Little connects the two works on this record other than the American nationality of the composers. George Rochberg's far from slight Oboe Concerto of 1984, which plays in a continuous 18-minute movement, is lyrically expressive in a way that links it with the late romantics. Jacob Druckman's Prism, on the other hand, is a nightmarish fantasy in which excerpts from three pre-classical operas are variously metamorphosed into grotesque parodies of themselves, all in the service of this composer's long-standing fascination with the legend of Medea. Together the two works add up to just 41 minutes of music, which seems unnecessarily meagre.
Of the two pieces it is Rochberg's Concerto that I should choose to hear more often. Unashamedly eclectic in its stylistic range, it's a serious work that exudes a slightly bitter, melancholy tone throughout, exploring in the process the more introspective side of the oboe's character in melodic sweeps that are rarely contrived for mere brilliance or display. If vivid memories of Berg, Stravinsky and (in the perkier music at the centre of the work) Prokofiev sometimes seen unhappy at being made to co-inhabit a single large movement, Rochberg does at least have the ability to develop his material into a pleasingly concentrated argument. There is some lovely, rich oboe playing from Joseph Robinson.
Like several other post-war American scores, including, most memorably, Lukas Foss's Baroque Variations, the aim of Druckman's Prism is to transform familiar sounds from the music of the past into a sort of bad dream. In this case the victims are three Medea operas, by Charpentier, Cavalli and Cherubini. Various surreal distortions and juxtapositions combine with Technicolor orchestration to make this a superficially startling experience; some might call it an 'audio nasty'. Like so many horror films, though, it's questionable whether the invention of the score really stands up to many repeated listenings.'