Holdridge Conducts Holdridge

[sdtom]

https://wordpress.com/posts/sdtom.wordpress.com

This is a re-release from 1985 and a  nice one. This release fits nicely in our unsung material. Very melodic and a nice variety featuring violin and harp on two selections. Available from BSX records in the US. If there are any questions I know the owners and can answer questions about the company or material.
Tom

[Alan Howe]

The link requires a login, Tom...

[Alan Howe]

I'm assuming this is the CD concerned:
https://www.amazon.com/Holdridge-Conducts-Lee/dp/B01NCWX8IY

[eschiss1]

This concerns I gather Lee Holdridge (b.1944).

[Alan Howe]

Holdridge VC2 is more in the Barber/Walton mould, i.e. neo-romanticism (i.e. lyrical, tuneful music with a fair smattering of dissonance), so care needs to be exercised when posting about this composer...

[Gareth Vaughan]

There is an extract from the VC on the composer's website. It sounds like Hollywood Film Music - nothing wrong with that, I hasten to add. If the VC is anything to go by I reckon there's nothing more dissonant than Korngold in his music (and possibly not AS dissonant as some of the left hand PC by that composer).

[eschiss1]

Indeed, IMDb credits him in connection with 220 film, TV, etc. efforts (fictional and documentary), "original music by" attached to a fair number of them.

[Alan Howe]

Gareth is probably right. I listened to VC2 on YouTube and decided to allow it. It's not a patch on Korngold, of course, but that comparison may be more accurate than mine (with Barber, Walton, etc.) The problem with assessments of present-day composers coming from a film music backround is the potential breadth and mix of styles involved, so I'm not 100% convinced, but still...

[Alan Howe]

..and here's my beef, if I'm brutally honest. I'm utterly sick and tired of 'pretty tunes' by film music composers clothed in romantic-style orchestration which demand almost nothing of the listener and peter out after endless repetitions of the same 'pretty tune'. I'd like to think that Holdridge is doing more than this in his VC2, but is this a serious composition or just a series of attractive episodes stitched together to sound good?

OK, beef over! Now put me right...

[eschiss1]

And then composers do try to do more and a lot of us- general us, but including me and others here too I'm sure- tell them they're going over our heads I agree and also feel cheated by a mere potpourri calling itself a concerto, just let's remember that when a composer goes for ambition and structure instead (and all the newspaper critics ask "yes but where are the tunes" *g*)

[Alan Howe]

Well, surely you can have both. Schmidt-Kowalski proved that.

[eschiss1]

Yes, one can, and occasionally does (though not even every great piece has them in balance and @ the same importance- to paraphrase C. Thorpe-Davie, the first movement of the "Waldstein sonata" is not great because of its (2nd group) E major (memorable) melodic theme, nor is the lesser quality of that theme compared to the main themes of works of some more recent (in his day) composers imply that their -music- is higher quality )

[eschiss1]

(Anyhow, as a fan of Fuchs, Gernsheim, Zemlinsky (and a range of more recent folk with different approaches to composition) I do agree (haven't actually heard enough Schmidt-Kowalski yet , will see about that.)

Edit: even a few minutes in- yes, too early to make a really serious judgment- I'm really liking symphony no.4. The melodies are good but - so's everything else, is the thing. Detail. Descants, imitative motive, counterpoints and "filler" inner material, pacing- reminding me (a bit) of Bax, Bruckner, Furtwängler (I adore WF 2; it carries one...) - here and there (I mention these reminders, this is no complaint. ) I'll try the Holdridge or such works as I can find, and endeavour to have an open ear there too (though sounding like Walton is one thing. S-K already sounds like he knows where he's going and what he's doing, questions of style all aside; not all composers do to me- again, questions of style aside. It's style vs. idea, maybe... I'll find out, re Mr Holdridge. (To pre-empt- do I have something against people who compose for Hollywood or films generally? ..Not at all. Eg Korngold, Rozsa, Frankel's fine work etc. )

[Alan Howe]

Korngold, Rozsa and co. were heirs of the European tradition and weren't primarily film music composers at all. I'm just not sure about the composers that have followed who are film music composers first and foremost; as I asked before, do they do anything more than stitch together a few attractive episodes to make a longer concert work?

[semloh]

"...do they do anything more than stitch together a few attractive episodes to make a longer concert work?"

That perhaps needs a thread of its own, and I can imagine it getting decidedly heated and off topic (although it need not  ).

As for Holdridge, he certainly offers more than film music, but as to its quality I can't say - as I am one of those who likes large helpings of musical candy-floss between the demanding doses of Shostakovich symphonies and Beethoven string quartets!