American Classics: John Alden Carpenter

Despite many moments of great emotional tenderness throughout his oeuvre, Carpenter is not one of those composers whose music seeks to probe emotionals depths as much as it seeks to engage in the play of the mind. For example, the First Symphony's entire musical material is drawn from the very opening theme which is then subjected to continual variation, leading to the final peroration, said theme all the while retaining just enough of its contours to remain recognizable to those listening closely. The result is a compact, close-knit work with a sense of great unity and nearly a surfeit of event in its 20 minute duration.

The Second Symphony is more original. The first movement boasts a new found spareness, harmonies based on 4ths and a swiftly shifting, kaleidescopic emotional canvas ranging from epic portent and ambiguity to beguiling playfulness. The second movement is very nervous and ambiguous of feeling, with a constant heartbeat of a pulse. The third movement is apparently based upon a theme the composer heard while vacationing in Egypt, and it shows throughout. It begins with a trundling rhythm suggesting the movement of a caravan, the theme is passed through the entire orchestra a most colorful manner until a cyclic recollection of material from the second movement brings a swift, crushing coda. For me, this work is the highlight of the disc.

In all this music Carpenter shows himself to be one of the great orchestrators as well as a most skilled manipulator of orchestral material. While Adventures in a Perambulator is delightful, it clearly shows his root influences, all of which are absorbed into a subtle, personal style by the time of the symphonies. Carpenter grew far beyond the simple (yet affecting) romanticism of Adventures and the concert hall jazz of his ballet Skyscrapers, and I hope these artists will bring us much more of the mature Carpenter, such as his Patterns and the Carmel Concerto.

Be adventurous with Carpenter and you will not be disappointed.

They have the quirky, syncopated rhythms of jazz, and a melodic contour that just sounds American, despite Gallic overtones. The first symphony, a 1940 reworking of a piece that first saw life in 1916-17, is a work whose sound world isn't very distant from that of "Adventures," even though Carpenter overhauled the earlier work pretty drastically. It's a kaleidoscopic piece that might well on some hearings sound like a suite and at other times sound like a genuine symphony. That's because the piece is in one movement though five distinct sections that examine different moods in the manner of character pieces or brief tone poems. But then the two "slow" movements of the work frame on that clearly corresponds to a symphonic scherzo, and the largo finale also clearly builds to an effective peroration that is very symphonic. All these sections are marked either moderato or largo, but there are so many tempo variations that the work has none of the statis of, say, a late Shoshtakovich string quartet in which the tempos seem all to be slow and slower yet. Carpenter's orchestration is colorful and highly skillful with lots of high percussion such as celesta and glockenspiel, as it is in "Adventures," though it also seems a bit too populist for its own good and might remind some of movie music. Still, this is an enjoyable work that deserves an airing in the concert hall.

Even more distinguished is the Second Symphony of 1947, again a reworking of an earlier piece. This symphony is built more along traditional symphonic lines, with a first movement that starts in very dramatic style and then develops into a cheerful, balletic affair that balances rumbustiousness with episodes of seductive langor. The second movement has is a blend of drama and longing in the manner of Samuel Barber, while the last movement, based on an Algerian melody that Carpenter heard on vacation, is a strong, driven piece, jazzy and with a sort of tongue-in-cheek martial air about it.

This ripely colorful music might not appeal to all, but it is certainly skillfully put together by a true musical craftsman. The performances by John M. Williams and the Ukrainian orchestra are fine indeed, matching the many moods of the music. And Naxos has supplied one of the finer recordings in its American Classics series: big, bright, yet airy. Give this one a try.