Donald Erb - Brass and Cello Concertos; Ritual Observations

Donald ERB (1927-2008)

Concerto for Brass and Orchestra

Concerto for Violoncello and Orchestra

Ritual Observances

Lynn Harrell (Cello)

Saint Louis Symphony orchestra

Leonard Slatkin

Release Date: 1992-01-01

I've greatly enjoyed this disc of works of Donald Erb (January 17, 1927 - 12 August 2008).

Concerto for Brass was commissioned by the Chicago Symphony Orchestra and premiered on April 16, 1987 under the direction of Leonard Slatkin, one of the composer's main champions. It is tailored for the orchestra's legendary brass section. The Cello Concerto was commissioned by Lynn Harrell who plays it here, and premiered by him on November 4, 1976 with the Rochester Philharmonic conducted by David Zinman.

The liner notes start with the statement "Donald Erb's music explodes with energy". No kidding, it does. Both works are hugely dramatic, violent and violently pounding at times, demanding but, I find, quite accessible in their dramatic impact and with overtones that sound almost romantic at times. Both are short and compact (respectively 19 and 18 minutes) and make you long for more rather than for less. The Brass Concerto has moments of great sonic delicacy in the "slow" movement (both works are couched in the traditional three, and in both they follow without break), but also many moments of the same pounding violence, from which barely emerge, surrounded by the halo of pounding violence, the lutheran chorale "All Men Must Die". The Concerto is dedicated to the memory of John S. Edwards, the longtime general manager of the CSO.

The Cello Concerto is a supervirtuoso piece in which the celllist isn't just called to use all kinds of extended techniques but is also asked to hum and sing. Again it is a piece of great sonic invention (and delicacy in the middle movement), Erb blends all the sonic effects he uses to a constantly attention-grabbing whole.

The four-movement piece "Ritual Observances" was commissioned by the Saint Louis Symphony Orchestra during Erb's tenure there as composer-in-residence and got its premiere on April 30, 1992. Like the Brass Concerto, it is a memorial to a young percussionist and family friend recently deceased, and the atmosphere of the first and longest piece, Lacrymosa, is sorrowful and mourning, drawing also on memories from the Lacrymosa from Mozart's Requiem. Second movement, "Genesis Thunder", returns to the violent and pounding moods that seem to be Erb's signature, but again with fugitive flights of delicate filigree, that then dominate in the mournful third movement, "My fathers's ghost is climbing in the rain" (titles taken from poems of Dylan Thomas). The fourth movement, "Light breaks where no sun rises", offers an impressively cataclysmic Finale.

The recordings were made in 1991 and 1992 and back then Erb's bio came only with a birthdate. Needless to say, the performances, by their premiere performers, are authoritative. TT 66:48, excellent liner notes complemented, as always with New World Records, with an invaluable selected bibliography and discography. Don't miss Donald Erb's online interview with Bruce Duffie, made just before the premiere of the Concerto for brass section (in which he says that, after conducting his works so many times, Slatkin knew them better than he did). Erb wasn't recognized, I don't think, as one of the most prominent composers on the highly competitive 20th-Century American scene, but he is a compositional voice that deserves not to be forgotten.