Fuchs, K: United Artists

March 2008

“An American's salute to the LSO who again impress in his engaging music.”

2010

“Kenneth Fuchs is an energetic American composer now in his early fifties who is based at the University of Connecticut. He has a wide range of compositions and is also involved in music education and administration. At Juilliard he was a contemporary of JoAnn Falletta, who very much wanted to make an orchestral CD of his music. The opportunity came in 2003 when she recorded a group of works with the LSO, which came out on Naxos in 2005. Fuchs was so stunned by the legendary expertise of the LSO in playing at sight for a recording that he wrote United Artists as a short tribute. It opens this second Naxos CD; a series of chamber works follows, and the disc closes with Canticle to the Sun, a horn concerto in which the British connection continues with the soloist Timothy Jones from the LSO.
United Artists is a kind of fanfare to this orchestra, who obviously enjoyed it – the idiom stems from Copland and early Carter. Quiet in theLand for mixed string and wind quintet is contemplative in mood, generally music of low density suitable for illustration. This aspect comes to the fore in Autumn Rhythm, inspired by the paintings of Jackson Pollock: it would make an apt soundtrack for a series of his pictures.
Canticle to the Sun is based on the familiar hymntune 'All Creatures of our God and King'. This is an imaginative idea where the soloist emerges from a tinkling backdrop and retains clear contact with the melody throughout, although it is never stated in full. The concerto adds up to a pastoral idyll with occasional spots for the timpani and lyrical cadenzas – all neatly played.”