American composer, conductor, and music administrator Kenneth Fuchs (b. 1956) earned his degrees from the University of Miami and Juilliard and holds claim to an impressive ballot of teachers — Milton Babbitt, David Diamond, Vincent Persichetti, and David Del Tredici, among others. Currently, Fuchs serves as professor of composition at the University of Connecticut. His work list is quite extensive, embracing a wide range of musical styles in both instrumental and vocal forms.

The current disc continues a theme of interest to Fuchs and Falletta they have both visited together before; and that is musical imagery called forth by specific works in the graphic arts. A previous Naxos release, reviewed in 29:3, contained Fuchs’s Out of the Dark for French horn and orchestra, a sort of Pictures at an Exhibition in proto-concerto form inspired by three canvases from the hand of abstract expressionist Helen Frankenthaler, who here makes a slightly more subdued and gentler appearance in Fire, Ice, and Summer Bronze. The “Ice” section of the piece, with all five brass instruments muted, creates an unusual sound that I find not cold, bright, and refractive of light like a diamond — an image I sometimes associate with Sibelius — but nocturnal and secretive. As always, Fuchs relies upon modern, somewhat eclectic styles and techniques to achieve results that fall upon the ears without protest.

United Artists was written in 2006 as a tribute to the London Symphony Orchestra. It’s a busy and sometimes brassy fanfare type piece that highlights the various sections of the orchestra in a way that reminded me of Britten’s Young Person’s Guide to the Orchestra, albeit in American jeans and T-shirt rather than a penguin suit. I should think it would make an effective overture to a pops concert or curtain raiser for theater event.

Quiet in the Land is, according to Fuchs, “a sonic ode to the expansive landscapes and immense arching sky of the great Midwestern Plains.” Hmm, where have we heard this sort of thing before? Copland? William Schuman? Again, Fuchs writes music that is not exactly unoriginal but that is clearly suggestive and derivative of classic Americana models. The piece lives up to its title, with beautifully scored parts for the mixed wind quintet ensemble.…

In New York’s Metropolitan Museum of Art, there hangs an enormous creation, 8.75 feet high by 17.25 feet wide, titled Autumn Rhythm, by Jackson Pollock.… Fortunately, Fuchs has not followed Pollock’s example by dripping ink on a piece of manuscript paper. His piece of the same title is a 13-minute tone poem of sorts that comes across, even if it wasn’t intended to, as a tongue-in-cheek, good-natured, funning poke at Pollock’s pretentious posturing. Fuchs’s quirky, sputtering rhythms and sudden odd juxtapositions of instruments called to mind Gunther Schuller’s “The Twittering Machine” from his Seven Studies on Themes of Paul Klee, a delightful work, by the way, that could do with a new recording.

Finally, we come to Fuchs’s concerto for French horn and orchestra. The work takes its title, Canticle to the Sun, from a hymn text originally composed by St. Francis of Assisi, circa 1225. Fuchs bases the concerto on a setting of the text to a tune found in the Geistliche Kirchengesang, dated 1623. In 1906, Vaughan Williams harmonized the tune.… There’s a lot of Americana at its core, which is not to denigrate it in any way. It’s a masterfully crafted work, with a horn part that any horn player would relish. Timothy Jones does himself and Fuchs proud. Nor should JoAnn Falletta’s contribution to this enterprise be overlooked. As usual, she proves an adept leader who happens to be especially sympathetic to 20th-century American music.

…

Naxos’s sound, as expected, is excellent. Recommended to the receptive.   — Jerry Dubins

Kenneth Fuchs studied at Juilliard with Diamond and Persichetti, absorbing that 40’s and 50’s Amercanist spirit still in the halls back then. The music here is soundly tonal, resolutely conservative, and devoid of abrasion. Half of the pieces are for orchestra; the other half is chamber music.

United Artists (2006) is a joyous, highly cinematic opener for orchestra. Mr. Fuchs is a fine orchestrator, and the LSO responds enthusiastically. The three “idylls” for chamber quintets are beautifully played by LSO members. Quiet in the Land (2003) is a peaceful bit of Americana for mixed quintet of winds and strings.

The next two of these pieces were inspired by visual art. Fire, Ice, and Summer Bronze (1986) is a two-movement essay for brass quintet on works of Helen Frankenthaler (it is her sunny silkscreen that graces the jewel box). The two movement’s characters are fanfare-like and pensive. The second of these works, Autumn Rhythm (2006) for woodwind quintet, takes its title from the painting by Jackson Pollock. In three casually structured, improvisatory sections, the piece retains the composer’s Amercanist language while simulating Pollock’s drips and random motion. Like all of these pieces, the emphasis is on optimistic lyricism, not at all of our time (or Pollock’s, for that matter). All of these pieces should take their place in the university chamber music repertoire, sure to be enjoyed by players and audiences alike, especially if played as well as they are here.

The best is saved for last with Canticle to the Sun (2005), a vivacious horn concerto written for LSO principal Timothy Jones. The 20-minute, single-movement piece is based on a hymn tune from the Geistliche Kirchengesang, set in 1906 by Vaughan Williams but mostly sung today in William Draper’s 1925 version (“All Creatures of Our God and King”). The concerto is thoroughly cheerful, warm, and delighted with life — an unusual description for most music and art today. Soloist Jones is a formidable virtuoso and puts forth the work with stunning assurance. The orchestral works in particular are good reasons to pick up this disc. Notes by the composer.   — Allen Gimbel

Naxos’s second disc of music by Kenneth Fuchs was recorded, like the first, by the London Symphony Orchestra and JoAnn Falletta. The full orchestra plays United Artists, written in tribute to its own virtuosity, and provides a glittering backdrop to its principal horn Timothy Jones in Canticle to the Sun, a fantasia on a hymn tune; different quintets of LSO players play three chamber works, Autumn Rhythm, Quiet in the Land, and Fire, Ice, and Summer Bronze, all subtitled “idyll.” Everything’s very affirmative and major-key, and markedly lacking in tension ().   — Anthony Burton

Another composer with whom I have been in touch is Kenneth Fuchs. It began with a Crisis review of his first Naxos CD, featuring his exhilarating An American Place (for Orchestra), brilliantly written to express the “brash optimism of the American spirit.” Fuchs contacted me to suggest that I listen to his string quartets on an Albany Records CD. I found them to be among the finest American quartets I have heard.

Like Gerber, Fuchs is an exemplar of the recovery of American music.…

A new Naxos CD … provides an expanding picture of Fuchs’s talents. The CD begins with United Artists, a scintillating tribute to the London Symphony Orchestra, which Fuchs came to admire during its recording of his first Naxos CD. United Artists is a five-minute fanfare that has something of the vivacious spirit of Leonard Bernstein’s Overture to Candide or of one of Malcolm Arnold’s spirited confections. This is an excellent public celebration that lets the orchestra strut its stuff.

Quiet in the Land is as interior a piece as United Artists is an exterior one in spirit. This mixed quintet for strings and winds moves into Samuel Barber/Aaron Copland territory with its mellifluous melody and gentle, rippling beauty. Fuchs calls it “a sonic ode to the expansive landscapes and immense arching sky of the great Midwestern Plains.” As a Midwesterner, I can attest that this scenery evokes a deep sense of yearning and expectation. Fuchs captures these feelings with real poignancy. This twelve-minute piece is a reflective gem.

What continually impresses is the level of refinement in the writing. This man does not have to shout to make himself heard. As I have noticed in his work before, there is a sense of ease in his music. By this I do not mean easiness, but a calm confidence in what he is doing and in the quality of his material. Like Gerber, he is endowed with a major melodic gift. Additionally, he is not afraid to take the time to let things develop with a sense of natural growth. In Autumn Rhythm, he captures some of the insouciant breeziness that only a master like Malcolm Arnold could achieve in his wind writing. This is another exquisite gem.

The longest and last composition on the CD is Canticle to the Sun, a concerto for French horn and orchestra (2005).This work catches the kind of Celtic magic and orchestral glitter that I used to hear in the work of the late Welsh composer William Mathias. Fuchs makes a gloriously long-lined melody for the French horn out of the hymn tune to “All Creatures of our God and King.” This outwardly celebratory, declamatory work is infused with inner joy and spirit. Listen to it, or to any of these works, and you will know what Fuchs means when he says, “I make no apologies for writing from the heart.” No apologies needed; this is the vindication.   — Robert R. Reilly

This setting of Richard Wilbur’s poem is filled with harmonic color and compositional ingenuity. It is a beautiful model of modern choral music that works to convey a meaningful text using shifting harmonies, colorful dissonance, and dynamic contrast.…

Fuchs has provided us with a challenging work that thrives on the interplay of voices and the traditional techniques of canon and word painting. This unaccompanied work is framed with sections that layer the voices in rich harmony. A significant portion of the text is set using canonic techniques that provide a sense of motion and convey textual meaning. Text painting is clearly articulated through a fascinating ostinato in the men’s voices using the word “water” in mm. 65–82.

This work would be appropriate for advanced choirs with meter changes and the juxtaposition of duple and triple rhythms posing a challenge. It has great educational value because of Fuchs’s varied compositional techniques and the text is very meaningful as it ends with the phrase: “We are immigrants still, who travel in time, Bound where the thought of America beckons; But we hold our course, and the wind is with us.”  — William R. Green, Cleveland, Tennessee

An American’s salute to the LSO who again impress in his engaging music   Fuchs was so stunned by the legendary expertise of the LSO in playing at sight for a recording that he wrote United Artists as a short tribute. It opens this second Naxos CD; a series of chamber works follows, and the disc closes with Canticle to the Sun, a horn concerto in which the British connection continues with the soloist Timothy Jones from the LSO.

United Artists is a kind of fanfare to the orchestra, who obviously enjoyed it — the idiom stems from Copland and early Carter. Quiet in the Land for mixed string and wind quintet is contemplative in mood, generally music of low density suitable for illustration. This aspect comes to the fore in Autumn Rhythm, inspired by the paintings of Jackson Pollock; it would make an apt soundtrack for a series of his pictures.

Canticle to the Sun is based on the familiar hymn-tune “All Creatures of our God and King.” This is an imaginative idea where the soloist emerges from a tinkling backdrop and retains clear contact with the melody throughout, although it is never stated in full. The concerto adds up to a pastoral idyll with occasional spots for the timpani and lyrical cadenzas — all neatly played.   — Peter Dickinson

There’s a trend among today’s American composers to write music that is modern-sounding but easy on the ear. Perhaps Hollywood has something to do with it, or simply that Americans are maybe a bit more conservative in their outlook. Kenneth Fuchs’s music — he is in his early 50s — has that inoffensive trait. From sounds that have their roots in the expansive soundscapes of Copland and his mildly angular lyricism, Fuchs constructs delicately effusive scores, several of which, for varying ensembles, appear in this attractive survey of his music. It’s part of Naxos’s illuminating American Classics series, and features all and parts of the London Symphony Orchestra (LSO) under the direction of JoAnn Falletta. The full ensemble opens the disc with one of the composer’s most recent orchestral works — United Artists — and ends it with a horn concerto, Canticle to the Sun, specifically written for the LSO’s Timothy Jones and based on the traditional hymn tune to “All Creatures of Our God and King.” Both underline the darting filmic qualities of Fuchs’s style, a restless energy that combines virtuosity and clarity of texture with softness of touch. In many ways, though, the most interesting sounds appear in the reflective Quiet in the Land, Autumn Rhythm and Fire, Ice and Summer Bronze, all written for smaller chamber ensembles, which glow with inner warmth. An attractive disc from a very listenable composer.

Bargain of the Month   Kenneth Fuchs is fortunate indeed to have not one but two discs of his music recorded by the London Symphony Orchestra. The first, in 2003, was nominated for two Grammys in 2005 and the second, recorded in 2006, should do well too, such is the quality of both the music and music-making. Holding it all together in the orchestral pieces and the mixed quintet is conductor JoAnn Falletta, who made such a strong impression in her recent disc of Respighi (review).

United Artists, the first item on the disc, was written specifically for the LSO as a gesture of thanks for their earlier recording of Fuchs’s works (Naxos 8.559224). At its core is a four-note motif, presented first in the Coplandesque opening fanfare. But this isn’t derivative music; indeed, the composer’s distinctive “voice” is evident from the outset, and his flair for orchestral colours and sheer lyricism shine through in this atmospheric opener.

Quiet in the Land is another of those vast musical landscapes that might provoke comparisons with Copland, yet Fuchs’s evocation of the Midwestern Plains just as the Iraq war was beginning is rather more complex and ambiguous in its sentiments. As the composer writes in the liner notes, “I wondered how quiet the spirit of our land might be”.

Even without this programme the opening bars hint at harmony, subtly undermined by vague discord — just listen to that quiet, agitated figure that begins at 1:30, beneath the more lyrical and expansive melody above. It is such lucid, “hear-through” writing, yet it’s full of warmth. The members of the LSO manage to bring out both these aspects of the score, blending precision with feeling. And what a haunting close, too.

The recording venue — St Luke’s in London’s Old Street — is very well captured by the engineers, with no hint of brittleness or edge. The musicians seem ideally placed, too, which is particularly welcome in Fire, Ice, and Summer Bronze for brass quintet. Subtitled an “Idyll … after two works on paper by Helen Frankenthaler” the first movement yokes together two eternal opposites — fire (the restless first section) and ice (the more muted second section).

There seems to be an underlying creative tension in some of these pieces, perhaps an attempt to reconcile musical and emotional extremes. For instance, in Summer Bronze the music is strangely mercurial — now lyrical, now dissonant, now both. But it’s that other dichotomy, between outward virtuosity and inner feeling, that these seasoned players — always secure, always poised — convey so well.

Based on a painting by Jackson Pollock, Autumn Rhythm does contain some jazzy snippets, but the emphasis seems to be on sonorities, with long, lyrical melodic lines and, at times, a quirky bass. It is a strangely “in-between” piece; to use the autumn analogy, summer is not quite done, yet winter is on its way. In his notes Fuchs describes how the two states are drawn together and, indeed, how one becomes the other: “An unusual aspect of this composition is that in its final section the flute, oboe, and clarinet metamorphose into their lower — perhaps autumnal — counterparts, the alto flute, English horn, and bass clarinet.” It’s a remarkable sleight of hand, deftly constructed and seamlessly executed.

Canticle of the Sun — a hymn tune based on 13th-century texts by St Francis of Assisi — is built on a four-note motif. Written for the LSO’s principal horn player, Timothy Jones, this 20-minute gem has a radiant, all-embracing optimism that is just irresistible. Indeed, it is not unlike a stained glass window, all those fragments of high colour glowing in the light behind. But at the centre of it all is Jones’s supple and passionate playing, surely as seductive a performance of this piece as we are ever likely to hear.

As with Respighi’s Church Windows, Falletta displays a sense of line and phrase that is most welcome in this music. And while I’ve grumbled about the sound on some Naxos releases I’m prepared to eat humble pie on this one. The engineers have done an exceptional job capturing the sound of the LSO at St Luke’s; what a pleasant change from the dry-as-dust Barbican.

Early days, I know, but this could be one of my discs of 2008.   — Dan Morgan

If every piece of architecture had its own inherent sound, Mission San Juan Bautista would be heard for miles. The wood-and-plaster, primitively painted structure has a resounding acoustic like none other I’ve experienced.… Kenneth Fuchs’s United Artists (2006) was a perfect fit for the church. It was a tribute to the musicians of the London Symphony, and the short work’s dramatic, resounding chords and gloriously ringing orchestral flourishes constitute a modern fanfare of sorts. The composer’s beaming face at the work’s conclusion matched the bright, upbeat heralds of this euphonic crowd-pleaser that was given the royal treatment by the orchestra   — Jason Victor Serinus

Sunday’s concert at the Mission opened with the world premiere of Kenneth Fuchs’s energetic “United Artists.” Bright and upbeat, its music filled the Mission with bracing fanfares and thunderous timpani cascades. A lyrically sweeping melody line spotlighting various orchestra sections and soloists intertwined with itself between joyous bold statements.   — Phyllis Rosenblum

East Coast composer Kenneth Fuchs … contributed a concert overture, “United Artists,” a lively and exuberant exercise that dances along at high speed with numerous “echoes” of a four-note theme.   — Paul Hertelendy

I only just caught up with a stunningly good Albany Records CD of String Quartets Nos. 2, 3, and 4 (TROY 480) by Kenneth Fuchs, released in 2001. I wrote an enthusiastic review of Fuchs’s ebullient orchestral work, An American Place, for Naxos recently; as a result, he contacted me and suggested I listen to his chamber music. I am glad that he did; these are among the best pieces of American chamber music I have encountered. Fuchs writes with a Janáček-like wildness, employs at times a piercing intimacy of a highly lyrical nature, and has a haunting Bernard Hermann-like quality to some of his themes and mysterious ostinatos. It is hard to imagine a better or more gripping performance than this one by the American String Quartet.   — Robert R. Reilly

I will close with something on the more exuberant side: Kenneth Fuchs’s An American Place (for Orchestra), written to express the “brash optimism of the American spirit.” This it does in a very appealing — in fact, exhilarating — musical outburst, which Fuchs builds to on John Adams-like chugging ostinatos and beautiful, soaring melodies. Fuchs is obviously trying to write in a popular style, and he succeeds without being cloying. Also on this Naxos release (8.559224) is Fuchs’s Eventide, a concerto for English horn, harp, percussion, and string orchestra. It is another immediately appealing work: enchanting, exquisitely fine, and gorgeously melodic. In Out of the Dark, Fuchs shows that he can write dissonant, thorny music to reflect upon Helen Frankenthaler’s paintings. However, by the third movement, Summer Banner, he returns to his gracious, mellifluous style. This is all beautifully played by the London Symphony Orchestra, under JoAnn Falletta.   — Robert R. Reilly

After hearing his highly accomplished and attractive music on this disc, you may find yourself wondering where Kenneth Fuchs has been hiding himself. The answer: Oklahoma, where the Juilliard-educated composer completed a lengthy term as director of the University’s School of Music in 2005. The Great Plains seem to have been a fine muse, judging from recent works like An American Place and Eventide. The former reveals a style that owes a great deal — though by no means everything — to minimalism; the gently chugging rhythm of the opening, and the melodies that gradually evolve out of it, will remind most listeners of John Adams, but after this initial impetus the music travels through a wide expressive and coloristic range. More uniform in mood, but also the most winning composition on the program, is Eventide, a gorgeously lyrical concerto for English horn. Written for the New York Philharmonic’s English horn player Thomas Stacy, who performs it here as well, Eventide unfolds slowly in dreamlike fashion, its melodies alluding to spirituals like “Swing Low, Sweet Chariot,” with the solo instrument basking in its characteristically mournful yet comforting tone. With the chamber orchestra suite Out of the Dark (1984), inspired by abstract paintings by Helen Frankenthaler, we get to sample an earlier phase of Fuchs’ career. Slightly harsher and more angular, it also includes some of the most expressive music on the disc, with especially potent solo writing for the French horn. JoAnn Falletta conducted its premiere in 1985, and she leads the London Symphony through brilliant performances of all three works on this disc. Much credit is due to Naxos’ American Classics series, which has become one of the main venues to allow living composers like Kenneth Fuchs a much-deserved hearing.   — Scott Paulin

… Part tone-poem, part rhapsody, part concerto for orchestra, [An American Place] is nearly 19 minutes of a rich and vibrant tapestry of ever-changing moods and colors, a brilliant tour-de-force of evocative melody and masterful orchestration.

Beautiful as An American Place may be, the real gem on this program, at least for me, is Eventide, nominally a concerto for English horn and orchestra. To be sure, not every one of its 21 minutes had me enthralled — I particularly did not care for the passage beginning at 9:17, and again at 12:30 that, through some combination of over-blowing or simultaneous humming and blowing, makes the English horn sound like a kazoo. But the moment is short-lived, and the music returns to its opening mood of a lonely pastoral dreamscape, animated by a more agitated, contrapuntally developed mid-section, before returning to its earlier quietude. Thomas Stacy, who currently occupies the solo English horn chair at the New York Philharmonic, plays with remarkable control and beauty of tone.

Pursuing a theme she began with her “Pictures at a Gallery” CD (reviewed in 27:4) — works inspired by paintings — JoAnn Falletta concludes the present program with Fuchs’s Out of the Dark, a three-movement suite for chamber orchestra that draws its inspiration from three large canvases by Helen Frankenthaler — Heart of November, Out of the Dark, and Summer Banner, which are also the titles of the movements. Frankenthaler is generally classified as an abstract expressionist, and so it seems only fitting that Fuchs’s musical rendering should turn towards 12-tone and serial techniques. At the outset, at least, the music is a bit more austere and perhaps not as immediately palatable as are the other two works on the CD. But in the end, Fuchs returns to a warmer clime, concluding on a note of peaceful repose. The work features an important solo role for French horn, which is admirably played here by the first chair hornist of the LSO, Timothy Jones.

A superb introduction then to yet another voice to be heard in Naxos’s “American Classics” series. Recommended.   — Jerry Dubins

Kenneth Fuchs’ An American Place is a bright, big-hearted, neo-romantic work in the style of John Adams’ Harmonielehre. Adams’ finale is an unmistakable influence as both works open with motor rhythms chugging along in the strings while woodwinds and high percussion chirp and tingle above as the music builds to a spirit-lifting sunrise. Fuchs pretty much goes his own way from there as the piece travels through a series of engaging episodes — some featuring wonderful brass writing — and closes in a similar atmosphere to its opening. Eventide is a concerto for English horn, harp, percussion, and strings inspired by Negro spirituals such as “Swing Low, Sweet Chariot” and “Mary Had a Baby,” though Fuchs does not quote them directly, at least not in a manner that’s easily recognizable. The work is reminiscent of the pastoral mood-music of Vaughan Williams, though the English horn writing occasionally brings to mind jazz saxophonist Kenny G — a tribute perhaps to the free spirited, highly virtuosic playing of soloist Thomas Stacy.

The pleasantries end with Out of the Dark, which is a set of three pieces based on works by expressionist painter Helen Frankenthaler. “Heart of November” begins in thorny string paroxysms, while “Out of the Dark” moves somewhat away from the gnarly harmonies of the previous piece. “Summer Banner” gradually reintroduces consonance, and the work ends in a blissful, subdued atmosphere (with fine solo work by hornist Timothy Jones). JoAnn Falletta leads first-rate performances with the London Symphony Orchestra, captured in excellent sound — another fine addition to Naxos’ American Classics series.   — Artistic quality 9 / Sound quality 10   — Victor Carr Jr.

Kenneth Fuchs intended his 2002 orchestral score An American Place to reflect “the palette of musical sounds that have developed in the United States during the last hundred years.” Juddering minimalist rhythms at the outset, an open-prairie Copland soundscape, and the argumentative stringency of a Schuman or Harris can all be discerned in the composition, but it is no mere cut-and-paste assemblage. Its 19 minutes are cogently argued, tuneful, and bear a strong individual imprint. More pastoral, more alluringly sensuous in its gestures is Eventide, a concerto for English horn, creamily played here by New York Philharmonic principal Thomas Stacy. Out of the Dark, a chamber piece, draws on a more self-consciously modernistic idiom, but has the same fluidity of communication. An interesting account of how this CD came to be recorded is at www.kennethfuchs.com/lso.htm — it is worth reading. The LSO does a splendid job of basically sight-reading this unfamiliar music.   — Terry Blain

Kenneth Fuchs lists as his teachers Babbitt, Diamond and Persichetti. His An American Place, according to the composer, is “intended to suggest the rich body of music created by the American symphonists who have come before me and from whom I continue to take inspiration.” JoAnn Falletta, the conductor of this disc, directed the world premiere of this piece with the Virginia Symphony Orchestra in 2005. The latter section (“Finale scherzando”) suggests the “brash optimism of the American spirit.”

The work emerges from a slow, rumbly opening. Don’t they all?, says the cynic in me, but what emerges thereafter is evidence of a fertile aural imagination. Fuchs’ voice is confident, often glittering with some nods towards the minimalists. He explores darker regions later in the piece. There is the impression of Fuchs setting out his orchestral palette.

Eventide, a concerto for English horn (or cor anglais to use the European term), is more interesting, despite the razzle-dazzle of An American Place. It is stunningly played by Thomas Stacy (cor anglais to the NYPO), whose smooth, round tone is perfect for this crepuscular exercise. Stacy is astonishingly accurate in the faster passages but it is in the more evocative sections that he excels. Intrinsically American in sound-world, this is an interesting piece that is, in the final analysis, a touch long. Worth hearing for Stacy’s multiphonics, though. He manages to persuade us that this is no mere trick but a real expressive device in its own right — more often than not they just sound embarrassing!

Out of the Dark is subtitled, “Suite for Chamber Orchestra After Three Paintings by Helen Frankenthaler.” It is one of these paintings that adorns the cover of the disc (“Summer Banner” of 1968). The third movement takes this as its starting point; the other two are based on “Heart of November” and “Out of the Dark.” Frankenthaler’s abstract expressionism implies to Fuchs a progression from tension to resolution, a concept he has transferred to his music — not uniquely, it has to be said.

The first movement, “Heart of November” has a Bartókian slant. Superbly played all round, special mention should go to the soloist Timothy Jones, the LSO’s principal horn player, who gives the long, evocative melodies with real affection. The frozen, fragmentary “Out of the Dark” is the most impressive movement sonically, and the piece then moves straight into the final “Summer Banner,” where Jones’ horn playing reaches a climax of improbable smoothness — what slurs! The movement itself is evocative of large, open spaces.

Well worth investigating. Fuchs is a composer who is new to me, and it has been interesting to spend 55 minutes 16 seconds in his presence.   — Colin Clarke

With this edition in its ever-expanding and consistently intriguing American Classics series, Naxos introduces the music of contemporary composer, Kenneth Fuchs. There are three works that span his creative life from the mid-1980s to the present day.

Fuchs is of the generation of composers that grew up under the tutelage of the American neo-romantics (Fuchs’ teachers included David Diamond) caught between the pull of the atonal avant-garde and the fascination of minimalism. Fuchs’ idiom is strongly influenced by the latter, and he brings to it an ear for orchestral colour and the nuances of the American sounds that permeate the works of Copland, among others.

The first work on the disc is the most interesting. An American Place is a tone poem for large orchestra. It is as colourful as it is quintessentially American — in a soft-edged, optimistic, mid-Western kind of way.… The influence of Fuchs’ fellow American composers is certainly strong, with hints of Adams, Copland, Sondheim and Diamond, among others, surfacing in the score. There are also more international influences at play. There is for example a reference to Bartók in the clarinet runs from Bluebeard’s “lake of tears” at around 11:08, which Fuchs contrasts wonderfully with bluesy brass. To my ears at least, there’s also a nod towards the sound-world of Walton from 12:48. However, while referential, the music never strays into pastiche. Fuchs’ use of contrasting rhythmic motifs in the strings and tuned percussion and his characterful writing for woodwinds and brass are quite individual. The orchestral playing is exemplary and the conducting sympathetic and true.

A concerto for cor anglais in one movement, it seems to fall into three sections. There is a pastoral opening that conjures an atmosphere not too distant from that of Vaughan Williams’ The Lark Ascending. This is followed by an eerie second section from about 6:58, with gentle dissonances in the strings and over-blowing of the cor anglais darkening the mood. Then a cadenza at 11:43 leads into a rhythmically driven finale which fades, after recalling the two previous sections, into resignation.… Thomas Stacy, the work’s dedicatee, plays with subtlety and feeling.…

The final work is a suite of three movements, each inspired by a different painting by the abstract expressionist artist Helen Frankenthaler (the picture that inspired the final movement appears on the CD cover). The piece seems to represent something of Fuchs’ own musical journey, beginning in a warm but atonal soundscape and moving “out of the dark” into a warmer, more tonal idiom in the third movement. This features some lovely writing for horn, rendered well by Timothy Jones.

Falletta has known and worked with Fuchs since their days at the Juilliard School in the mid-1980s, and her understanding of his music shows in her rhythmically aware and assured conducting. The London Symphony Orchestra is right with her in every bar, and the acoustic of St Luke’s adds a generous warmth to the recording.…

Not yet 50, American composer Kenneth Fuchs has a large body of works behind him in a variety of styles. But as An American Place makes clear, he has a distinctly native voice; it’s populated with overarching melodic phrases and has an incessant rhythmic drive.

An American Place is like the sophisticated soundtrack to a road movie. The composer himself is fascinated by the confluence of music and visual art — indeed, Out of the Dark is based on abstract canvases by New York artist Helen Frankenthaler.

Fuchs has an uncanny knack for conjuring up a dream-like sense of place. Both An American Place and Out of the Dark are wonderfully evocative. Their largely diatonic, post-romantic language may not be to all tastes but there’s no denying the mastery with which Fuchs handles his resources.

The cinematic feel of the music is second nature to an orchestra that has recorded more major film scores than almost any other. Fuchs is also well served by JoAnn Falletta, who understands his idiom and directs with energy and intensity.

It’s in the chamber-scale Eventide, a fantasia-concerto for cor anglais, that Fuchs is at his most original. Even here, though, there’s an evident nod to some famous antecedents — not least Dvořák’s use of the cor anglais in the New World symphony.

As an introduction to a prolific American composer, this CD is as good value and well-played a starting point as any.

There’s much to be said for ambition. Forty-nine-year-old composer Kenneth Fuchs — a Juilliard colleague of JoAnn Falletta’s as well as English hornist Thomas Stacy — says that the 19-minute “An American Place” “reflects the palette of musical sounds that have developed in the United States during the last hundred years, including popular and classical elements, and is intended to suggest the rich body of music created by the American symphonists who have come before me.” Whew. And so it does, in the most ear-friendly way, as does “Eventide” for English horn and orchestra. Both share the language of neo-Romantics a half-century earlier (Robert Ward and composers out of the Eastman School of Music after Howard Hanson). So too does “Eventide” entail much flutter-tongued double-reed virtuosity from the soloist. A knottier matter is the 12-tone “Out of the Dark” inspired by the paintings of Abstractionist Helen Frankenthaler. The performances by maestra Falletta and the Londoners are truly superb — the sort that contemporary music so seldom attains on first-disc performances.   — Jeff Simon

[Fuchs] is a major composer, I’m convinced, whose music is quintessentially American in the same way that the music of Aaron Copland and William Schuman is. The performances here are first-rate, with an old friend of his, JoAnn Falletta, conducting the London Symphony Orchestra.

An American Place is the most recent of the works here; it was premièred by JoAnn Falletta and the Virginia Symphony Orchestra in March 2005.… This is an open-faced, optimistic, even brash piece that makes great use of seventh-chord suspensions, seconds and thirds, whirling strings, skittering winds, pizzicato basses, and brass fanfarade. There is a celebratory atmosphere but there are pauses for suspense, lyricism, melancholy, even tragedy within the work’s nineteen minutes.… This is a marvelous work that will surely find its place in American orchestral concerts, perhaps as a concert opener. It’s one of those pieces that makes you feel better. The LSO’s performance probably could not be bettered.

The English hornist of the New York Philharmonic, Thomas Stacy, one of the legends of that instrument, has been a friend of Ken Fuchs’s since student days.… Eventide (a concerto for English horn, harp, percussion and string orchestra) is a twenty-one minute, single movement work that shows what Stacy can do.… The strings, mostly tuned percussion (celesta, crotales, chimes, glockenspiel, xylophone) and harp supply a gossamer cushion upon which the English horn limns a meditative picture of surpassing beauty.…

Out of the Dark (Suite for Chamber Orchestra; 16 minutes long) is a set of three tone poems inspired by three paintings of the New York abstract expressionist painter Helen Frankenthaler.… There is more bite to them, more astringency but they work their way “from tension to resolution,” to quote Fuchs. Structurally this involves moving more and more into uncomplicated tonality as the set of pieces progresses. This is satisfying both esthetically and emotionally. There is a very important part for solo horn, played here brilliantly by the LSO’s principal French horn, Timothy Jones.

This is an important issue. Here we have three major pieces by what I am convinced is an important emerging American composer. Strongly recommended.

These quartets from the 1990s by composer-conductor Kenneth Fuchs, Director of the School of Music at the University of Oklahoma, have a lyrical spareness reminiscent of Copland. Open harmonies and disarmingly simple melodies abound, but the structures are sophisticated and satisfying, yielding a distinctly American sound. The American Quartet plays with vividness and obvious affection.

The 1993 Quartet No. 2 has an American impressionism inspired by Robert Motherwell’s collages. No. 3 is a Whitmanian mediation on the poet’s “Whispers of Heavenly Death,” No. 4 an abstract, non-programmatic work in one movement. No. 4 is the most lyrical, tightly structured, and immediately appealing of these quartets. More ambitious is the 1999 Whitman work, a recent addition to the huge literature of musical Whitmania that began during the poet’s lifetime in England with composers like Stanford and gradually spread back to his homeland, where it continues to flourish. Composers from Vaughan Williams to Robert Starer have written vocal settings of these strangely ecstatic death poems, but Fuchs’s is a purely instrumental piece, with the poems acting as inspirations. It begins with a stark Allegro agitato, moves into a pensive and mysterious variation set, and concludes with an exuberant, grandiose finale, a splendid affirmation of Whitmanian optimism in the face of death.

Recorded at the Purchase Recital Hall, a superb venue that enhances many Albany releases, the recording is warm and spacious, making the best possible case for this attractive music. Listen to the transparent, zipping violins and elegant harmonics in the Energico opening of Quartet No. 3 finale, for example. String Quartet recordings don’t get much better than this. The excellent production includes a touching appreciation of Fuchs’s work by his ever-popular colleague, Richard Danielpour.

Years ago when I was teaching in High School in the West Country of the UK, I ran an Arts Association and booked a visiting exhibition of contemporary art of which only one painting remains in my memory, Andrew Wyeth’s evocative painting of Christina’s World. A work with that title by Kenneth Fuchs gives the title to a fine CD by World Association for Symphonic Bands and Ensembles member Gary Green, whose University of Miami Wind Ensemble is accurate, well balanced, with good intonation and some excellent soloists. While I am not sure that for me Fuchs completely recaptures what I recall of the loneliness of Christina’s pose and her illness, he writes a work of over 11 minutes of some substance; much of it is impressionistic, some is minimalist, but I find the scoring attractive, the ideas interesting, and this is a work I would happily recommend.

Of all of the members of the New York Philharmonic invited to participate in Cala’s admirable New York Legends series, Thomas Stacy is one of the few who can truly be called a “legend.” This man has almost defined the English horn for the music world over the last 25 years. He has been a member of the Philharmonic since 1972, a fervent commissioner of new works, teacher, lecturer, and the most recorded English hornist in the world. This recital demonstrates his consummate mastery of the instrument — a burnished, juicy sound, flawless technique, and musicianship second to none.

The blockbuster on this disc is also the first presented, Kenneth Fuchs’s Face of the Night. Nicely expressionistic, lyrical, modal, with hints of minimalism that don’t outstay their welcome, this piece deserves many recordings — but none will be able to compete with Stacy’s evocative, darkly woven tapestry. The chamber group is very supportive, though perhaps a little ragged in a few spots. This is a terrific work.

String quartet writing is alive and well in America. Before I bought this CD I had never heard of Kenneth Fuchs. But members of the American String Quartet are old friends and I typically buy their new releases. I’m glad I did. Fuchs, Director of the School of Music at the University of Oklahoma, and formerly Dean of Students and Academics at the Manhattan School of Music, is a real composer. On the basis of these three quartets, one can say that he has a genuine lyrical gift, as well as a masterful sense of form, expert counterpoint, rhythmic verve, and drama.

The Second Quartet has five movements inspired by five different pieces of Robert Motherwell, whose collages the composer had first seen in New York in 1984. Full-color photographs of the five collages are included in the liner notes and it was helpful to look at them while listening to the music. Fuchs’s style is generally tonal, but with enough spicy dissonance to make the harmonies interesting, and there are even some serial sections which, however, are still tonal-sounding. If I had to compare his sound to any other composer’s, I’d probably have to mention that of Shostakovich; what composer writing quartets in the second half of the 20th century could avoid his influence? Shostakovich’s hollow-eyed terror, however, is missing. And occasionally, as in the second movement, there is a melismatic ecstasy reminiscent of Vaughan Williams’s The Lark Ascending. The third movement combines elements of the first two, while responding to “The Marriage,” one of Motherwell’s pieces, and, in the composer’s wry comment, “it ends badly.” The fourth movement functions as the work’s development and leads to the fifth movement, which one could consider the quartet’s recapitulation; the musical landscapes of the earlier movements are recalled in an affirmative mood.

The Third Quartet, in three movements and subtitled “Whispers of Heavenly Death,” was composed “as a gift for the American String Quartet,” after they had toured with the Second Quartet. Each of the movements has an epigram from Whitman’s “Darest Thou Now O Soul.” The materials in the three movements are related, and like the working-out of the materials in Bartok’s Music for Strings, Percussion and Celesta, the harmonic language becomes more diatonic as the work progresses, with an accompanying easing of tension. Like the Second Quartet, this one ends on an affirmative note.

The Fourth Quartet, subtitled “Bergonzi,” was written for the Bergonzi Quartet, in 1998. Its one ten-minute movement has three distinct sections — Energico — Meno mosso — Vivo — played without interruption. The first section introduces a tremolo figure on the viola followed by a lyrical, almost swooning, figure on the cello and these become the major figures in the succeeding lyrical second and energetic third sections.

This CD probably represents the last ASQ recording that includes their founding cellist, David Geber, who became head of the Manhattan School’s string department in 2001. I haven’t heard his successor, Margo Tatgenhorst, yet, but look forward to hearing the ASQ next week. And, frankly, I’m hoping they will play one of Fuchs’s quartets. As for this particular recording, I can only quote the reviewer in American Record Guide: “Quartet recordings don’t get much better than this.”

When the “New York Legends” recording project permitted Thomas Stacy to choose the repertoire for his own CD, he packed in as much music and as many composers as he could, drawing from the twenty-five-plus world premieres and commissions he has already given. One of the twelve New York Philharmonic principals included in Cala Records’ “celebration of the orchestral musician as an individual,” English hornist Stacy had nearly completed twenty-five years with the New York Philharmonic by 1996, when the CD was made. Six composers, four of whom are American and still living, wrote the almost eighty minutes of music.…

Kenneth Fuchs’s Face of the Night opens with a raw oboe obligato, played with a wide-open sound. Percussion (vibes, cymbals, drums, bells…), harp, and three strings spell the oboe and extend the expressive range of this large, programmatic piece, which, according to its composer, represents moods suggested by Robert Motherwell’s painting of the same name. Fuchs, currently a dean at the Manhattan School of Music, has a distinct compositional voice that holds the piece together through its changing levels of agitation and anguish. The accompanying ensemble makes for an efficient palette of colors that add substantially to the work’s emotion. Notably effective is the turning point, a bit past the middle, when the frantic oboe dissolves into ringing percussive sonorities, only to re-emerge on the same pitch as an English horn. This gorgeous moment sounds even better because of Stacy’s ability to meld the two instruments; I had a vivid picture of an oboe shape-shifting into its tenor brother. Fuchs weaves the English horn through a string counterpoint before giving it up to more cadenza passage work with undulating harp. Slowly shifting tonal areas bring a sense of peace, but Fuchs wants the composition to end with a recapitulation of the negative emotion of its beginning. He dissolves the fleeting repose with sinister interjections by the drums and an unresolved final note in the English horn.