I cannot see this disc making much headway beyond the boardrooms and production studios where Banter is a senior figure. Nor, if RL will permit (see “Quarterly retrospect”, 11/96), can I see Banter transforming himself into a great composer. All the music here is undermotivated and derivative stuff that toys with a variety of stylistic options without once alighting on an individual voice. Jazz is the most obvious import. The Rhapsodisches Intermezzo is juvenilia, an inferior Warsaw Concerto relocated to the palm court. The Marchenbilder concert suite is ersatz Nelson Riddle, its second movement uncannily like a Frank Sinatra number with the vocal line blotted out. The booklet-notes refer to it as “well-crafted entertainment music”. Prolog 2000 was written in 1972 and plumbs new depths: its tape interlude is risible and the remainder again derives from American commercial music – this time it’s science fiction TV themes of the 1960s. The vaguely Anglo-American pastorale of Tod des Aktaeon provides some respite but loses itself in a Delian quagmire.
The concluding work, a rhapsody for cello and orchestra, is the most substantial effort. The soloist is a fine player and she emotes impressively. Alas, that is scarcely enough when the music itself is so obstinately unmemorable. As in Prolog 2000, the composer relies on simple ostinatos to keep things going; there is some rudimentary serialism, a hint of Messiaen and again the MOR intrusions. I found the pompous final unison and (Mahler 2-style) descent into the abyss well nigh unendurable. Orchestral standards are understandably low in what will hopefully prove to be the worst record of my reviewing year. Or is it April 1st already?'