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"The Tuskegee Study"
1932
A top
Transitions..
NCllW f
Listiafs h tir
-
1972
In Alabama, hundreds of black men were deceived, betrayed
and denied treatment for syphilis by the U S. Government.
Should medical research take precedence over human lives?
MISS EVERS' BOYS
SEE VOIfiT
BY DAVID FELDSHUH
THE
REP
February 22 - March 29
Tickets & Showtimes Call: 224-4491
PO RT1AND REPERTORY THEATRE • 2 W O R L D TRADE CENTER • 25 SW S A LM O N
the
,
C harts
Composer John Corigliano whose Symphony No. 1 evokes
the anguish of AIDS, makes challenging approachable music
,
▼
by Bob R oehr
ohn Corigliano is a hot musical property
these days. “Of Rage and Remem
brance,” on RCA Red Seal, is high among
the Billboard classical charts as the first
recording Leonard Slatkin chose to make
with the National Symphony Orchestra in Wash
ington, D.C. And two other record labels have
released CDs of Corigliano’s work in the last six
months.
"Of Rage and Remembrance” is a serious
J
work: a cantata for orchestra and chorus on the
subject of AIDS. The music is drawn from the
third movement of his brooding, anguished and
highly regarded Symphony No. 1, also on the CD.
The text by William M. Hoffman begins:
This is the season o f stone:
Dead leaves on a garden wall,
Dry berries in bone-cold air,
A brittle moon, an ashen sun.
Corigliano calls it “my little quilt for friends.”
And like the AIDS Memorial Quilt, the work
embodies contradictory emotions— melancholy,
an edge of bitterness, and also the warm remem
brance of things that made each friendship so
special.
“I leave the audience with, ‘All right, you’ve
lost all these people. The rage is there, the loss is
there, the remembrance is there. What now? How
do you face all of that? How do you go on?’
"You have to come to terms with that. All of us
in the gay community have to
come to terms with what do
you do when you have lost
hundreds of people, and you
get up the next morning. You
don’t dismiss it, but if you walk
around truly depressed about
it you aren’t doing any good
either. How do you face life
then?
“You go on and be true to
the ones you love. The way for
me was the idea of eternal
memory as a way of keeping
people alive. I’m not saying it
was a new thought. I’m just
saying it is how we get
through.”
Corigliano, at 58, seems in
mid morph between boy won
der and elder statesman. His
body is trim and moves with
the quick agility and energy of
an athlete, while his hair is
mutating to the type of thick
silver mane one associates with
classical eminence.
His music is often demand-
ing— not likely to replace
Vivaldi as background for
brunch. But it is not demand John Corigliano
ing in the academic sense of
the 12 tone system which drove audiences from
concert halls in the 1960s. No, Corigliano oper
ates within an accessible melodic tradition: He
can write a pleasant tune, but he has something
more to say. There is an intensity to what he writes
that requires you to listen to it, not merely hear it.
“Commercial music is mainly meant to get
you to listen to everything the first time,” he says,
“but noncommercial music has this layered qual
ity to it.” The composer has to “entice” the listener
at first hearing, but “at the same time hold forth
these wonderful things down the line” that en
courage and reward repeated listening.
He says that “every piece is a difficult piece to
write.” He works slowly, on but a single project at
a time, and builds a rational structure “from the
idea of the piece.” The melody “has to develop
from the architecture” of the total work. Only as
it nears completion does he sort out offers to
match up and finalize a commission.
Corigliano’s personal intensity is apparent
one dreary day in April as "Of Rage and Remem
brance” is recorded at the Kennedy Center. His
entire being seems dedicated to the process. He
follows the score through lowered glasses, as eye
and ear measure each note pulsing through the
maze of the control board. His hands move as if
conducting, then dart to make a notation on the
page. A jaw muscle flexes with a tic of tension.
Pitch, tone, balance, intonation, he absorbs all
and makes his suggestions to the recording crew.
Sometimes it is to correct a phrasing of the singers
or a balance in the microphone, once he pleads
“softer, more ethereal” in the phrasing of a sec
tion. Tension mounts. During a short pause while
conductor Leonard Slatkin walks back from the
control room to the podium, Corigliano paces to
the wall and pushes himself off a couple of times
in a standing push-up.
Which section should they run through again
to lay down yet another, perhaps more perfect,
track? They count down the final minutes of
recording time; union work rules mean that even
a few seconds over will be very expensive. And
finally it is done, the session over.
Corigliano has endured this process repeat
edly this past year. The recordings include a string
quartet commissioned for the farewell tour of the
Cleveland Quartet, recorded by that group and
released by Telarc (CD-80415).
PHOTO BY TONI
Sff an
The label also released an all-Corigliano CD
(Telarc CD-80421) by I Fiamminghi, The Or
chestra of Flanders. It brings together a handful of
his shorter and generally lighter pieces along with
the première recording of “Creations.” The text of
“Creations” is drawn from the first chapters of the
Bible and is spoken by openly gay actor Sir Ian
McKellen. The music is more abstract than many
of the composer’s other pieces.
Almost all of Corigliano’s work has been
recorded now, so don’t look for a flood of new
offerings any time soon. But the existing catalog
is deep and offers endless hours of repeated,
rewarding listening enjoyment.