The Pulitzers are meant to be enjoyed

How many times have you read in your newspaper that the Pulitzer Prize in music has been awarded to a certain person and asked yourself, "I wonder what that sounds like?"

Chances are, you might never learn what that piece of music sounds like.

Let`s say for the year 1999, the Pulitzer Prize for music was awarded for a concerto for flute, strings and percussion - which, as it happens, was the case. Now where do you go to hear it?

The Pulitzer is offered for excellence in journalism (meritorious service, reporting, criticism or commentary, editorials, news photography, letters), fiction, drama, history, biography or autobiography, poetry and music - which means composition.

In each of the categories above, except the category for music, a newspaper or magazine story - or even a radio or television newscast - can tell you about the winner`s work or even show you a picture of it. But how are you going to tell a reader what a particular musical composition sounds like?

So what`s the answer to this? Of course, it`s recordings. And in this case, we are most fortunate that Bridge Records did record Wagner`s prize-winning work, somehow managing the cost of such an undertaking, which is considerable.

As for the composition itself, I find it a delight from beginning to end. Most of all, I like the modern idiom Wagner has written into her score while at the same time maintaining a classical style of the highest order. The entire piece is infused with melodic lines written most appropriately for flute. The composer`s use of an orchestra of strings - with a judicious use of percussion - lets us hear the solo instrument prominently without being pushed to overcome the power of the woodwind and brass choirs. It`s interesting to read what Wagner says of her work:

"I wanted to include, of course, the virtuosic, rapid-fire passagework that sounds so good on the flute. However, I did not want the instrument to merely weave and bob and float delicately atop the piece, but rather to participate fully in its compositional and formal rigor - not as a `hero` beating the odds but as an artistic beacon or navigator."

I should say the composer accomplished her aim admirably.

It was the soloist on this recording, Paul Dunkel, who requested that the composer write a flute concerto. Dunkel is the founding music director of the Westchester Philharmonic and resident conductor of the American Composers Orchestra, based in Carnegie Hall. He also has held the position of principal flutist with a number of prestigious orchestras and is active as a flute virtuoso.

Mark Mandarano is assistant conductor of the Pacific Symphony in Orange County, Calif., and has conducted other orchestras in the United States and Russia.

Soloist, conductor and orchestra do a splendid job in combining forces to give Wagner`s concerto an excellent and what I take to be a most authentic reading.

Poul Ruder`s "Concerto in Pieces" is written in one of the oldest and most honored of compositional forms: a theme and a number of variations.

As the title of the work informs us, the theme is by the great English composer Henry Purcell (1659-1695). And therein lay a tough nut for Ruders to crack: He was faced with the demanding job of writing a work worthy to commemorate two important events in English musical history - and indeed, in the musical history of all the world.

The year 1955 was the tercentenary of the death of Purcell. And the next year, 1966, was the 50th anniversary of Benjamin Britten`s astonishingly brilliant "The Young Persons` Guide to the Orchestra," which was also written on a theme of Purcell.

And it was Ruders, a Dane, who was asked to write a work commemorating both of the events. Ergo, the tough nut.

Ruder said, "The challenge at trying to do a `showpiece` with an educational angle based on Purcell presented too much compositional temptation for me to resist."

But he added:

"One thing was clear, though, from the beginning: If I wanted to come out of this venture alive, I`d have to choose a Purcell theme as far away in shape and nature from the marvelous one Britten selected for `Young Persons` Guide.`"

Britten selected a dance tune from Purcell`s opera "Abdelazar, or The Moor`s Revenge." Ruders selected "the fast, swinging Ho-Ho-Ho witches` chorus from the beginning of Act II of `Dido and Aeneas.`"

Good selection. Nobody could suggest that Ruders chose that theme with the idea of trying to compete with Britten. As Ruders himself put it, if he had done that, "well, I (might) just as well jump out the window."

Nevertheless what are the similar things about the two sets of variation on Purcell? First of all, the instrumentation: Both composers run the gamut of the instruments of the orchestra. Ruders extends the instrumentation by using a solo alto saxophone, a synthesizer, "bending" flutes and horns, and adding tubular bells and gongs being lowered into water pails. Britten never strays far from the original theme, achieving his variations through various traditional usage of traditional instruments, different rhythms and an assortment of dynamics. Ruders says of his work, "... the whole set of Variations (becomes) like a walk through a mirror-gallery. We begin with the recognizable musical `portrait,` but the further we travel into the hall of mirrors, the more disfigured and contorted the picture becomes."

That`s exactly what we hear. And in achieving his chosen goal, the composer uses his instruments in a most inventive manner.

This work is conducted by one of the finest conductors of our time, Sir Andrew Davis, conducting the equally fine BBC Symphony Orchestra in an exciting presentation of the work.

The disc concludes with an interview with the composers. This will prove most helpful to those who want to know why the composers wrote their works the way they did.

Bravos all around, to the soloist, both conductors, both orchestras, and especially to gutsy Bridge Records.

(c) Copley News Service

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Author: King Durkee