Mullikin/Strauss: Oboe Concertos
Peter
Cooper, oboe
Academy of St. Martin in the Fields, conducted by the Sir Neville Marriner
SUMMIT DCD 320
David
Aspinall
Roughly 50 percent of my record and CD collection is taken up with obscure works, mostly of the romantic and modern eras. I must admit I return to them infrequently. Probably most of the 20th century stuff has been played once, much not at all. Such is my discouraging experience, that I doubt that 100s of those unplayed discs will ever grace (or, more likely, grate on) my ears.
Therefore I am grateful to report that this recent work by a composer unknown to me, David Mullikin, has been played already on several occasions - and will be played again. I am partial to the oboe anyway, but even were it not so, no doubt Mullikin's accessible style, vivacity and melodiousness would have won me over. For this concerto has an abundance of kinetic energy, and technical bravura to go with its more fetching charms, including a plethora of audience pleasing attractions which, outside of the work of our best film composers, have been in short order for 3 generations. I refer, of course, to those essentials of the reactionary musical past - melody, harmony and, for lack of a technical peg to hang it on, what I would describe as pax musica. That in contradistinction from the malaise which has afflicted most so-called modern composers until the very recent past, bellum antimusicum, which, in self-contradiction to its claim to 'modernity', is actually a return to those primeval times before our benighted ancestors learned to prefer scales (i.e. melody), regular rhythm and form to musical chaos. (Which last phrase, I rush to aver, is an oxymoron anyhow, as recognizable melody, rhythm and form are exactly what distinguish music from mere sound.)
Therefore it is unalloyed pleasure to discover a David Mullikin, one of the next generation of 'modern' composers who seem to seek continuity with the past, rather than a punchup. Actually Mullikin records his 'great admiration for film music' in the CD notes. And one can detect that influence in his priorities, if not usually in his style itself. (Apart from a few moments when I thought to hear an echo of Bernard Herrmann at his most pastoral, e.g. The Trouble with Harry.)
And if you, like this listener, are partial to pastoral, the CD also boasts a lovely performance of that fragrant autumnal fruit of another musical reactionary, the octogenarian Richard Strauss. His oboe concerto has long been a favourite of mine, harking back, as do the 4 Last Songs, written around the same time, to the youthful joy and aching longing of Till Eulenspiegel, Don Juan, and Death and Transfiguration, yet with a new depth and reflectiveness which were permitted to the elder Strauss after the enervating exertions of his Elektra period. Peter Cooper's tonal pallette and technique are admirably suited to both works, and Marriner's band is in top form. Especially if you don't know the Strauss, and/or have an (not too) adventurous bent, grab this CD.
