YEHUDI WYNER: Piano Concerto, “Chiavi in Mano”; Cello Concerto, “Prologue and Narrative”; Lyric Harmony; Epilogue: In memory of Jacob Druckman – Robert Levin, piano/ Maximilian Hornung, cello/ Boston Symphony/ Robert Spano, conductor/ Odense Symphony/ Festival Orchestra of Boston/ Susan Davenny Wyner, conductor – Bridge 9282, 71:57 ****[Distr. by Albany]:
These are four outstanding works by a composer probably unknown to most classical listeners, though the number of awards he has garnered should belie that assertion. Wyner was a member of the Bach Aria Group for 30 years, and has taught composition in some ofhte finest schools in the country, including Bradeis and Yale. The Piano Concerto, “Keys in Hand” (a play on the mantra that so many Italian car salesman say—”buy the car and the keys are yours”) won the Pulitzer Prize in 2006, and it is a dandy. It reminds me of Prokofiev in its wide melodic skips, Rachmaninov in its use of the chordal bass line, and even the minimalists with its incessant and sometimes repetitious rhythms. This is a full-blooded, easy on the fingers and ears, but still challenging concerto that wastes no time in establishing its credentials through a series of mammoth and complex interweaving of the piano with the orchestra, also handled with an adeptness and Strauss-like skill. Conductor Spano was the perfect choice for this work, and the BSO, recorded at home in what is one of the best halls anywhere, plays like heroes for one of its favorite contemporary composers.
The other pieces are hardly less compelling. The Cello Concerto is in many ways more attractive than the piano, and could easily have won the prize as well, albeit 10 years earlier. There is more jazz flavor to this work, but Wyner doesn’t beat you over the head with it. The richness and superb writing for the cello milks the instrument’s best qualities, surely something more composers should take note of, and makes this work a staple item if ever there was one. Hopefully it will get the attention it deserves. Lyric Harmony is a tantalizing orchestral tone poem, almost expressionistic in nature, and certainly a piece that should satisfy anyone interested in hearing a modern take on what Schoenberg abandoned early on. The luscious sonorities tickle the ears in a manner most pleasing and hypnotically draw one into its sound-world. The last piece here, the Epilogue, according to the notes is an extension of the Lyric Harmony, and it does seem to provide some resolution to otherwise indeterminate emotional feelings.
The three works conducted by the composer’s wife Susan are all done as spectacularly as the Spano reading, even the Odense Symphony, often captured in some rather cavernous and none-too-flattering acoustics. And the playing is as gifted and on the money as the BSO. A fine disc all around, and a composer well worth getting to know.
— Steven Ritter
