The pieces on this Naxos release, issued in 2013, were all quite new works by American composer Michael Daugherty at the time; all were world premieres, and all marked new departures from his usual style of somewhat Stravinsky-ized American pop culture motifs. Time will tell whether they attain the familiarity of such works as Dead Elvis or the Metropolis Symphony, but all stretch in new directions, and none feels tired. Mount Rushmore (2010) is a grander, less bracing work than one is accustomed to from Daugherty; it is a ...
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The pieces on this Naxos release, issued in 2013, were all quite new works by American composer Michael Daugherty at the time; all were world premieres, and all marked new departures from his usual style of somewhat Stravinsky-ized American pop culture motifs. Time will tell whether they attain the familiarity of such works as Dead Elvis or the Metropolis Symphony, but all stretch in new directions, and none feels tired. Mount Rushmore (2010) is a grander, less bracing work than one is accustomed to from Daugherty; it is a choral-orchestral depiction of the four U.S. presidents on the face of the titular mountain, with relevant musical material for each woven into a larger structure. The texts are various and unexpected: Washington is given the not-quite-appropriate New England hymn Chester, while the Jefferson music is set to fragments of text, including an Italian-language song sent to Jefferson by Maria Conway in Paris. Theodore Roosevelt's words come from one of his stirring speeches, and...
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