BRUCE CALE: Cello Concerto; Valleys & Mountains Suite; Violin Concerto – David Pereira, cello/ Helen Donaldson, soprano/ Leonard Dommett, violin/ Queensland Sym./ Max McBride, Patrick Thomas, conductors/ Tasmanian Sym./Dobbs Frank – Tall Poppies

by | Dec 12, 2007 | Classical CD Reviews | 0 comments

BRUCE CALE: Cello Concerto, op. 65; Valleys & Mountains Suite, op. 64; Violin Concerto, op.43 – David Pereira, cello/ Helen Donaldson, soprano/ Leonard Dommett, violin/ Queensland Symphony Orchestra/ Max McBride, Patrick Thomas, conductors/ Tasmanian Symphony Orchestra/ Dobbs Frank, conductor – Tall Poppies TP188 [Albany], 66:37 ***:

Bruce Cale is a composer with origins in the jazz world, specifically George Russell and his composer’s orchestra a profound influence. He spends most of his time in Australia, and the works on this disc are from broadcast tapes of the Australian Broadcasting Corporation, evidently burdened with a policy of not holding onto their reel-to-reel tapes longer than they have to. This CD is from remastered cassette tape recordings of these broadcasts, and you will notice that. [Amazing!…Ed.]

The sound is recorded at a very high level, so turn down the volume at least five notches lower than normal. It is also very close, and verges on the distorted, though I must confess that the louder passages tend more towards monophonic than distortion when things get really rowdy. The tapes were made from 1985 (Violin Concerto), 1989 (Valleys and Mountains), and 1990 (Cello Concerto), and sound progressively better in that order.

The music: It is of course very tonal, very complex in the richness of the orchestration, and the one word that kept popping into my mind was ecstatic. It is unrelieved, continuous ecstasy that becomes almost unbearable after a while, like the arrow the cherubim shot through the heart of Teresa of Avila. The Cello concerto, played to the hilt by David Pereira, also has a soprano singing a poem that is, by nature, you guessed it—ecstatic. I am not sure the combination works well, but I cannot argue with the comprehensive way the cello is treated, and the music is quite beautiful.

The Valleys and Mountains Suite is a piece that was composed for student musicians to play that sounds like a natural extension of the tone of the Cello concerto. I guess that is the trouble with most of this music, like one long extended piece with only the orchestration varying. The Violin Concerto is the worst here, and it is very good, but the playing of Mr. Dommett is not first class, and the recording does little to flatter him.

I can recommend this for its intrinsic musical qualities and fine sense of unmannered emotion. I found much of it beautiful. But the sound is variable, and so in the end it must be a qualified go-ahead for those adventurous enough to explore beauty in strange places, with the caveat that the presentation is not up to the highest standards.

— Steven Ritter  

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