Concerto for Orchestra 
Jennifer Higdon
Concerto for Orchestra & City Scape
Telarc, 80260
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Overnight sensations are a rare thing in the world of symphonic music, especially these days when the majority of programming is about established masterpieces and every now and then a new piece sneaks in through the back door, all too often never to be heard from after its initial, often not-so-well played premiere. What makes something click is an alchemical combination of a solid musical composition, a dedicated and moving performance on the highest level, plus devoted and committed advocacy from administrators and organizations supporting the work. It all came together for Jennifer Higdon's Concerto for Orchestra which received its premiere at the American Symphony Orchestra League's 2002 conference by the Philadelphia Orchestra under the direction of its then-Music Director Wolfgang Sawallisch. The five-movement orchestra showcase, which the players clearly loved, was positioned in front of almost every orchestra administrator in America and was an instant hit. Following the raves in Philly, it has already been programmed in Texas, Oregon, and Washington, D.C., to seemingly universal critical and audience success and in April, it reaches London. But it was left to the Atlanta Symphony Orchestra, under the direction of Robert Spano, to release the debut recording. Undoubtedly it will be the first of many in the years to come. Clocking in at around 35 minutes, Higdon's Concerto for Orchestra shares much in common with the almost equally-sized five-movement Bartók Concerto for Orchestra. Both celebrate the variety of sonorities possible in the orchestra and use counterpoint to navigate timbral juxtapositions. While Bartók's American masterpiece is clearly a role model here, Higdon's orchestral tour-de-force could not be mistaken for music written in the 1940s. This is clearly music that experienced the onslaught of all the subsequent avant-gardes of the remainder of the 20th century and moves beyond them in much the same way that vanguard works of Bartók's time moved away from the bravado and inevitability of late romanticism towards a more elusive tonal path. Perhaps the most unusual movement here is the 4th, in which the percussion section takes center stage. But don't expect Var èse's Ionisation here. In Higdon's world, the percussion section is no longer a collection of exotic sounds but rather another set of timbral flavors to play around with. Filling out the disc is another orchestra showpiece, City Scape, which Higdon wrote specifically for the Atlanta Symphony Orchestra (its first commission under Spano's reign). The 2002 premiere of this three-movement cinematic tribute to the composer's one-time home of Atlanta, was the subject of a ASCAP/Deems Taylor Award-winning feature story. Once again, not a bad way to enter the repertoire! —FJO
Concerto for Orchestra
1. I (8:04)
2. II (4:34)
3. III (10:31)
4. IV (5:36)
5. V (6:13)
City Scape
6. SkyLine (7:07)
7. River Sings A Song To Trees (17:39)
8. Peachtree Street (6:06)
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