Dan Locklair, Symphony No. 2 "America," Slovak National Symphony Orchestra, Kirk Trevor, Michael Rohae

Dan Locklair (b. 1949) has a pleasing way about him. There is something of a present-day Copland feel to him in his fondness for paraphrasing Americana sorts of themes at least most certainly in his Symphony No. 2 "America" (Naxos 8.559860). The program at hand is well performed and contains the symphony, two shorter works plus the "Concerto for Organ and Orchestra."

It is homespun mainstream--the sort anyone might like and there is little exactly that would define it as Modern except that it is not "Classical" or "Romantic"." It is tonal-pleasing, reminding you perhaps of the things you might hear on a good contemporary movie soundtrack or as done by a wind band of a superior sort Vittorio Giannini comes to mind but not in any way I can pinpoint here. Nobody would take offense at this music and it is is enjoyable, very much so.

The "Symphony No. 2 'America'" is in the form of a Holidays Symphony--with a movement each for Independence Day, one for Memorial Day and one for Thanksgiving. "America the Beautiful" is paraphrased a good deal at first. We hear "Taps" and then not surprisingly the hymn "We Gather Together (To Ask the Lord's Blessing)" for the Thanksgiving movement.
The other works are less obvious I suppose but pleasing. He is inventive in ways the most rudimentally musical layman could no doubt understand. So good for that as far as extending the music in concerned!


I enjoy this program without necessarily putting some seal of "masterpiece" on it all. It pleases me.And the first time through you get the whole thing, pretty much. It is not like you are going to open up  a great deal of vistas on listen number 10. It is what it is and that "is" happens to be fine and dandy, well done. Lovers of Americana will be right there I imagine. I might rather hear Charles Ives personally, but I do not want to turn this into a horse race. Nicely done. Nice music. And that includes the "Concerto for Organ!"

Jim Connolly, "It is Only Gravity that Makes Wearing A Crown Painful"

Judging from his new release It's Only Gravity that Makes Wearing A Crown Painful (pfMENTUM 061), composer Jim Connolly writes modern music for chamber ensemble that has a distinct Americana feel to it. The Gove County String Quartet along with Anna Abbey on piano and toy piano, and the composer on contrabass present a program of 20 miniatures that have a kind of naive diatonic quality. There is much charm. It isn't quite the sort of naive diatonicism that Erik Satie or John Cage sometimes put forward. It is closer in spirit to Aaron Copland in his more rustic moments, though not precisely. And of course Copland always had a kind of sophisticated way of going about things no matter what he did. Jim Connolly hews more to a folk lifeways in body as well as spirit, albeit transformed to a concert medium.

The music has more charm than it does rigorous form in the more academic sense. For the open listener I suppose this is neither here nor there in the end. The music beguiles and clears the air of any stuffy particulates. I find with successive listens that Connolly's chamber music is only facile on the surface. There is the feeling of an intimate evening of "plain" music in a rural homestead sometime in the unspecific past, but something original and involved going on underneath it as well.

The sound is as plainly presented as the music. It is not something to show off your system to visitors, if anybody does that any more, but it more than adequately conveys the spirit and nuance of the music at hand.

Very interesting, Give it a few hearings and decide for yourself.