KENNETH FUCHS (b.1956): Falling Man for Baritone and Orchestra, Movie House and Songs of Innocence and Experience for Baritone and Chamber Ensemble.

Description: Last year we offered a group of works based on Fuchs' Falling Man theme (05O086), after Don DeLillo's novel about the aftermath of 9/11; now here is the original work, setting excerpts of DeLillo's text, from which those works were derived. The work accumulates a sense of tragic realization of what has occurred as it progresses, from a shocked, terror-laden opening through a melancholy, lonely desolate blues-like section to a feeling of eloquently expressed tragedy, in a moving, neo-romantic idiom, with something of the sophisticated yet colloquial immediacy of Bernstein's Songfest. The 'falling' motif is a twelve note row, but is not treated serially, rather in melodic and harmonic permutations with a strong sense of tonal progression. The Updike cycle Movie House has a nostalgic sense of time and place, in a similar idiom, though lighter in texture as befits the subject. The brief Blake settings are an early work, but very recognizably from the same pen. Texts included. Roderick Williams (baritone), London Symphony Orchestra; JoAnn Falletta.