Paul Reale’s Latest MSR Classics Release

from the Amazon.com Web page for the album being discussed

This past May MSR Classics released Caldera with Ice Cave – Music for Strings, an album of six compositions by Paul Reale. Now in his seventies, Reale is currently Professor Emeritus at the University of California in Los Angeles. This is his fourth release on MSR Classics, and the accompanying booklet provides details about the preceding three. The title of the recording is also the title of his third piano concerto, which is the featured selection. Composed in 2002 and revised in 2012, the concerto consists of two movements entitled “Fire” and “Ice.” The concerto soloist is Christopher Guzman, performing with the Lynn Philharmonia conducted by by Jon Robertson. The ensemble is a student orchestra based at Lynn University in Boca Raton, Florida.

Reale’s music has received some decidedly positive reviews. However, the excepts I have read all praise him for following in the footsteps of other composers, such as Benjamin Britten, Igor Stravinsky, Sergei Prokofiev, and Béla Bartók. That has him rubbing some pretty impressive shoulders. However, I have to say that, personally, I do not take to music composed in this century that seems primarily to reflect on the styles and rhetorics of the last one. The album definitely makes for pleasant listening, and the technical skills of both soloist and ensemble are praiseworthy. Nevertheless, the music never really seizes the attention, either viscerally or playfully; and my own responses were to wonder just what the journey was and why the composer chose to make it.