CHRISTOPHER ROUSE

Overview

PHCD167

Christopher Rouse

1. Trombone Concerto,
2. Gorgon,
3. Iscariot

Joseph Alessi,

Marin Alsop, conductor

Colorado Symphony Orchestra

Rouse is not a frivolous composer, as even the briefest hearing of these three deeply serious orchestral works in this collection makes obvious. He is a master of the orchestra. His frame of musical reference is sophisticated. But he also knows, and his art dramatizes, the world he lives in.

The three Rouse scores here are not programmatic, but they are loaded. They are about something, although it is not always easy to put one’s finger on exactly what it is they are about. The frightening Gorgon and the unanswerable Iscariot have provocative titles. The elegiac Trombone Concerto comes with a loaded musical quotation, the “credo” theme from Leonard Bernstein’s “Kaddish Symphony”.