It’s always a delight to hear student compositions grace the stage at a Wooster Symphony Orchestra concert (though director Jeff Lindberg’s enthusiasm for spotlighting campus composers is certainly evident, both with the WSO and with the Wooster Jazz Ensemble). It’s the mark of a really special concert, however, when two student compositions easily upstage the rest of the program.
Friday’s concert marked the premiere of “Skyskapes,” a concerto for electric guitar and orchestra by Paul Winchester ’11, with the composer on guitar. It’s the kind of premise that might sound worrisome on paper: another attempt at fusing classical and rock idioms, coalescing around the tired Romantic/metal fascination with thunderstorms and, I presume, the cacophonous potential of both guitar and orchestra, the writing aiming for sheer effect rather than substance.
Whatever doubts or reservations I had coming in to the piece were dispelled from the outset. Quite simply, the concerto is an astonishing work, of genuine power and beauty. The first movement, “Thunderstorms Approaching,” incredibly manages to sidestep orchestral gimmickry altogether: the rhythm section is active and propulsive but not ungainly, the guitar lines expressive and wickedly complex but never overbearing. In fact, the orchestration is so skilled that the piece truly conjures up an atmosphere suggestive of a thunderstorm. Gault Recital Hall charged ó you could feel it.
Additionally, for its unstable tonality and tempestuous inspiration, “Skyskapes” is never a musical. The thematic play is consistently fascinating, and certain passages so richly evocative as to stimulate flights of visual fantasy.
The second movement, “Stars Emerging at Night,” follows the thunderous climax of the first with a breathtaking stillness. Here, the writing moves through a number of beautiful tonal progressions, and the revelation of both the storm and the concerto is clear: we had to pass through the thunder for the stars to be revealed to us so powerfully.
Following the intermission was “Grace,” a series of variations on “Amazing Grace” by Quinn Dizon ë11 that received its premiere in Wooster last April. “Grace” couldn’t have made for a more total contrast to “Skyskapes,” though it was no less excellent a piece of work. A delicate, colorful opening highlighting Deborah Holzworth on harp gave way to a powerful statement of the theme, inventively re-harmonized and delivered by the Wooster Chorus. The subsequent variations were remarkable for their textual insight, giving fresh emphasis to certain words and phrases (most memorably the frantic realization of “dangers, toils, and snares”). With another dramatic tonal volta following the line “And grace will lead me home,” the piece ended in a place of absolute peace, suggestive in its perfect quiet of something like Miles Davis’s “In a Silent Way.”
Another premiere preceded “Skyscapes,” the “Rustic Dances No. 2” by local composer David Westfall. While the composition certainly displayed technical mastery, and synthesis of diverse influences from Smetana to Copland, it didn’t nearly possess the freshness or originality of Winchester and Dizon’s offerings. This is not to say that it was without its merits ó the third movement in particular made for a refreshing contrast in its playful, irregular melodicism and metrical shifts ó but, on the whole, it didn’t offer anything radically different from well-established 19th-century convention.
The program closed with Haydn’s trumpet concerto, delivered ably by guest trumpeter Jack Brndiar. It provided suitably light closure to one of the finer symphony orchestra concerts I’ve witnessed here.