|
|
|
Stephen Perillo's Napoli! and other Orchestral
Works: Piano Concerto No. 1, Hungoverture,
Antique Suite - St. Petersburg Festival
Orchestra/Yuval Waldman - Centaur CRC 2544:
Yes, St. Petersburg,
Russia - not Florida. I just saw a bumper strip
saying "Real Musicians Have Day Jobs." That's the
philosophy of Perillo, who is |
|
|
president of an
international tour company. That hasn't prevented
him from turning out a sizeable catalog of works in
many different forms, of such quality that some have
been performed by major symphonies in the U.S. and
even broadcast. On the strength of the four works on
this CD Perillo takes a light-hearted approach that
guarantees accessibility to a wide audience. His
music has a sense of fun without cliche or
kitschiness. His tone poem Napoli is based on his
own melodies written in a Neapolitan style. The
three-movement piano concerto runs into polytonal
and atonal areas but retains plenty of aural
interest. Hangoverture was created for the
millennium and the composer decided on avoiding that
overused term in favor of something just as
appropriate. This tone poem mixes a cocktail of
various 20th century music, including Stravinsky,
Copland, pop, jazz and movie themes. The Russian
players dive into this fun music with gusto. Things
have changed a lot musically there since I picked up
a Melodiya LP of Rhapsody in Blue during the Soviet
Era and found it so awful I couldn't hear the whole
thing. |
