On an album of Edward Smaldone’s compositions entitled “Scenes from the Heartland,” Michael Boriskin performs the composer’s Rhapsody for Piano and Orchestra with the Munich Radio Orchestra conducted by Arthur Fagen, as well as Two Sides of the Same Coin for clarinet and piano with clarinetist Allen Blustine.
Rhapsody for Piano and Orchestra was commissioned in 1993 by the Queens Symphony Orchestra in celebration of its fortieth anniversary, and was premiered in that year with Michael Boriskin as soloist and Arthur Fagen as conductor. Though the piece is written in a free atonal harmonic idiom, Smaldone’s affection for jazz-tinged harmonies is apparent in the Rhapsody, producing a tonal palette that the composer has characterized as “McCoy Tyner meets Arnold Schoenberg.”
Two Sides of the Same Coin, for clarinet and piano, was commissioned by Sounds from the Left Bank, and was premiered at P.S. 1 (Project Studios 1) in Long Island City, New York, in May 1990. Aptly named, this single-movement work in two sections develops music of radically different sensibilities from common motivic and harmonic material. Dedicated to his eldest daughter, Laura, the piece was intended to reflect life at home with an eighteen-month-old child. “Her boundless energy (when awake),” writes the composer, “and dreamy tranquility (when asleep) were two sides of what now seems like a blissfully simple experience of parenting, especially compared with the current scenario of three children, ages twelve, nine, and six!”
—Perry Goldstein