Description: Locklair’s conservative yet appealing idiom, an offshoot of the tonal American symphonic tradition, with an emphasis on the celebratory and uplifting, is shown to good advantage in these attractive works, as it was on 09J076 more than a decade ago. The symphony draws on melodies associated with three American holidays of historical significance – Independence Day (America the Beautiful), Memorial Day (Taps), and Thanksgiving (the Thanksgiving hymn ‘We Gather Together’) in a bold, colorful pageant celebrating our nation. The original version of PHOENIX was written for the re-opening of a renovated chapel and was written to evoke Renaissance brass antiphony, with exchanges between spatially positioned brass ensembles and the orchestra in the stirring outer processionals, which bracket a softer, meditative section. The Organ Concerto begins with the obligatory post-Poulenc opening organ fanfare with timpani, followed by stately chordal exchanges between organ and orchestra. This is supplanted by a lively dancing section, a chaconne in which the theme itself is varied in the central part, followed by a return of the grand opening material. According to Locklair, the slow movement celebrates God’s creation, especially in the form of a beloved canine companion of the composer’s, who died during the work’s composition, symbolized by the triad G-B-D, which permeates the whole work. The organ introduces a gentle, melodious theme, which is then paired with an 11th-century plainsong melody as the movement crescendoes to a grandly exultant climax before a final gentle statement of the main theme in a haze of string harmonics. The lively finale, Toccata, has a continuous rhythmic pulse and something of the circus about it, the solo instrument sometimes sounding like a fairground organ. The cadenza is for pedals alone (itself a good circus trick), leading to a final exuberant romp to the finish line. Hail the Coming Day is “A festive piece” in honor of the composer’s hometown of Winston-Salem, SC, in sections that variously evoke the Industrial Revolution and the hymns of early Protestant settlers. Peter Mikula (organ), Slovak National Symphony Orchestra; Kirk Trevor, Michael Roháč.
Reviews
AllMusic Review: Symphony No. 2 “America” CD
American composer Dan Locklair teaches at Wake Forest University in North Carolina. His works, many of them choral or vocal, have been widely popular, and the commercial success of this Naxos-label selection of his music demonstrates the breadth of his appeal. The titular Symphony No. 2 (“America”) is an attractive, Coplandesque work ideally suited for summer symphony concerts, with the tune America the Beautiful effectively alluded to but not directly quoted, and there are two shorter, similarly festive orchestral works. Most distinctive is the Concerto for organ and orchestra of 2010. Locklair began his career as a church organist and has continued to perform on the instrument, winning a Composer of the Year award from the American Guild of Organists in 1996. It’s easy to hear why: his treatment of the organ in concerted textures is unique. Only rarely does he oppose the sounds of the organ and orchestra in the classical formation. Instead, he uses the organ’s wide variety of tone colors as a kind of extension of the orchestra, to delightful effect. Sample the slow movement, titled “Canto (to God and dog),” which is lyrical and almost psychedelic; the tonal palette of the concerto is wider than in the other works on the album. In the concerto’s finale, Locklair’s brasses come out, and the organ reaches full power. There’s nothing wrong with the organ at the Concert Hall of the Slovak Radio in Bratislava, played here by Peter Mikula, but the work is strong enough that one might hope to hear it played on one of the great organs of Europe or the U.S. The performances by the Slovak National Symphony Orchestra under Kirk Trevor are very strong; Locklair, a university composer, is good at giving every instrumentalist a line, and the orchestral soloists never flag. The brass and percussion in the organ concerto finale are especially impressive. Recommended.
Gapplegate Classical-Modern Music Review: Symphony No.2 “America” CD
From Gapplegate Classical-Modern Music Review
Dan Locklair (b. 1949) has a pleasing way about him. There is something of a present-day Copland feel to him in his fondness for paraphrasing Americana sorts of themes at least most certainly in his Symphony No. 2 “America” (Naxos 8.559860). The program at hand is well performed and contains the symphony, two shorter works plus the “Concerto for Organ and Orchestra.”
It is homespun mainstream–the sort anyone might like and there is little exactly that would define it as Modern except that it is not “Classical” or “Romantic”.” It is tonal-pleasing, reminding you perhaps of the things you might hear on a good contemporary movie soundtrack or as done by a wind band of a superior sort Vittorio Giannini comes to mind but not in any way I can pinpoint here. Nobody would take offense at this music and it is enjoyable, very much so.
The “Symphony No. 2 ‘America’” is in the form of a Holidays Symphony–with a movement each for Independence Day, one for Memorial Day and one for Thanksgiving. “America the Beautiful” is paraphrased a good deal at first. We hear “Taps” and then not surprisingly the hymn “We Gather Together (To Ask the Lord’s Blessing)” for the Thanksgiving movement.
The other works are less obvious I suppose but pleasing. He is inventive in ways the most rudimentally musical layman could no doubt understand. So good for that as far as extending the music is concerned!
I enjoy this program without necessarily putting some seal of “masterpiece” on it all. It pleases me. And the first time through you get the whole thing, pretty much. It is not like you are going to open up a great deal of vistas on listen number 10. It is what it is and that “is” happens to be fine and dandy, well done. Lovers of Americana will be right there I imagine. I might rather hear Charles Ives personally, but I do not want to turn this into a horse race. Nicely done. Nice music. And that includes the “Concerto for Organ!”
2 Reviews: Symphony No.2 CD
From the January/February 2020 issue of Fanfare Magazine:
Locklair Symphony No.2, “America”.1 Hail the Coming Day.2 Organ Concerto.3 Phoenix4 • 3Peter Mikula (org); 1, 4Kirk Trevor, 2, 3Michael Roháč, cond; Slovak Natl SO • Naxos 8.559860 (Streaming audio: 63:03) https://www.naxosmusiclibrary.com/catalogue/item.asp?cid=8.559860
When Wake Forest University composer Dan Locklair’s Second Symphony, “America,” was premiered in 2017 by the Western Piedmont Symphony, the North Carolina Classical Voice summed it up as “soon-to-be-a-hit.” I can understand why, and this release should help make it so. Locklair writes in a tonal idiom and composes without the sneaky embarrassment afflicting most contemporaries in the wake of a welcomely defunct dodecaphonic era.
Twelve-tone composition, after all, held a notorious stranglehold on new music premieres in America for decades. Beginning somewhere around 1950 it had an unavoidable effect on all composers, including those who disliked it. Even Leonard Bernstein and Howard Hanson felt at times impelled to insert tone rows in symphonies, lest they be thought insufficiently up to date. When choking audiences at last began to demand relief from a political correctness musicians irreverently termed “pluck and scratch,” it tended to come under the guise of “minimalism,” which as often as not waterboarded simple chords, repeating and rotating and chugging them along ad infinitum. We went from parched ears to nearly drowned. Another tactic, still very much with us, has been to make music melodic, yes, but harsh and metallic, as if screeching tunes through tin cans filled with nails could achieve originality. You don’t necessarily run from the concert hall. But you wouldn’t want to play most contemporary pieces for consolation the day your dog dies, either. In any case, Shostakovich usually did it better!
So I welcome Locklair’s Symphony No. 2 for sounding like the simple, brassy patriotic work it is, something which could have been written by a populist composer in the 1930s or 1940s. Each movement is based on a well-known tune, America the Beautiful for “Independence Day,” Taps for “Memorial Day,” and We Gather Together for “Thanksgiving.” The melodies are cleverly disguised at first and flower towards the end of each movement with a lovely simplicity. It reminds me of William Schuman’s popular New England Triptych, though it’s even gentler and ends quietly, or something by Morton Gould. Locklair’s style is bouncy and optimistic in the symphony and not significantly different in the other pieces. Hail the Coming Day celebrates the coming together of Winston and Salem, North Carolina and is subtly based on Hosanna. Phoenix is an expanded fanfare piece composed to celebrate the renovation of Union Theological Seminary’s James Memorial Chapel. The Organ Concerto is rare in not making any ugly noises. One appreciates Locklair’s restraint with the instrument. Its slow movement is both humorous and moving: based on a triad dedicated to God and to the reverse of God, spelled dog, given the fact that the composer’s beloved Sheltie was dying at the time he composed it. The composer’s notes are worth reading.
The performances here, under a Slovak organist, two conductors (one British, one Canadian), and a Slovak orchestra, are utterly winning and American-sounding in manner. Naxos has provided beautiful sound. It isn’t often that one can leave the concert hall humming happy tunes. Some may find Locklair’s style too optimistic, as if it were waiting for the Mormon Tabernacle Choir to kick in, but I don’t hold that against it. How often do composers bring us joyous music, after all?
Steven Kruger
From the January 2020 issue of BBC Music Magazine:
Dan Locklair, Symphony No. 2, etc. Slovak National Symphony Orchestra, Naxos 8.559860
Full-hearted music from the American composer in a disc of premiere recordings. Hail the Coming Day is a particular pleasure; the Concerto comparatively benign. (MB) – 3 stars
Review: Salome’s Dance CD
From the October 2019 issue of The Diapason magazine’s review of Salome’s Dance: Robert Parkins plays the Aeolian Organ, Duke University Chapel, Durham, North Carolina. Loft LRCD-1147, 2019, $18.98. Available from https://www.gothic-catalog.com/product_p/lrcd-1147.htm:
“Dan Locklair, music professor at Wake Forest University in Winston-Salem, North Carolina, was commissioned to write The Aeolian Sonata to celebrate the Duke Chapel Aeolian’s seventieth anniversary. The lovely movement heard here, In Memory—H.H.L., was written in memory of the composer’s mother, Hester Helms Locklair. Noel’s Psalm (A Sonata for Organ) was premiered in Duke Chapel, as a commission by a Duke alumna in memory of her brother, Noel Kinnamon (an English professor who counted Locklair as one of his students), whose poetry inspired the sonata’s four movements (“Chaconne,” “Scherzo,” “Aria,” and “Dance”). This substantial work should find a place in the repertoire, and the performance here provides a fine “cook’s tour” of the Aeolian’s sonic personality.”
The Diapason Review: Gloria CD
THE DIAPASON – SEPTEMBER 2019 – REVIEWS
WWW.THEDIAPASON.COM
New Recordings
Dan Locklair: Gloria. Winchester College Chapel Choir and the Portsmouth Grammar School Chamber Choir, Malcolm Archer, conductor; Sospiri, Christopher Watson, conductor. Convivium Records compact disc CD 033. Available from: conviviumrecords.co.uk.
Lord Jesus, think on me (SATB and organ); The Isaiah Canticles (SATB divisi); Angel Song (SATB and organ); En natus est Emmanuel (SATB divisi with soprano and alto soloists); Gloria (SATB divisi, brass octet, and percussion); O sacrum convivium (SATB); Ubi caritas (unison and organ); Ave verum corpus (SATB divisi); St. Peter’s Rock (SATB, organ, and trumpet); Pater Noster (SATB divisi); Remembrance (SATB with brass soloist, organ, and trumpet); The Lord bless you and keep you (SATB with soprano soloist).
Dan Locklair (b. 1949), professor of music and composer-in-residence at Wake Forest University, is probably best known for his organ suite, Rubrics, a movement of which was used at President Ronald Reagan’s funeral. This compact disc features thirteen of his choral works sung by three different choirs with two conductors. Winchester College is a prestigious English independent school founded by William of Wykeham, Bishop of Winchester and Lord Chancellor of England, in 1382, partly as a feeder for his (then) New College, Oxford, founded in 1379. Portsmouth Grammar School is also a prestigious independent school founded rather more recently in 1732. The choirs of both institutions are conducted by Malcolm Archer (b. 1952), who is the director of chapel music at Winchester College, having previous been successively assistant organist of Norwich Cathedral and organist of Bristol, Wells, and St. Paul’s cathedrals. “Sospiri” is an ensemble predominately from the University of Oxford, conducted by Christopher Watson (b. 1969), director of music at St. Edmund Hall, Oxford. The recording took place in the Chapel of Keble College, Oxford, except for Gloria, which was recorded in Romsey Abbey. Both locations have excellent acoustics and exceptionally fine organs, but though we get to hear the 2011 Kenneth Tickell organ in Keble College Chapel, we unfortunately do not hear the historic 1858 Walker organ in the Abbey Church of St. Mary and St. Ethelflaeda in Romsey, since the track recorded there has an accompaniment of brass and percussion without organ.
The ethereal, atonal quality of the first piece, Lord Jesus, think on me, contrasts with the warmer and highly textured character of the first of the three Isaiah Canticles. The second canticle returns to the ethereal quality of the first track, but differs in there being considerable dynamic changes in the course of the canticle. The third canticle additionally makes several dramatic changes in tempo. The text of the fourth track, Angel Song, is of considerable interest. Pastor, abolitionist, and freethinker Moncure Daniel Conway (1832-1907) wrote the Christmas hymn, “Now let the angel-song break forth,” for inclusion in the Christmas 1862 issue of The Commonwealth magazine in celebration of Lincoln’s Emancipation Proclamation. John and P. J. Williams commissioned Dan Locklair’s setting for the choir of St. Paul’s Episcopal Church, Winston-Salem, North Carolina, and its organist John Cummins in 2014. It is another vigorous piece with an organ part of some complexity. En natus est Emmanuel is a beautiful lush unaccompanied anthem, using a Christmas text from Praetorius. It was written for and first performed by Bel Canto and the Greensboro Youth Chorus in North Carolina in 1999.
Gloria, the longest work included here, is the centerpiece of the compact disc, and the work from which it takes its title. It begins softly with a chant-like statement of the text accompanied by tubular bells, and gradually builds up into a massive sound accompanied by brass and percussion as the pace picks up and the procession of singers makes its way from the rear to the front of the building, then gradually slowing and dying away, then speeding up once more as it repeats the beginning of the text in a final climax at the end. It was commissioned by the Choral Art Society of Portland, Maine, who first performed it in 1999. Next follows a communion motet, O sacrum convivium, which is in some ways my favorite piece on the recording. Written in a slightly more traditional style than most of Dan Locklair’s works, it begins and ends quietly, almost imperceptibly, with a climax including soaring sopranos in the middle. This is followed by a unison plus organ setting of Ubi caritas in which effective use is made of contrasting men’s and women’s voices, chanting in such a way as to give a medieval feeling to the piece. Like Angel Song, Locklair wrote this piece for St. Paul’s Episcopal Church in Winston-Salem.
We come next to another communion motet, Ave verum corpus, a fittingly somber unaccompanied setting of this rather somber anonymous medieval text, written for Dan Locklair’s former student Andrew Clark in celebration of his first year as director of choral activities at Harvard University. Sarah Rowley does an excellent job performing the very beautiful soprano solo. St. Peter’s Rock is a much livelier piece based on the text “Tu es Petra,” written to celebrate the opening of a new parish house at St. Peter’s Episcopal Church in Charlotte, North Carolina, and also in memory of Dan Locklair’s uncle, Wriston Hale Locklair, a former chorister at St. Peter’s who was later on the staff of the Juilliard School in New York City. Pater Noster is a setting of the Lord’s Prayer in English, written for Gerre Hancock and the Men and Boys Choir of St. Thomas Church, Fifth Avenue, New York City. It has a rich and warm texture.
Dan Locklair wrote Remembrance for St. Paul’s Episcopal Church, Winston-Salem, North Carolina, in memory of his parents. The Beatitudes from the Gospel of Saint Matthew in the King James Version form the text. The trumpet part and the bass solo, sung by George Parris, have a haunting quality. The piece ends massively on the organ. The final work, The Lord Bless You and Keep You, is again warm and rich in its texture. This time Bethany Horak-Hallett is the soprano soloist. Dan Locklair composed the anthem in 2008 and dedicated it to Jack Mitchener, artist-in-residence at Peachtree Road United Methodist Church, Atlanta, Georgia, and his wife Julia.
Dan Locklair is undoubtedly one of America’s leading choral composers, and it is interesting that a compact disc celebrating his music should have been produced in England rather than in the United States. As mentioned above, three separate choirs were involved, and the booklet does not state which ones were singing what. The singing, however, is uniformly excellent, and in particular I have never heard school choirs that sounded this good before. I thoroughly recommend this compact disc.
−John L. Speller
Port Huron, Michigan
Review: Illuminations CD
The Illumina Duo’s Illuminations CD (Convivium 039) is part of Carson Cooman’s Want List, published in the November/December 2018 issue of Fanfare Magazine. The disk includes Dan’s Phoenix Processional and Trumpets of Light, performed by trumpeter Ellie Lovegrove and organist Richard Moore. Cooman said this about the release, “In 42:1, I reviewed a truly superb trumpet/organ album played by the Illumina Duo of Ellie Lovegrove and Richard Moore. In a genre that is often filled with less than inspiring transcriptions, this album of top quality original works is very welcome.” More about the collection at https://conviviumrecords.co.uk/releases/cr039-illuminations-dances-and-poems/.
New American Organist Review of Dan Locklair Gloria CD
Read a wonderful new American Organist review of Dan’s Gloria CD from Convivium Records. Order the disk from https://conviviumrecords.co.uk/releases/cr033-dan-locklair-gloria/.
Review for “Calm on the Listening Ear of Night”
From the October 2018 issue of The Journal of the Association of Anglican Musicians:
Dan Locklair. Calm on the Listening Ear of Night, SATB, org. (Subito Music Publishing, 91480790, 2017), 16 pp., $3.00.
Dan Locklair has emerged as one of the most significant American composers of church music in recent years, and it is on the strength of anthems such as this that he has earned this reputation. The organ introduction is redolent of early Locklair organ works like “The Peace may be exchanged” from Rubrics and “…beside the still waters” from Windows of Comfort. Rather than residing solely within this one musical vein, however, the anthem blossoms with a sophistication and variegation beyond the scope of these earlier character pieces. While the rhythmic motion is dominated by quarter-note beats, intermittent appearances of 3/8 measures interrupt the pacing, preventing the work from ever plodding. Similarly, Locklair explores a variety of tonal centers, moving smoothly from one key area to another. Locklair harnesses this rhythmic and harmonic flexibility to evocatively illuminate the sweeping phrases of Edmund Sears’s Christmas carol. Sears, a nineteenth-century Unitarian minister, is most remembered as the author of It Came upon the Midnight Clear. Both poems share an epic tone, while avoiding any Romantic-era grandiose overstatement. Locklair’s anthem matches the nobility of the poetry with gestures that are at turns intimate, then majestic. Throughout, he makes use of the full resources of the organ as an equal partner in painting the text. One passage even calls for a harp stop “when available” to undergird voices (the piece was, after all, written for Locklair’s home parish of St. Paul’s in Winston-Salem, with its famous E. M. Skinner organ). The anthem concludes in a surprising harmonic destination with a soprano solo, the composer’s written preference for a boy soprano placed antiphonally to the full choir, and organ cadencing in a rich A-flat major.
More about Calm on the Listening Ear of Night…
Review: Ave Verum Corpus
Lovely reviews of Dan’s choral music in The Journal of the Association of Anglican Musicians. First up, Ave Verum Corpus – SATB div, unacc. (Subito Music Publishing, 91480590, 2011), 10 pp., $2.25.
“Dan Locklair has emerged as one of the most significant compositional voices in contemporary American choral music, based on a string of works that span a wide range of styles and scope. His setting of Ave Verum Corpus is something of a microcosm of his creative personality. It begins with a dreamy oscillation of harmonies typical of his early organ compositions (e.g. “The Peace may be exchanged” from Rubrics and “…beside the still waters” from Windows of Comfort) in a rich A minor cast. A few touches of rhythmic independence in the part-writing enlivens the languorous texture, while the steady half-note beat prevails. At the mention of “cruce” Locklair introduces the characteristic Baroque-era chromatic cross motif used by Bach and others, yet this recognizable gesture is so well prepared that it doesn’t call attention to itself. Beginning with “cuius latus perforatum,” the motet begins moving with greater immediacy. Syncopated lines call attention to the drama of the text as it builds to a climactic (although piano) moment on “mortis examine.” The following list beginning with “O clemens” builds into widely-spaced fortissimo chords of arresting beauty. As the music moves towards its conclusion on “O dulcis Jesu, fili Mariae” the passion subsides. A solo soprano enters, repeating the text above an unearthly long-held C-sharp major chord. Touches of pan-diatonicism, biting chromaticism, and Locklair’s characteristic Lydian leanings all appear with seamless cooperation. For all its varied technique, the motet achieves a singularity of effect. With voice parts divided much of the time and some surprising harmonic shifts, this is not a piece for limited choirs. Larger ensembles with accomplished singers will eagerly embrace this as part of their regular repertoire.”