John A. Carollo, Symphony No. 3, London Symphony Orchestra, Miran Vaupotic

John A. Carollo. His time has come it seems to me. Nowhere more do you get that feeling than when listening to the fine recording of his Symphony No. 3  (Navona 6250). The London Symphony Orchestra under Miram Vaupotic do an excellent job bringing to us the specifics, the poetics of this work. It is a 30-minute opus in four movements, completed in 2017.

And it shows Carollo once again in a fine light--places him as undoubtedly one of the US composers who is making the present a time to remember musically. The final movement "Let the Evening Stillness Arouse" reminds us that all along there has been present in the music John's gift of creating a beautifully evocative world, not as Copland but as Corollo, very local in the best ways, yet Modern in the tradition without necessarily self-consciously seeking beyond what falls naturally out of his pen, if I intuit the inventions properly. The first movement "To Morning" begins with an equally natural dedicative lyricism, giving the work proverbial bookends, while the middle movements are posied and poised, slightly playful yet serious at the same time. A great thing that is, surely.

This is tonal yet tough and edgy enough to identify it all as post-what is gone and pre-what is to come. And original it is. Very.

The four movements speak in contrasting and heartfelt ways. It is an important work, I think. I have been listening and covering happily his music on these pages nearly from the very beginning of the blog. And if there is one work that tells us what we need to hear if one could only put our ears initially to one, this one is it.

Recommended strongly for those wishing to understand the US present day Modernism, for those wishing to know Carollo the composer, for anyone looking for new music of noteful valor and lyricism!



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