Word: liebermann
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...called them) was challenged by such older American tonalists as David Diamond and Ned Rorem and weakened in the '80s by the deliberately repetitive music of Philip Glass and Steve Reich. But minimalism has proved too simple-minded to satisfy serious listeners hungry for accessible yet challenging new scores. Liebermann, Daniel Asia, Jorge Martin, Paul Moravec and George Tsontakis were among the first younger composers to snub its stuttering chatter in favor of a full-blooded style that is at once unmistakably contemporary (Liebermann, for instance, was influenced by the great 20th century Russian symphonist Dmitri Shostakovich) and rooted...
Emotional directness is the hallmark of the New Tonalism. "Musically, I say what I mean and mean what I say," explains Moravec. "The irony in my music is not glibly postmodern but rather the essence of making audible the human experience of ambiguity." Though Liebermann employs all the tools of the up-to-the-second composer--he even has a website, www.lowellliebermann.com--he too is quick to spurn the cheap irony of such trendy postmodernists as Britain's Thomas Ades (Powder Her Face). "We live in a sarcastic age," Liebermann says with a shrug. "A lot of intellectuals are uncomfortable...
Performers take to New Tonalist pieces like pols to an open mike, but many critics bristle at the pieces' crowd-pleasing traditionalism. An unsympathetic Dallas reviewer brushed off Liebermann's unabashedly tuneful Second as "excruciatingly conventional." Retorts the composer: "That's like criticizing a novelist because his grammar is correct...
...Liebermann's other works include a thrilling operatic version of Oscar Wilde's The Picture of Dorian Gray, premiered in the U.S. last year by Milwaukee's Florentine Opera. Liebermann is also a master of the fine art of writing knockout showpieces for world-class soloists. He takes the baton on two CDs devoted to his concertos, the first featuring superstar flutist James Galway (RCA), the second with English piano virtuoso Stephen Hough (Hyperion). Liebermann's Second Piano Concerto, raves Hough, is a "combination of brain and heart...
...Tonalists had a credo, it might be the lines of Whitman set by Liebermann in his Second Symphony: "Sing to my soul, renew its faith and hope...give me some vision of the future." Their confident vision of the future of American classical music is on display all this season, giving concertgoers and record buyers who are tired of warmed-over Brussels sprouts more reasons for standing ovations. Last November, Moravec's electrifying Mood Swings premiered in New York City, and three more New York premieres follow this May--Tsontakis' Ghost Variations for piano, Martin's song cycle The Glass...