Hindemith’s Symphony in B flat (1951) was written for the US Army Band and its conductor Lt. Col. Hugh Curry. It is one of the composer’s more serious works, and a real masterpiece. Its last movement, in particular, is an extraordinarily clever and beautifully worked out fugue. The performance here is a live one, given at the BDNA National Conference on February 22, 2001.

Shostakovich wrote a great deal of film music, and The Story of the Priest and his Helper Balda is an example. It was originally written (1934) for an animated film adaptation of the story by Pushkin. The score was lost for almost 30 years, being recovered in 1967. Subsequently, the music was recast as a comic opera by Sofia Khentova, and then again for a ballet, Balda, in 1999. If you can imagine a combination of Stravinsky’s Pétrouchka and a sequence of Sousa marches curdled like sour milk, you will have a good idea of what this piece sounds like. Shostakovich was one of the very greatest composers of the 20th century, but he was also capable of producing utilitarian dross for mass consumption by the proletariat. This is some of it.

Donald Grantham is the recipient of numerous prestigious prizes in composition, among which are a Guggenheim Fellowship and multiple grants from the National Endowment for the Arts, and that’s only a partial listing. In the face of such impressive acclaim, it embarrasses me to say that his J. S. Dances (2002) leaves me wondering if I alone am deaf to the marvels of his muse. The piece is described as a “free fantasy” on the Menuet II and Gigue from Bach’s keyboard Partita No. 1, BWV 825. In this case, “free” strikes me as a synonym for disorganized and undisciplined. I hear nothing of continuity, shape, or form to this eight-minute romp that veers back and forth between snatches of recognizable Bach and fragmentary fractionalizations of Bach as if filtered through a prism. There seems to be no rhyme or reason for the abrupt juxtapositions of styles, fabrics, and colors, which are sewn together like a patchwork quilt. Perhaps hearing other works by Grantham would help me to understand what others find praiseworthy in his music.

Daniel Godfrey’s Shindig (2001) is another matter altogether. Quite apart from the programmatic scenario Godfrey himself paints—a big barn dance in which the solo horn plays the role of the braggart, continually cutting in and demanding center stage—I hear a piece that is not all that far removed from the Hindemith Kammermusik. What we have here is a solo concerto for horn, or at least a chamber concerto featuring a solo horn as protagonist. The music is clearly dance-derived in its highly repetitive and heavily accented rhythmic motives, punctuated by frequent chords. The work is tightly organized and brilliantly scored, which makes its 11-minutes-plus duration seem shorter than it is. The solo part sounds horrifically difficult; William Scharnberg turns in a virtuoso performance of the first order. Overall, an interesting and recommended addition to the Klavier Wind Project collection, the Shostakovich and Grantham notwithstanding. Excellent sound and recording.

Jerry Dubins, FANFARE