[.ca] Orchestral Works by Tomas Svoboda

A Winner!:
One of the joys of reviewing lots of classical CDs is the discovery of excellent music by composers one never heard of. That's the case here. Tomas Svoboda (b. 1939) was born in Paris of Czech parents, spent his early childhood in Boston, but returned to Czechoslovakia with his parents after the War and was admitted to the Prague Conservatory in 1954. He returned to the US in 1964, studied with Halsey Stevens and Ingolf Dahl at USC and for many years has been professor of composition at the Portland State University, retiring in the late 1990s. It is fitting that this program of his orchestral music is played by the Oregon Symphony under its long-time conductor, James DePreist. And brilliantly played it is. All of the music here is immediately attractive, written in a kind of tonal neo-classic style melded with the assymetric rhythms often associated with the followers of Stravinsky. None of the musical language is more advanced than, say, Bartok's 'Concerto for Orchestra.' The earliest piece, and in its way the most astonishing, is the Symphony No. 1, written and premiered in Prague under Vaclav Smetacek when the composer was a boy of sixteen. It is a stunningly assured four-movement piece of large proportions lasting 36 minutes with only occasional moments of clumsiness. It is rhythmically alive, uses some Czech folk materials, but at moments has the sound of America's wide open spaces a la Aaron Copland, fitting because the symphony is subtitled 'Of Nature.' The most recent piece here is the Concerto for Marimba, written in 1993 for Oregon Symphony percussionist Niel DePonte, the expert soloist here. The concerto is a three-movement (Slow-Fast-Slow) work lasting about 26 minutes. The orchestration is masterful and inventive. A five-instrument 'keyboard' group consisting of piano, harp, celesta, orchestra bells and crotales placed on the stage close to the marimba soloist contribute shimmering and jazzy effects. The opening piece on the CD is reported to be Svoboda's most-played piece. Entitled 'Overture of the Season,' it was written in 1978 and, again, premiered by the Oregon Symphony. It is an infectious celebratory 9-minute romp that introduced by raffish brass, often playing in the overlapping medodic lines made familiar by composers like Glass and Reich, but it has harmonic richness that mark it as something more than minimalist. Its rhythms are as catchy as they are complex. Its energy is a perfect concert opener and it is played by the Oregon Symphony with all the panache the score requires. I am delighted to make the acquaintance of the music of Tomas Svoboda and will look for more to investigate. I understand that there are recordings of two piano concertos, one of them by the composer, himself a fine pianist and listed as one of the orchestral keyboardists for the present recording. Heartily recommended. Scott Morrison