CD Revives Rarely Heard Orchestral Music of Creston

Conductor David Amos’ recently released compact disc recording of four orchestral works by Paul Creston is a fitting tribute to the late American composer. The prolific Creston, who lived in Rancho Bernardo from 1976 until his death in 1985, enjoyed great popularity in the 1940s and 1950s, the heyday of American symphonic music. He was commissioned to write for some of the major orchestras in this country, and his music was championed by such lions of the podium as Pierre Monteux, Eugene Ormandy and Arturo Toscanini.

By the 1960s, however, the musical trade winds abruptly changed direction. Along with the symphonies of fellow American composers Roy Harris, Howard Hanson, and Walter Piston, Creston’s unabashedly melodic, post-Romantic scores quickly fell out of favor and out of the orchestral repertory. Creston never ventured into serialism, chance music, or electronic composition, the trends that eclipsed his style of music. In a Times interview in 1984, Creston affirmed his abiding faith in his traditional approach.

“I have not done anything with electronic music because it is too artificial. It’s not natural. What is the most natural type of music? The human voice, of course. And every instrument has tried to imitate the human voice.”

Ironically, Creston’s reputation was sustained by a slender thread of works for exotic instruments, such as his Accordion Concerto, Sonata for Saxophone, and Concertino for for Marimba and Orchestra. Amos’ recording, made for Koch International last year with the Krakow Philharmonic, redresses this musical injustice and brings a sampling of Creston’s mainstream orchestral works back to the listener’s attention.

Two programmatic selections “Corinthians: XIII” and “Walt Whitman” display the composer’s vivid orchestrations and colorful harmonic palette. “Corinthians: XIII,” a 10-minute overture, distributes delicious solos among winds and strings, wrapping everything in lush, Impressionistic harmonies. The “Walt Whitman” tone poem claims to portray six excerpts from the poet’s “Leaves of Grass,” but it clearly stands on its own as an athletic, rhythmically vital essay for orchestra.

Though the Second Symphony may be Creston’s best-known symphony--it was premiered in 1944 by the New York Philharmonic--it lacks the structural clarity and organizational rigor one expects from the symphonic genre.

Under Amos’ sympathetic baton, the Creston pieces fare well. The Polish orchestra displays a warm, effusive sonority that aptly complements the idiom. The only drawbacks of these full-bodied performances are several stilted instrumental solos, as well as a shabbily executed trumpet line in “Corinthians: XIII.” Almost any local free-lance trumpeter could have turned out a smoother, more stylish representation of Creston’s jaunty lyricism.

Amos made the Koch International recording with a grant from the International Musicians’ Recording Fund. He went to Poland because the cost of hiring a full orchestra there was a mere fraction of the amount an American orchestra would charge. No doubt Creston, who survived an impoverished upbringing in an Italian-American immigrant family, would have appreciated the irony of such economizing.

Youth performs for youth. Next month, the La Jolla Chamber Music Society will launch its new educational outreach series, “Young Artists of Excellence.” Designed to send young professionals to perform in elementary and secondary schools, the series will also feature each artist in a solo recital at La Jolla’s Sherwood Auditorium.

Three residencies are scheduled this season, beginning with Boston-based clarinetist Daniel McKelway, who will inaugurate the series Oct. 9 with school performances and workshops. His full recital with pianist Philip Bush, 8 p.m. on Oct. 12, will include works by Debussy, Schumann, Bernstein and Brahms.

According to a chamber music society official, McKelway was chosen because of his performing credentials--he was awarded an Avery Fisher Career Grant in 1989 and won top prize in the Naumburg Competition--and his ability to work with children, as demonstrated in a video supplied by New York’s Young Concert Artist Guild.

On his local itinerary, McKelway will give an assembly performance at Wangenheim Junior High, give a master class to all the clarinet students at Mira Mesa High School, and meet with about 60 instrumental music students at Hickmann Elementary School in Mira Mesa. Over 40 schools throughout San Diego County have agreed to participate in the society’s new program, and some openings remain. The program is availble to both private and public schools in the county.

Subscriptions to the Sherwood Auditorium young artists series are a mere $25 for all three concerts. Students, including college students through age 25, can obtain free subscriptions from the chamber music society office. The series’ other performers are violinist Maria Bachmann and accompanist Jon Klibonoff on Nov. 16 and classical guitarist William Kanengiser on May 16.

Happenings return to UC San Diego. The spontaneous multimedia performance, once thought to be as extinct as the lava lamp, returns to the UC San Diego Media Center on Sept. 27. From 9 a.m. to 9 p.m., visual artist Allan Kaprow and violinist Janos Negyesy will trade visual cues and musical responses. Their efforts will be documented by video cameras. The best viewing time, according to a reliable campus spy, is 8 p.m. at the Media Center, next to the Third College.