<<  -- 2 --  Patric Standford    OFTEN INTRIGUING

There are two other American composers: Marshall Ocker, born in St Louis, Missouri in 1926, dedicates his Eclogue for string orchestra to his wife whose avid interest in ornithology is reflected in the transcription of birdsong from the eastern States, carefully notated and woven into the lush texture [listen -- track 3, 7:06-8:03], and Henry Wolking, who is a chairman of jazz studies and professor at the University of Utah, orchestrates the three linked movements of what was originally music for cello and jazz trio in his A Luta Continua, a laboured piece in which one might reasonably expect more excitement than we get [listen -- track 5, 10:56-11:50].

The Viennese composer Werner Pelinka's brief horn concerto which he calls Sinfonietta con Corale is an attractively guileless and predominantly fugal piece which opens strongly [listen -- track 2, 0:00-0:57] and ends with a gentle and colourful chorale melody.

Eberhard Eyser was born in Germany (1932) and now lives in Sweden. If his style can be measured by his Anacrón, the result of imagining 'tone constellations as geometric figures rotating around their own axes in a pitch-time coordinate system', then it is concentrated and colourful pointillism [listen -- track 4, 2:40-3:18] and over ten minutes a hypnotically appealing experience.

For help listening to the sound extracts here, please refer to our questions & answers page.