Nashville Symphony’s Recording of Tobias Picker’s Opera Without Words and The Encantadas Named a “Critic’s Choice” by Opera News
Opera News has named the Nashville Symphony’s recording of Tobias Picker’s Opera Without Words and The Encantadas a Critic’s Choice. The recording, performed under the baton of Giancarlo Guerrero and featuring the composer as Narrator in The Encantadas, is available from Naxos.
Critic Joshua Rosenblum notes:
“TOBIAS PICKER (b. 1954) is best known for his operas, including Emmeline, Thérèse Raquin and Fantastic Mr. Fox, which won the 2020 Grammy Award for best opera recording. Upon receiving a commission several years back from the National Symphony Orchestra and the Nashville Symphony, and not having written a purely orchestral work in twenty-two years, Picker decided that he would hang onto the genre of opera as a sort of lifeline: he hired author Irene Dische to write a libretto, which, as he put it, he set “not to voices but to musical instruments, unfettered by considerations of vocal ranges and technique.” When he finished his score, he discarded the text; the result is Opera Without Words (2016).
Though one wonders how Ms. Dische feels about this, the result is engaging and enjoyable. The work is cast in five parts: The Beloved, The Minstrel, The Idol, The Gladiator and The Farewell. Listening to it, there’s no way of knowing that words were the compositional springboard, but it’s consistently tuneful, dramatic and characterful. In the opening movement, “Beloved,” we hear a lovely romantic melody. Soon, conflict is introduced, and we can follow as Picker transforms his main theme through various scenarios of apparent peril. It’s a good illustration of how music can create drama on its own.
“The Minstrel” builds with similar excitement. It’s frequently cacophonous yet rhythmic, as if the title character were an awkward acrobat. “The Idol” has a gorgeous section at its core—a succession of instruments, solo or in pairs, spin out lyrical but frequently rapid-fire melodies, accompanied by pulsing, romantic swelling underneath. It calls to mind the Concerto for Orchestra approach of Bartók, Lutosławskiand others.
“The Gladiator” is rousing and fun, introduced by a virtuoso trombone solo over a driving pulse. The drama escalates, amid flights of Picker’s copious musical imagination and periodic percussion thwacks that contribute to the battlefield atmosphere. “The Farewell,” which brings to mind Barber or the more classical Bernstein, is appropriately emotional but not syrupy or trite. Resolutely tonal but interesting enough to keep your ears perked, it builds slowly and convincingly, then ends quietly. The composer’s unusual method has resulted in a singular and compelling piece.
Picker’s wordless Opera is coupled with The Encantadas (“The Enchanted Isles”) from 1983, a melodrama for narrator and orchestra. The text consists of selections from Herman Melville’s novella of the same name, which draws on the author’s encounter with the Galápagos Islands in 1841 (six years after Darwin’s historic visit there). The composer narrates this recording, his pleasantly gravelly voice intoning Melville’s elaborate descriptions with affection. Both music and text are thoroughly absorbing—when we’re required to take in both at the same time, it feels like we might be missing a lot. The piece works best when we hear the spoken text first and then enjoy the music uninterrupted, as in the cacophonous, Ivesian “Din,” which describes a full aviary of noisy, wild birds on Rock Rodondo, a majestic, two hundred-fifty-foot-high observation point. If the gleefully unfettered music is any indication, that must’ve been quite an audiovisual phenomenon. The Nashville Symphony under Giancarlo Guerrero sounds splendid in both of these unusual works.