A journey to lift the spirits

By WILLIAM DART

Two years ago James Judd (bless his heart) gave NZSO audiences 20 minutes of enchantment with Charles Ives' Three Places in New England.

At the time I felt like shouting from the steeples and the mountains that this was just the jab of vitality our concerts need.

Over in California, Michael Tilson Thomas and his San Francisco Symphony have made their reputation with such works, and Three Places is the centrepiece in their new BMG CD, Charles Ives: An American Journey.

This is a welcome and welcoming introduction to one of the great originals. If you want to sample Ives at his most rumbustious and zany, taste Putnam's Camp with its stir-fry of tunes from London Bridge to Yankee Doodle. Or why not march around the lounge while the orchestra's chorus sings the punchy They Are There!

On the quieter side there are the more reflective movements of The Three Places, and songs like Tom Sails Away (imagine Debussy crossed with Copland and you'll have an idea of the general style).

The utter tenderness of baritone Thomas Hampson in tracks like this reminds me of his fine Stephen Foster CD some years ago.

This is music written to touch the heart and to lift the spirit and it does both. There is also that special presence that comes from it being recorded at a live concert. When one has travelled from the bracing discords of From the Steeples and the Mountains to the transcendental stillness of The Unanswered Question, one feels this is a journey one wants to start all over again.

On the local front, in the latest of its Composer Portraits, Waiteata Music pays tribute to Wellington composer Ross Harris who carried off the SOUNZ Contemporary Award at the 2000 Silver Scrolls.

The NZSO's most recent Beauty Spot collection included a rather rough account of Harris' Song for Jonny. Waiteata have taken more care, unearthing a number of treasures in the process. Some of these are archival while a handful have been newly and beautifully recorded in Victoria University's Adam Concert Room.

The fearless Thomas Hecht refuses to be bedevilled by the virtuosic demands of the Piano Variation while Helene Pohl and Rolf Gjelsten, of the New Zealand String Quartet, deftly shift between the contrasts of sweet and astringent the duo offers them.

Although most of this album makes some demands on the listener, the song cycle Wild Daisies, which launches the CD, beckons us with style and friendliness. Bub Bridger's short poems spill out with images of "daisies clutched in your fist like a torch and going to town on my bike to pay the gas bill". Harris pins just the right music to them, and soprano Anna Pierard and pianist Emma Sayers capture every nuance.

* Charles Ives: An American Journey, BMG 09026-63703-2; with the San Francisco Symphony, Thomas Hampson (baritone), conducted by Michael Tilson Thomas.

* Composer Portrait: Ross Harris, Waiteata Music Press WTA 004.