George Walker - Sinfonias Nos. 4 & 5; Antifonys; Lilacs (Franz Welser-Möst)

Information

Composer: George Walker

1. Antifonys for String Orchestra
2. Sinfonia No. 4 "Strands"
3. Lilacs for Voice and Orchestra: I. When lilacs last in the dooryard bloom'd
4. Lilacs for Voice and Orchestra: II. O powerful western fallen star!
5. Lilacs for Voice and Orchestra: III. In the dooryard fronting an old farm-house
6. Lilacs for Voice and Orchestra: IV. Sing on, sing on you gray-brown bird
7. Sinfonia No. 5, "Visions" (Voice and Orchestra)

Latonia Moore, soprano

Cleveland Orchestra

Franz Welser-Möst, conductor

Date: 2022

Label: Cleveland Orchestra

https://www.clevelandorchestra.com/discover/recordings/walker/

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Review

As orchestras make their programming more inclusive, I’m grateful they haven’t forgotten George Walker (1922-2018), a modernist whose music carries considerable expressive force. Over the years, the American indie label Albany Records has recorded a sizeable chunk of Walker’s work, including a series of fine performances of the composer’s orchestral music with the Sinfonia Varsovia under the direction of Ian Hobson, but these new recordings offer new insights.

Franz Welser-Möst and the Cleveland Orchestra’s sampler spans more than a half-century’s worth of Walker’s career, giving us a kind of bird’s-eye perspective that reveals some crucial through-lines in the composer’s oeuvre – most notably the palpable sense of struggle that fuels so much of his music. This struggle is as clearly discernible in Antiphonys (1968, played here in a version for string orchestra) as it is in his works from his final years.

All of Walker’s music is thorny and highly changeable on its surface, yet running throughout it all is an insistent riptide of lyricism. This lyrical element blossoms most impressively – and affectingly – in the Pulitzer Prize-winning Lilacs (1996), his song-cycle setting parts of Whitman’s elegy for Abraham Lincoln, ‘When Lilacs Last in the Dooryard Bloom’d’. Given the sombre subject matter, the music’s ecstatic nocturnal luminosity may come as a surprise. Latonia Moore seizes upon this rapturous quality, however, and although she sacrifices clarity of diction in the process, it feels very much a worthwhile trade.

Indeed, Welser-Möst generally responds most winningly to the lyrical elements in Walker’s music. Gianandrea Noseda, on the other hand – whose live recordings of the composer’s five brief but densely packed sinfonias are being released individually as ‘singles’ – focuses on the stark juxtapositions, and the results are notable for their dramatic frisson. Comparing their versions of the Sinfonia No 4 (2011), subtitled Strands to call attention to the music’s contrapuntal elements, both prove to be effective interpretative standpoints. Noseda’s is perhaps more immediately gripping, while Welser-Möst’s is more subtly inflected and has the advantage of the Cleveland Orchestra’s finesse.

The Sinfonia No 5, Visions (2016), exists in two versions: one with texts (terse statements, really) to be declaimed by soprano, tenor and two baritones, and one without. Hobson and Sinfonia Varsovia offer both (Albany, download only), while the Seattle Symphony has released a superb in-house recording (also download only) of the work’s posthumous 2019 premiere, led by Thomas Dausgaard (with texts). The score includes parts for a soprano, tenor and two baritones, but for some reason Welser-Möst employs a single voice. And while Tony F Sias is an authoritative speaker, I prefer Walker’s original multivoiced conception, as it suggests a kind of common effort rather than an aphoristic monologue. That said, Welser-Möst’s reading has more heft than Dausgaard’s, as well as greater poise.

For those unfamiliar with Walker’s music, the Cleveland Orchestra’s release would serve as an excellent introduction, especially as the booklet note includes a variety of scholarly essays as well as an illuminating interview with Walker’s sons.

-- Andrew Farach-Colton, Gramophone

More reviews:

https://www.classical-music.com/reviews/orchestral/g-walker-sinfonias-nos-4-5-etc-cleveland-welser-most

https://artmusiclounge.wordpress.com/2022/11/14/george-walkers-orchestral-music/

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George Walker (June 27, 1922 – August 23, 2018) was an American composer, pianist, and organist. He studied at the Oberlin Conservatory and the Curtis Institute, where his teachers included Rudolf Serkin, William Primrose, Gregor Piatigorsky and Rosario Scalero. Walker received his doctorate from the Eastman School of Music, and taught at Rutgers University until 1992. He published over 90 works and received commissions from the New York Philharmonic, Boston Symphony and many others. Walker was the first African American to win the Pulitzer Prize for Music, which he received for his work Lilacs in 1996.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/George_Walker_(composer)

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Franz Welser-Möst (born 16 August 1960) is an Austrian conductor. As a youth, he studied the violin, but switched to full-time conducting after a car crash. He has served as the principal conductor and music director of the Norrköping Symphony Orchestra (1986–91), the London Philharmonic Orchestra (1990–96), the Zürich Opera (2005–08), and Vienna State Opera (2010–14). Since 2002, Welser-Möst has been music director of the Cleveland Orchestra, with his most recent contract extension is through the 2026–27 season. He has recorded for EMI, Deutsche Grammophon and the Cleveland Orchestra's in-house label.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Franz_Welser-Möst

https://welsermoest.com/

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