The "hot, young composer" of yesteryear... where are they now? (Part I)

Every few years the classical music press will make a make a big hoopla over some new composer they perceive as the "great white hope" of the genre. At the turn of this century, the British press was all agog over Thomas Ades. Described as a sort of second Benjamin Britten, he and his music was exulted in such luxuriously overripe prose that they really should have been upfront with their readers and hailed him as the second coming. Of course, his music was anything but. It was decently crafted music in a sort of sub-Ligeti/Berkeley/Knussen-esque mode, but nothing that really is going to set the world afire. I own all his CDs and have listened to them over and over again as well as listening to him in concert when he was here in Los Angeles. But no dice.

In the 1990's there was another composer that was being touted as a phenomenon. The first time I ever heard of Michael Torke was in an interview on KUSC or KKGO (I forget which one). All I remember is that he was introduced as "hot, young composer Michael Torke". Young he may have been (he was in his early 30's then), but his music was hardly hot. His music wasn't bad and truth be told, I would prefer it over Ades. It was a genial melding of Copland and minimalism with a whiff of Bernstein and easy listening pop thrown in for good measure. Not quite for me, but it was OK. If the music of the Austro-Germans and Russians are "red meat", Torke's music would be a sort of "tofu". And I have the carnivorous appetite of a Tyrannosaurus Rex.

He was enjoying something of a hey-day in the early to mid 1990's. Torke was widely performed and his work was being eagerly recorded by Argo. So what happened to all this promise? When the classical music recording industry began its inexorable downturn in the mid to late 1990's, boutique labels like Argo (owned by PolyGram) and Catalyst (owned by BMG) went bust and along with it, the hopes of a wider dissemination of Torke's and many other composers' music. It would be a very long time until I heard the name Torke again, this time via a Naxos release. The man himself seems to be doing OK if his website is any indication and is keeping busy. There's even a joint commission from the English National Opera and the Metropolitan Opera in the works.

In any event, I'm mentioning all this because--surprise, surprise!--I'm posting this Torke album I had found in a closet in my mother's house some weeks back. I thought I had lost it. But, no, there it was hidden away under some old textbooks and ancient issues of Nintendo Power. So what about the music? The music, like I said, is OK. Nothing great, but it won't irritate or offend you either. It's firmly diatonic if you like that sort of thing. It's bouncy, happy, and joyful, but you probably won't be contemplating it once it's done. Javelin is probably the best work here on this album. It was commissioned by the Atlanta Symphony for the 1996 Summer Olympics and it makes a fine curtain raiser; a charming orchestral showpiece that deserves to be performed more often. The second movement for Music on the Floor I find less impressive. This is Torke in a more melancholic mood, but the music sounds to me like something that should accompany a NyQuil ad or maybe a Lifetime TV movie of the week. Adjustable Wrench, if the liner notes and that old radio interview are correct, was something of a hit for this composer. Why that was I can't possibly phathom. I guess a lot of people thought it was "cool" that he incorporated a few klutzy electric guitar riffs in this chamber work. It just sounds like yet another lame attempt to reconcile the worlds of rock and pop with classical music. But I'm sure it would be welcome in a "pops" program so as to demonstrate to the audience that the orchestra isn't so out of touch; that they can be "hep" too. The album closes with two movements from his Color Music--Green and Bright Blue. I'm sure these would make an excellent soundtrack to some as of yet unfilmed Spielberg movie.

The performances are excellent all around. The Atlanta Symphony and Baltimore Symphony play very well as does the London Sinfonietta. Argo's sonics are sumptuous. If you're looking for an hour's worth of safe musical thrills, here you go.