1 star!"
Well Worth Owning
David L Hutchins | Mesa, AZ | 03/31/2007
(4 out of 5 stars)

"Some people don't think Don Gillis compares to our best American Composers such as Copland, Thomson or Grofe. I disagree. All of the Gillis works are at least as interesting as those by other American Composers. Gillis wrote light, fun music and this album is no exception. The only other reviewer when I wrote this, didn't like the concerto, especially the last movement. I enjoyed it almost more than the symphony and liked the last movement the best. To each his own, I suppose. Maybe Gillis was an imitator and that's what bothers some people. It seems to me that imitation can be very skillful as one can imitate without sounding too much like another composer. Gillis had his own unique sound and while these works aren't his best, there are certainly still very good. With almost no Gillis recordings available a couple of years ago, it's wonderful to have these now. Gillis may not have been the most original composer or even considered a top-notch composer, but his works are so enjoyable and listenable, who cares?"