Concertino

The University of Iowa Center for New Music; David K. Gompper, conductor; Mark Weiger, obeo

Program notes can be dangerous. Think not? How do the phrases “protracted cadenza for oboe” and music with a “decided ‘edge’ ” make you feel? Are you running towards or away from your CD player? I was left felling both ways, which basically left me stranded in the middle of my apartment holding this disc in my hand. Not very useful. Whereas if I’d just put in on and settled in, I wouldn’t have gone through any anxiety whatsoever. Okay, yes, sometimes program notes really do help the first-time listener out, but Rands’s composition does not require preparatory instructions. The piece opens with a sensual tour of the oboe before meeting up with the rest of the ensemble to spin filigreed passages that, whether they sound edgy to you or not, will expand beautifully in your ear and are perhaps best heard unhindered by the adjectives of the English language.

—MS