John Adams - American Elegies (1991)

As a potpourri of elegiac beauty, the disc opens with five pieces of Charles Ives' mysterious and yet hauntingly beautiful "The Unanswered Question", performed with subtle clarity and undersatement by Dawn Upshaw who lends the extra touch of eloquence in the shifting landscape that also includes the music of Morton Feldman's ''Madame Press Died Last Week at Ninety,'' a delicious, tiny memoir of his onetime piano teacher; Ingram Marshall's ''Fog Tropes,'' a haunting tone-picture that merges taped sounds of San Francisco into an instrumental ensemble; and the quiet grief of the young David Diamond in his 1938 ''Elegy in Memory of Maurice Ravel,'' noting the passing of his friend and teacher with the sincerest form of flattery.

Tracklist

Charles Ives (1874-1954):
1 The Unanswered Question (I & II), for trumpet, winds & string orchestra, S. 50 (K. 1C25) 4:49
2 Five Songs: Thoreau, song for voice & piano, S. 373 (K. 6B52) 1:49
3 Five Songs: Down East, song for voice & piano, S. 236 (K. 6B60b) 2:23
4 Five Songs: Cradle Song, song for voice & piano, S. 233 (K. 6B60a) 1:21
5 Five Songs: At the River, song for voice & piano, S. 214 (K. 6B54) 1:14
6 Five Songs: Serenity, for chorus, harps & violins ad lib & timpani, S. 177 (K. 5B3) 1:52

Ingram Marshall
Fog Tropes, for brass sextet, fog horns & tape 9:59

Morton Feldman
Madame Press Died Last Week at 90, for 12 instruments 4:10

John Adams
Eros Piano, for piano & orchestra 14:50

David Diamond
Elegy in Memory of Maurice Ravel, for brass, strings, & percussion (or strings & percussion) 6:19

Dawn Upshaw, Soprano
Paul Crossley, Piano
Orchestra of St. Luke's
John Adams, Conductor

Nonesuch 75597