Defining a modern composer's style is often hazardous, especially when eclecticism and experimentation are constantly in play. Harold Farberman's music is resistant to easy categories, for issues of style matter less in his varied works than his dramatic instrumental effects, most often and strikingly deployed in the percussion. His recognition of the scarcity of music for percussion led him to compose symphonic works that depend on huge batteries of these instruments, not for support but featured front and center. In Re ...
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Defining a modern composer's style is often hazardous, especially when eclecticism and experimentation are constantly in play. Harold Farberman's music is resistant to easy categories, for issues of style matter less in his varied works than his dramatic instrumental effects, most often and strikingly deployed in the percussion. His recognition of the scarcity of music for percussion led him to compose symphonic works that depend on huge batteries of these instruments, not for support but featured front and center. In Re/Collections, the Concerto for tympani and orchestra, and the Early Hudson Valley Scenes, Farberman is dynamically engaged in the orchestration of percussive effects, and other matters of themes, harmonies, and moods seem secondary to the impressive originality of his writing for the section. Farberman's oboe concerto, Concerto for Cathy, shimmers with the delicate sounds of bells and rattles, and the jazzy Double Concerto for single trumpet (or two trumpets) would lose much of its "pop...
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