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Brash Attacks; Ironies; Gravitas; Three Short Pieces for Piano; Timeshare; Sour Flowers; Senza Furore Sycil Mathai, trumpet; Mike Boschen, trombone; YannDubost, double bass; Laura Ahlbeck, oboe; Moran Katz, clarinet; Sophie Shao, cello; Janet Arms, flute; Laura Flax, clarinet; Ah Ling Neu, viola; Richard Wilson, piano; Albany Records Troy 1080 |
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Diablerie; Piano Trio; Figuration; Three Interludes; Lord Chesterfield to his Son; Motivations Rolf Schulte, violin; Sophie Shao; cello; Allen Blustine, clarinet; Richard Wilson, piano. Albany Troy 773 This disc makes a fine entry point into Wilson's compositional world, in which chamber music has always played a large role... Highly recommended -- Wilson's totally engaging sonic world makes for engrossing and completely appealing listening. --Carson Cooman, Music and Vision |
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String Quartet No. 3 and 4; Canzona Chicago String Quartet w/ Gail Williams, horn. Albany Troy 573 I find myself enjoying Richard Wilson's music more with every encounter. Part of it is the integrity it projects, the composer having chosen to stick with a language many consider outmoded-- chromatic, precisely angular, definitely an outgrowth of the Second Viennese School... As a consequence, the music sounds natural and imaginative. Wrenching emotion and whimsy can coexist.. For me the real standout is the 1983 Third... Its intensity grows throughout its course, and the final movement, with its strophic returns, is beautiful and searing." --Robert Carl, Fanfare |
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Robert Osborne, Elizabeth Weigle, Drew Minter, Andrew Childs, Jonathan Goodman, Curtis Streetman, Thea Tullman; Allen Blustine, clar; Rolf Schulte, vn; Dorothy Lawson, vc; Blanca Uribe, pno; Paul Hostetter and Matthew Gold, perc; Richard Wilson, conductor. Albany Troy 512 "[The opera] Aethelred the Unready turns out to be a work of whimsy and even an occasional belly laugh, though there are also genuinely touching moments in it to remind us of the eternal human need for self-esteem.... joyously recommended." --Barry Cohen, The New Music Connoisseur |
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Affirmations; Civilizations and Its Discontents; Intercalations; Transfigured Goat David Fedele, fl; Allen Blustine, clar; Rolf Schulte, vn; Dorothy Lawson, vc; Blanca Uribe, pno; Stephen Johns, tuba; Blanca Uribe, piano; Richard Lalli, baritone; Mary Ann Hart, mezzo-soprano; Allen Blustine, clarinet; Richard Wilson, piano. Albany Troy 389 This is an enterprising, entertaining anthology, and the idiom is more than accessible to those who approach with an open mind. Wilson provides his own succinct notes, giving a short history of each work without an excess of detail, but sufficient for the listener to get a toehold on the music and go on to make his or her own discovery. Not all music should pander to the listener - sometimes, it should make its own challenge, and this is one such collection. --William Beh, The Flying Inkpot |
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The Ballad of Longwood Glen; Eclogue; Music for Violin and Cello; Music for Solo Flute; String Quartet No. 3; Concert Piece Paul Sperry, tenor; Nancy Allen, harp; Blanca Uribe, piano; Fred Sherry, cello; Yoko Matsuda, violin; Harvey Sollberger, flute; the Muir String Quartet; Rolf Schulte, violin; Ursula Oppens, piano. CRI 602 "The major work in this compendium of American composer Richard Wilson's music is the Third Quartet. Atonal in language, late-romantic in emotion, this quartet moves froma vernal, flowering, lyrical opening movement of considerable freshness and beauty, through a more impersonla central schero, to a complex and passionate final elegy of visionary intensity. This is a serious, well-crafted, uncompromising, powerful quartet that should not be dismissed as academic... Performances and recording are excellent indeed." --Mark Lehman, American Record Guide |
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Choral Music: Stresses in the Peaceable Kingdom William Appling Singers; William Appling, conductor. Albany Troy 333 "This disc compiles the complete choral music of Richard Wilson...Wilson's choral music is based on tonality, with use, for example of fourth-based or whole-tone harmonies, along with other standard 20th-century approaches. He wisely keeps the voices moving in smooth, usually stepwise motion; he sets the texts in a straightforward way, generally syllabically. Pulse is steady, for the most part. The chorus is occasionally asked to speak, but Wilson avoids other kinds of non-traditional excursions....[Appling's choristers]. achieve a nicely refined surface appropriate for the Wilson's equally refined, very idiomatic, and straightforward choral writing. There's no Verdi here; Thomson and Schuman come to mind as direct predecessors, not overly dramatic, more subtle than bombastic, and generally following the lead of the text. Recommended for fans of the choral genre." Fanfare Magazine |
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Concerto
for Bassoon and Chamber Orchestra; Suite for Small Orchestra "This disc presents concertos by two highly accomplished American composers, played by fine soloists and a simply outstanding chamber orchestra under Leon Botstein. The music is interesting, the recording well produced, the product fully recommendable...Wilson's bassoon concerto takes as its chief artistic challenge correcting his chosen instrument's image as something of a buffoon. He has made a piece with English horn, French horn, cello, bass clarinet, and contrabassoon, always in such a way as to establish a recognizable personality for the soloist... Wilson's "Suite" shares the concerto's overall sophistication in tone and means. By turns aggressive, driving, and plaintive, it proves to be a challenging yet appealing piece, both intellectually and emotionally satisfying." Fanfare Magazine |
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Concerto
for Piano and Orchestra "...Better than these two is Richard Wilson's Piano Concerto. Wilson is the youngest of the three, and his concerto is the technically most accomplished of the three, with its density of musical discourse and very melodic idiom. It is for Wilson's concerto, and particularly the subtle emotional shadings of its beautiful slow movement that I will return to this disc with a willing ear." American Record Guide |
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Persuasions:
Cantata for Soprano and Chamber Ensemble; Fixations; Viola Sonata; Lord
Chesterfield to His Son "Here's an unpretentious record filled with lovely music. Richard Wilson (b. 1941) studied at Harvard and Rutgers and is Professor of Music at Vassar. Despite my proximity to that institution, his music is new to me, and the discovery is a delight. Wilson writes in an invigorating style which is reminiscent of, but less intellectually stern than that of John Harbison....The three instrumental works which follow Persuasions also describe a composer with interesting, original ideas who is neither tied to any system nor afraid to make use of past forms....This is a very nice disc on all counts." Fanfare |
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Symphony No. 1; Tribulations; Gnomics; Viola Sonata New Zealand Symphony, James Sedares, conductor; Mary-Ann Hart, mezzo-soprano; Richard Wilson, piano; Laura Flax, clarinet; Laura Ahlbeck, oboe; Randy Bowmann, flute; Misha Amory, viola; Blanca Uribe, piano. Koch International 3-7483-2 "The four works recorded here draw a pleasant profile of a free-minded composer who follows his own middle way, neither openly avant-garde nor strictly conservative. The bold Symphony No. 1 (1984) is in turn reminiscent of Berg, Schoenberg, Dallapiccola, and perhaps Copland and Dutilleux, but keeps a distinguished, personal accent all along, underlined by thick chromatic harmonies. Broad gestures oppose the different orchestral families and alternate with chamber music-like episodes. The four movements, subtitled Preparation-Action-Contemplation-Reaction, astutely reproduce the traditional symphonic form, with a scherzo and a slow movement in second and third positions." --Luca Sabbatini, Classics Today |
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Haskell Small, piano. Ongaku 114 "an imaginative recording...There is a sophistication in this material and performance that will appeal to adults as much as to the children.." --Tim Page, The Washington Post |
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Three
Painters Richard Wilson wrote his “Three Painters” in 1985 as a present for his friend Barbara Haskell, who is a curator at the Whitney Museum of Art. Wilson is drawn to humorous texts - his two other major solo vocal works are also extremely witty. He has a catalog of approximately sixty works for orchestra, chamber groups and solo piano. He was born in Cleveland, Ohio in 1941 and since 1966 has been on the faculty at Vassar College. After having delighted in giving several performances (including the premiere) of his “Ballad of Longwood Glen” for tenor and harp on a scathingly funny Nabokov poem, I was more than eager to premiere these three painters with Irma Vallecillo in 1985 at Bard College. My greatest problem in performing them is not to laugh myself. --Paul Sperry |
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Georgine Resick, soprano; Warren Jones, piano. Bridge 9152 Soprano Georgine Resick's latest BRIDGE CD presents a fascinating recital of songs by male composers, based on poetry by women. The disc begins with the premiere recording of John Harbison's "Mirabai Songs" in their voice and piano version, and presents other rarely heard songs sung in French, German and English (translations enclosed). Of special interest is Korngold's voluptuous and rarely performed song cycle, "Unvergänglichkeit". Georgine Resick is an internationally recognized soprano in both the operatic and concert fields. Renowned for her Mozart and Strauss interpretations, she has sung a wide variety of leading roles with the Vienna State Opera, Chicago Lyric Opera, Paris Opera, Houston Grand Opera, and numerous others. Warren Jones has been the distinguished accompanist for Marilyn Horne, Luciano Pavarotti, Kiri Te Kanawa, Kathleen Battle and many other great vocalists of our time. Georgine Resick and Warren Jones's recent disc, "Songs of Aleksandr Grechaninov" (BRIDGE 9142), has received glowing reviews in the international press. |
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Tony Holt, baritone; John Jensen, piano. Innova #500 The AIDS Quilt Songbook was conceived by the late baritone Will Parker as a continually growing collections of art songs articulating the range of emotions occasioned by the impact of the AIDS epidemic on society. This recording includes: premiére recordings of six new songs for soprano voice commissioned by Parker for his last public appearance at the Walker Art Center in Minneapolis on December 1, 1992; premiére recordings of three songs for baritone voice from Parker's original collection not included on his earlier premiere Mundi compact disc, including Richard Wilson's The Second Law; two new songs contributed to the Songbook by Aaron Jay Kernis and Cary John Franklin; alternative performances of previously recorded songs by John Harbison, William Bolcom, and Chris Deblasio; and a live recording of John Musto's song Heartbeats. from Parker's own intensely moving final public performance. |
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