It was an imaginative idea to celebrate the influence of the distinguished American choreographer, Martha Graham, by releasing five of the ballet scores she commissioned in the 1940s. The guiding spirit here is Andrew Schenck, an enthusiast for Barber as some of his other CDs on Koch show. (See1/91 for my comment on the first recording of Fadograph of a Yestern Scene and last month for CH on The lovers.) Even more original was the notion of recording these ballets, especially the familiar Copland and Barber, in terms of Graham's actual choreography, which can be studied on film. So the music is played as it would be danced, rather strictly. This approach is a special kind of authenticity (that word again!) to be applied to complete ballet scores, a way of dealing with theatre music outside the theatre. Schenck claims that listeners may find the complete scores more acceptable on record than in the concert-hall.
Maybe. But in any case these are all convincing performances which show that attention to their genesis can be revealing. The first CD provides all Barber's music for Cave of the Heart (one title Graham gave to Medea) rather than the suite: Appalachian Spring is already well served in complete recordings of both the chamber and full-orchestra versions (see 11/90 for my ''Gramophone Collection'' feature) but both these performances are worth having and decently recorded.
I found the second CD the more attractive offering William Schuman's Night Journey, a response to the Oedipus myth staged in 1947. This was a breakthrough work for Schuman, on the edge of his maturity as a composer at a time when he was President of the Juilliard School of Music which he reformed. In a sense Night Journey must have been a response to Appalachian Spring and there are connections between all the works here they are scored for similar resources taken from single woodwind, horn, piano and strings. A sensible and practical group for the theatre.
There are many individual aspects of Night Journey—the regular pulse supporting continuous melody at 2'35''; the bitonal chorale at 9'30'' which comes back later; the fussy, jazzy allegro fragments which become a bit over-extended without anything visual, repeated chords at 13'38'' and 18'47'', and a noble elegiac coda. These moods inform Schuman's subsequent symphonies and remind us of an unusual figure in American music who, at his best, should not be allowed to fall under the shadow of figures with larger international reputations.
The Menotti was another reminder. This neat neo-classical score, Errand into the Maze comes from one of Menotti's best periods and is an exact contemporary of The Telephone. Hindemith's Herodiade should not be forgotten either—in mellow late style based on a poem by Mallarme and, like everything here, convincingly played by the Atlantic Sinfonietta. There are still plenty more Graham ballets to add to the collection!PD