A Tired Revival of Pops Repertoire

One of the down-sides of getting higher education in the greater Boston area was that it was virtually impossible to avoid the Boston Pops Orchestra. I was there back when Arthur Fiedler was still ruling that roost; and, for what it was worth, he knew how to keep his audiences entertained. That included tearing out the seats on the ground floor of Symphony Hall, replacing them with chairs around cafe tables, and keeping the audience well-oiled with a running supply of beer. (To publicize this, RCA released one of its Boston Pops recordings with complementary pair of beer mugs.) I subjected myself to this treatment only once, and that was because some dancers I knew had prepared choreography for Carl Orff’s Carmina Burana cantata.

In that context of personal experiences, the MSR Classics release of pianist Joshua Pierce’s Bravura album triggered any number of memories that I would prefer to forget. To be fair, the album was produced with the right spirit of truth-in-advertising, giving the album the subtitle Favorite Showpieces for Piano & Orchestra. On the other hand it is a bit difficult to figure out why the world premiere recording of Paul Turok’s “Ragtime Caprice” counts as a “favorite showpiece.” The best one can say is that the score recalls the usually annoying way in which Fielder would present music in watered-down arrangements, presumably because they went better with the beer than more “serious” accounts.

A little less disagreeable is the treatment of Duke Ellington’s “New World A-Comin’.” The seriousness behind this composition is evident from Ellington’s decision to incorporate it into the first of the three performances he called Sacred Concerts. He composed this music for his own orchestra; but he never used the noun “orchestra” in any symphonic sense. This is listed on the album as a “first release;” and what makes it “first” is the arrangement for symphony orchestra created by one of Ellington’s arrangers, Maurice Peress. The arrangement is about as good as one could expect, but I am not sure that it is in the comfort zone of conductor Kirk Trevor leading the Slovak Radio Symphony Orchestra.

Ironically, the only Web page that Amazon.com created for this recording is for the MP3 Album. Sadly, the download does not appear to include a PDF file of the accompanying booklet. So those curious about any background of any of the tracks are likely to find themselves disappointed.