GEORGE WALKER: Address for Orchestra; Overture: In Praise of Folly; Sinfonia No. 1; Sinfonia No. 3; Hoopla (A Touch of Glee) – Sinfonia Varsovia / Ian Hobson – Albany

by | Dec 27, 2008 | Classical CD Reviews | 0 comments

GEORGE WALKER: Address for Orchestra; Overture: In Praise of Folly; Sinfonia No. 1; Sinfonia No. 3; Hoopla (A Touch of Glee) – Sinfonia Varsovia / Ian Hobson – Albany Records TROY 1061; 62:18 ****:

This release is billed as “Great American Orchestral Works Volume 1”, so promises much of interest to come. George Walker, born in 1922, had the same composition teacher, Rosario Scalero, as Barber and Menotti, the result of which is some very finely crafted pieces.

The Address for Orchestra was Walker’s first composition for orchestra, written in 1958, orchestrated in 1959, performed in part in 1968 before gaining the popularity it has today. In three movements, this is a strong and confident work; the first movement opens with a slow introduction then gains pace using complex rhythm patterns and dance rhythms. The second, shorter, slow movement has a single theme, deep and moving repeated by soloists in the bass register. The last movement is a passacaglia, and this, too, plumbs hidden depths. Serious, yet accessible, this has been a rewarding composition to hear.

The two Sinfonias are of sterner stuff. The first, as the excellent anonymous notes tell us, is a short work – short in part due to the paucity of the fee offered by the Fromm Foundation for its writing. This First was Walker’s second work for orchestra, and dates from 1984. Both Sinfonias display iridescent colours, though the hue can be dark.

Overture: In Praise of Folly begins with much seriousness, though becomes increasingly playful and teasing with satire and the sardonic to the fore. Hints of American tunes come and go, tunes from different origins, for example “Joshua Fit De Battle of Jericho” and “America the Beautiful”.

Hoopla (A Touch of Glee) was commissioned in 2005 to celebrate Las Vegas’ 100th birthday, and first performed there by the resident orchestra. Very much a celebratory piece, it has hints of a Thomas “Fats” Waller tune, but it is not a tone poem depicting the “whirr of jangling slot machines”!

Walker was the first Afro-American to be awarded a Pulitzer Prize for Music, and Overture: In Praise of Folly’s was chosen by Zubin Mehta for its premier in New York in 1981; the sixth performance was included in the first concert the New York Philharmonic Orchestra gave in Harlem.

Sinfonia Varsovia, one of Poland’s top orchestras is led superbly by Ian Hobson who has done so much work for this label. Excellent sonics complete the picture for this, I hope, first of many volumes in Albany’s new series.

— Peter Joelson

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