Steven Mackey (b1956) – not to be confused with the bassist of Jarvis Cocker’s band‚ Pulp – is an electric guitarist of a distinctly American stripe‚ his youthful enthusiasm for rock bands having been supplemented by hard academic graft sufficient to secure him a teaching post at Princeton University. His music is individual enough to be hard to place‚ skilfully conceived for fundamentally conventional forces (albeit with knobs on) but rather less indebted to traditional Western concert music than the work of Christopher Rouse or John Adams‚ for all their involvement with drum kit and keyboards respectively. It is hard to imagine Mackey agreeing with the former that‚ ‘I’m not going to talk about rock and roll any more…I feel the wagons have been circled‚ and I’m going to stick with my high­falutin’‚ elitist‚ dead­white­European male brethren and‚ if necessary‚ go down fighting.’ Indeed‚ with its liberated attitude to style and manner‚ Mackey’s current idiom is content to aim for ‘a “Roadrunner” cartoon kind of physicality’. His Physical Property‚ for quartet and electric guitar‚ was a highlight of the Kronos Quartet’s ‘Short Stories’ (Nonesuch‚ 8/93). This‚ his first orchestral collection on CD‚ though by no means an easy play and certainly not easy listening‚ sits comfortably with the postmodern ethos of our times. Unless I have missed something‚ we are being offered no agonised attempt at rapprochement with past traditions‚ no big statement. Tuck and Roll is just a bit – or‚ rather‚ quite a lot – of freewheeling‚ genre­defying fun. The work that lends the programme its name is an electric guitar concerto in which the orchestra ‘orchestrates’ the guitar‚ commenting‚ copying and amplifying. Mackey’s own solo contribution is unambiguously terrific and his orchestral writing can be both minutely expressive and grandly gestural; he has an enviable ear for colour. Yes‚ it all seems very episodic on a first hearing‚ and yet some sort of expressive continuity is maintained throughout its four movements. Lost and Found operates on a smaller scale. It’s a compact instrumental toccata‚ but probably too disjunct to achieve the popularity of‚ say‚ Adams’s Short Ride in a Fast Machine. The chopping and changing‚ though very much part of the point‚ will alarm some listeners. I’d say the sheer drive and variety of pace carries all before it as Copland­style strings‚ Stravinskyish winds and eccentric brasses are pitched into a cut­and­paste world of in­jokes and sly references. I may be giving the impression that this is flippant music‚ but then Mackey’s control of sonority is something else again. The ideas keep coming‚ and always in unexpected‚ iridescent garb. Eating Greens (don’t ask) is perhaps more difficult to appreciate‚ if only because there is nothing like the central guitar performance of Tuck and Roll for the ear to latch on to. As usual‚ the component parts are full of impertinent ideas that jump­cut across boundaries and expectations. ‘Waffling (sic)’ [sic]‚ the second section‚ embraces a familiar Christmas wassail and a snatch of telemessage. The scoring is as extravagant as you might expect in a commission intended for the Chicago SO. All the same‚ you can forget Chicago now. No one lucky enough to have caught the young musicians of the New World Symphony on tour will be surprised by their sensational playing here – alive‚ idiomatic and with excellent contributions from individual soloists. While Mackey sometimes asks for weird effects‚ nothing is too wacky for Michael Tilson Thomas. He is in his element in this sort of repertoire – as many of his conducting peers are not – and it is good to see him following Leonard Bernstein’s lead in taking up composers younger than himself. I cannot imagine this music better performed or recorded. I do wonder whether it will survive in the hands of less gifted protagonists. On this evidence‚ the most enduring aspect of Mackey’s art may be the opportunities he has given to virtuoso practitioners of his own instrument.