WALTER PISTON: CONCERTO FOR ORCHESTRA AND OTHER WORKS

Boston Modern Orchestra Project; Gil Rose, conductor (BMOP/sound)

Along with championing living composers, the Boston Modern Orchestra Project, under its founding director, Gil Rose, has for 25 years been bringing renewed attention to mid-20th century Americans, as in this exceptional recording of works by Walter Piston (1894-1976).

The biggest discovery here is Piston’s 1933 Concerto For Orchestra, receiving its premiere recording. Piston is usually grouped with composers who hewed to American neoclassical styles. Yet elements of spiky modernism often run through his scores, as in this concerto. It opens with a marching, vibrant first movement, followed by a scherzo driven by perpetual-motion runs for strings. The compelling third movement begins ominously, with a seemingly lugubrious passacaglia, the theme played low and haltingly by a tuba. The music becomes darker, more elusive and textured, with each variation as instruments enter, building steadily in intensity until a chorale calms things down, leading to an extended allegro alive with industrious counterpoint. The album includes a Stravinsky-influenced Divertimento For Nine Instruments; a pointillist and perky Clarinet Concerto, with Michael Norsworthy as soloist; and the premiere recording of Variations On A Theme By Edward Burlingame Hill.