By Alex Huddleston

I try not to judge an album by its cover, but I’m not going to ignore it either with the Buffalo Philharmonic Orchestra’s recording of four Lukas Foss compositions. 

This Naxos release, like many of their releases, has a very reassuring white border with the relevant information in large block-serif type and a nice painting. 

It’s part of the “American Classics” series, with the stars and stripes in the upper right corner (you might as well pledge allegiance before listening).

Big block-serif type tells us the pieces and the performers. The look is archival, institutional and clean. It is not stylish or sexy. Most of all, it isn’t dangerous.

A portrait of the composer, eyebrow slightly cocked and light blue orbs for eyes, regards us –   the composer’s wife. As a portrait of Lukas Foss the man, this painting is by no means the definitive work on the subject. Likewise this collection of four pieces is by no means representative of a lifetime of his work. 

But there is important context to bear in mind: the Buffalo Philharmonic Orchestra was his orchestra from 1963 to 1970, and Maestra JoAnn Falletta would later become his associate conductor in Milwaukee.

In fact, much of Buffalo’s academic and institutional music scene was either started or run by Foss. He founded the the Center for Creative and Performing Arts at UB, now known as the Center for 21st Century Music, which put Buffalo on the map as a hub for the avant-garde in the U.S. 

Major figures of contemporary American music such as Morton Feldman, David Felder and Julius Eastman made Buffalo their home in no small part because of Foss. 

He was the music director of the BPO, a composition teacher, a pianist. In short, he was an institution builder: one who brought composers and performers together, insulated them from the marketplace, allowing them to cultivate their art. 

Unfortunately, his legacy is largely the institutions he built and not the actual music he wrote. For an album of his music to be released – to celebrate this work – is a chance to hear a less familiar part of the story.

And what can I say? This is a superbly well executed album. The orchestra under Falletta’s leadership is magnificent. 

The sound quality – the engineering, mastering, mixing – is precise; it’s an incredibly clear sonic image for such a complex organism as the orchestra (A quick A/B comparison with the Boston Modern Orchestra Project recording of “Symphony 1” will give you a sense of what I’m talking about … see the link at the bottom of this review). 

There is no doubt that Foss was absolutely a virtuoso composer. His music as presented here will sound and feel very familiar to those who know Bernstein as a composer, late Bartok, John Adams and John Williams. If the latter comparison gives the impression of being “pops’”music, that’s not the case; this is Americana and it’s not schmalz.

Compositionally, the music is very clean – perhaps even too clean.

It begins with “Ode,” an engaging and beautiful single movement piece. This is my favorite on the album. It’s the kind of tight 10-minute work one would encounter at the start of a concert of orchestral faves – the main event may be a 19th century masterwork, but Foss will hold his own against it. 

The vibe – the orchestration, the harmonic language, the thematic world – reminds me of Benjamin Britten’s “Symphonia da Requiem Op. 20”  (not to be confused with the much more famous “War Requiem Op. 66”). It is dedicated to the American soldiers lost during World War II.

“Renaissance Concerto” is a concerto for flute and orchestra. Quotations from renaissance music suffuses the texture, and in fact, Falletta was touring with Foss during its composition, supplying some of the quoted material from her library of lute music. The only latter-day composition on the CD (it was written in 1985), it’s a nifty four-movement piece described by the composer as “a handshake across centuries.” Soloist Amy Porter pulls off dazzling runs with gracefulness and ease. The orchestra really is in top form. 

And here’s my problem: I think it’s too clean. The composition, the performance, the recording … When working with early music, I’m just dying for some grit. For example, take a listen to  Graindelavoix’s recording of Machaut’s mass.

“Three American Pieces” is an orchestration of a piece originally for violin and piano. The orchestration has converted it into a kind of violin concerto, and Nikki Chooi delivers some extraordinary playing. This piece is as American as apple pie. I have to say there’s too much sugar in it for my taste. As ever, the technical musical execution is flawless. Alas, there’s not much here that couldn’t be found in many other places.

The four-movement “Symphony 1” has the greatest compositional scope and maturity of any piece on this album. It is an extremely well-crafted four-movement (aka traditional) symphony. It has melodic sequences and moments of brilliant orchestral writing that call to mind Bartok’s  super-famous “Concerto for Orchestra.”

My only real gripe about this album is the curation: three of the four pieces (excepting “Renaissance Concerto”) were written in 1944. Foss was 22 years old. 

It’s obviously impressive to have been producing work of this quality at that age. But it gives a seriously misleading impression of the man’s stylistic scope. The dominant impression I get from this music is that Foss is expressing technical mastery and emulation of his heroes; how well-trained and behaved he is.

What I would have loved to hear was some of the adventurous stuff from the ‘60s – incidentally the time he was living and working in Buffalo. 

For example, many listeners may not know about these Foss’ baroque variations from 1967. 

The recording quality is pretty poor, and the material he’s working with really demands the kind of crystal clarity achieved on this album.

For me, this music is just so much more interesting than any of the four pieces represented on this disk. It is really quite forward looking, anticipating one of my absolute favorite pieces from a living composer by several decades.[embed amproprification youtube video here]

With any luck Falletta and the BPO will decide to break out some of the gnarlier work and record a follow-up. Until then, this is a very good – but limited – portrait.

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Alex Huddleston is a Buffalo-based filmmaker, composer and writer.

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FOR FURTHER LISTENING  

The Boston Modern Orchestra Project’s recording of Lukas Foss’ symphonies: