Rorem, Ned - Picnic on the Marne
The frantic opening 'Driving from Paris' is a very dramatic prologue to this eclectic piece by Ned Rorem. 'A Bend in the River' is by turns folksy-tonal and splashes of jazz harmony. The melody alone seems very simplistic with echoes of Vaughan Williams. The swirling exuberant Bal Musette dance features enjoyable virtuosic swoops of saxophone fingerwork. There is an air of romance and satisfied affection throughout. The aftermath of wild partyings is presented in the inebriated and exhausted 'Vermouth', the harmony is repetitive and strange, but in fact the repetition reconciles us successfully to the strangeness. A Tense Discussion takes us to a furious binary argument with piano and saxophone pitted against one another. Dissonance here is harmonic, rhythmic and even timbral at times. The disagreement eventually subsides into wounded smouldering. Making Up is a semi-angry reconciliation with tickling surely merged with low level violence. The harmony of The Ride Back to Town has similarities with Britten's language. Again here, piano and saxophone are rather pitted against each other almost playing two separate pieces of music. One is almost valedictory, the other almost a collage of turmoil, such is the sometime experiences of couples who recollect a journey or holiday in rather different ways.