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The Five Sacred Trees aka Concerto for Bassoon and Orchestra


Thor

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What?! I searched for both 'five sacred trees' and 'bassoon', but no hits. Is there really no proper thread for this concert work?

In any case, listening to this again now. It's been a while. It is without question my favourite of all of John Williams' concert works. It's not totally out there, like some of his recent works, but still modern enough to be a proper piece and not just a film music soundalike.

As a fantastic bonus, there's also Hovhanness' glorious "Mysterious Mountain" on the same CD -- an even more superior piece.

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Yeah, but only the first one of those was a more general topic, and not related to specific performances. Still, can't believe I missed that.

It's good but a bit lacking in color for me.

Really? I feel there's so much colour it's like an Indian Colour Festival!

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I found those threads simply by typing "sacred" into the search. Took all of 2 seconds. It works flawlessly.

(On desktop; It's shit on mobile)

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It's weird. When I searched the first time using "titles only", I only got two hits, none of which were relevant. Then when I searched again now, all of Jay's suggestions came up.

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Ah, I think I know why now. In the upper right corner, you can either click the green button with the magnifying glass (which I did) or the button with the gears. Both will lead to a search engine, but the first gets fewer hits than the latter.

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Ah, I think I know why now. In the upper right corner, you can either click the green button with the magnifying glass (which I did) or the button with the gears. Both will lead to a search engine, but the first gets fewer hits than the latter.

Correct. The main, on-page search engine stinks, its the Advanced Search page that works amazingly.

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It's good but a bit lacking in color for me.

Really? I feel there's so much colour it's like an Indian Colour Festival!

Not only orchestral color but harmonic color as well. I enjoy the woodsy modality of it but prefer the richer sound-world of, say, Heartwood.

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I experience Heartwood and TreeSong (and the flute concerto) as far more impressionistic pieces on his favored subject - and the two you mention seem to me among the most overtly programmatic. Interesting.

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Interesting indeed. I don't sense neoclassical objectivity in the Bassoon nor the Horn concerti, but I get what you mean. You're probably right that Heartwood and Treesong are even more impressionistic than these two, a further and even more profound exploration of the sylvan atmosphere I said before.

The programmatic nature of both the Bassoon and the Horn concerti doesn't come out too obviously, though. Surely there are moments where Williams evokes very specific images and landscapes (as in the "Tortàn" movement in Five Sacred Trees, or in the "Battle of the Trees" movement in the Horn Concerto), but the wistful, ruminative side seems always to prevail in the end.

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I do think I misspoke in calling the bassoon concerto neoclassically objective (though in the first and third movement I do feel it somewhat). Once I remembered the first violin concerto I realized that is a far, far stronger example of that. The horn concerto of course is certainly not. Even the movement titles are illustrative!

How do people feel about that extreme Paul Dukas reference that ends the second movement? It honestly kind of takes me out of the work.

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I find the first half of the piece a bit prosaic for my tastes, like a diet consisting solely of Communion wafers. It's all about the last two movements for me, Craeb Uisnig (in particular) and Dathi!

What do you think of Essay for Strings, TGP?

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How do people feel about that extreme Paul Dukas reference that ends the second movement? It honestly kind of takes me out of the work.

It's likely a casual reminiscence. Actually the thematic material in the movement reminds me more of Rachmaninov's "Variations on a theme by Paganini"

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It's good but a bit lacking in color for me.

It's lacking in color because of the solo performance. The piece itself is very colorfull. I've heard it live with more emotion, this piece is awesome.

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Along with the cello concerto this is among my favourite JW concert works.

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I really enjoy this piece every time I listen to it (which is less often than it deserves ;)). I never really "got" the 4th movement, but I greatly appreciate all the others for their individual qualities. Regarding the obvious "Sorcerer's Apprentice" allusion at the end of mvt. 2, IMHO it's most likely not a coincidence, but a conscious homage, as well as very appropriate to the topic of the movement (a tree connected to witchcraft).

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How do people feel about that extreme Paul Dukas reference that ends the second movement? It honestly kind of takes me out of the work.

It's likely a casual reminiscence.

It's pretty explicit, especially given the instrument of focus for the concerto and its role in that tone poem. As much as I like The Five Sacred Trees, that part always felt distracting.

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I was never bothered by that small reference.

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I wasn't even aware that it was a reference, or in fact noticed it at all. And I'm still not convinced. And I DO own a version of Dukas' SORCERER.

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The Bassoon Concerto is great, but I think the true highlights of the Five Sacred Trees album are the Symphony No. 2, Op. 132 "Mysterious Mountain" by Alan Hovhaness, and Old And Lost Rivers by Tobias Picker.

Altoghether, this make an essential John Williams album.

R-5624636-1398288119-5808.jpeg.jpg

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Yeah -- as I said in the first post, "Mysterious Mountain" outshines the bassoon concerto (and, in fact, most of music, period!). Such a glorious piece that taps into my beloved religious sound and harmonies. But "Five Sacred Trees" is still my favourite Williams concert work. That says something about the quality I attribute to the Hovhaness!

The Tobias Picker piece I'm not THAT fond of. It's okey, by all means, but not quite on the level of the two others.

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As I said above in this thread the Bassoon Concerto holds a special place in my mind as it was the first concert work I ever heard from Williams and it has become ever dearer over the years, standing beside the Cello Concerto, Horn Concerto and Violin Concerto as my favourites. In a way it was a perfect starting point to listening to Willliams' concert hall repertoire as it is highly accessible when compared to some of his other concert pieces. The programmatic nature made it also more digestible but over the years the images the piece evokes have changed somewhat. The Celtic myths that inspired the composer translate into five vignettes of great variety that each showcase the instrument's different capacities in a classical fashion and might actually have contributed to my enduring love of the instrument.

Personally I love the more lyrical movements of Eo Mugna, Eo Rossa and Dathi in particular, which conjures up such a feeling of gentle, not resignation perhaps, but of release and acceptance (very much like the finale of the Horn Concerto and Heartwood) and ends in that wonderful misty recapitulation of the lilting bassoon theme from the opening of the movement.

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Well said. Why hasn't someone created a photoshopped image of Williams in the arms of an Ent yet? Would be the perfect cover for this.

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Or an Ent conducting the orchestra with Williams as his baton.

I am sure Treebeard and Williams would get along just swell.

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  • 7 years later...

A very satisfying concerto--I am glad it has some legs.  Also, my first time seeing Williams conduct was in Pittsburgh, featuring this and The Planets.  So, some sentimental attachment to it as well. 

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It's always been my favorite of his concertos/concerti. The last movement - there are moments in it that I think are among the most beautiful passages he's ever written. Sublime!

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Quite a daring choice for a concerto given that the bassoon, lovely though it sounds, doesn't exactly easily cut across a symphony orchestra, but yes, a wonderful work. However, I would have to concur that I remember getting much more from the Alan Hovhaness* on the original album. I do always remember finding the original performance and recording a touch soft (for want of a better word) and enjoyed this considerably more vibrant version from Detroit under Leonard Slatkin with Robert Williams (no relation) as the soloist: https://www.naxos.com/CatalogueDetail/?id=9.70904. The bassoon has considerably more presence and the performance of both orchestra and soloist are much more lively and dynamic.

 

As I have noted elsewhere times, it's a shame Slatkin hasn't completed his survey of JW's concertos on Naxos given how good they are and also includes the only recordings of the horn and oboe concertos. The performances of those that have been recorded otherwise are all well worth seeking out (although oddly they seem to have disappeared from Presto, but are available to download in lossless from the Chandos store and others). Given the hoopla that has accompanied his recent concerto recordings, these Naxos ones really did fly under the radar, which is somewhat frustrating as all performance and technical elements are easily as good as those from DG/Sony, and (in some cases) considerably better.

 

*I now have a decent chunk of Hovhaness' many, many works... albeit he's very much one of those "if you like one, you'll probably like them all" composers where if you like grandiose/quasi-religious/hymnal orchestral music, you'll find plenty to enjoy and many are, again, on Naxos so it's easy to get carried away expanding your collection!

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There's some suspect phrasing in that Slatkin recording of the bassoon concerto, for me. The horn concerto is nice, but I'd love JW did one himself.

On 29/03/2023 at 3:47 AM, Tom Guernsey said:

oboe concertos

JW did one with Keisuke Wakao and the Boston Pops a few years ago, but I think it's digital only.

 

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19 minutes ago, Schilkeman said:

JW did one with Keisuke Wakao and the Boston Pops a few years ago, but I think it's digital only.

Sorry, you're right, there isn't a recording of the Oboe Concerto on Naxos, just this one (which I do have!).  Only the horn concerto is unique to  Slatkin on Naxos, all the others have been recorded at least once elsewhere by JW or others. Shame he didn't get to the Viola Concerto.

 

The other unique recording on an obscure label is the Harp Concerto (On Willows and Birches) performed by the BSO under Shi-Yeon Sung conducting and harp by Ann Hobson Pilot, which I had in lossy but finally found lossless on Qobuz yesterday. Lovely, if rather slight.

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On 24/03/2023 at 11:52 PM, SyncMan said:

Atlanta Symphony Orchestra. 

Anthony Parnther, conductor 

Andrew Brady, soloist

November 30th, December 2nd 2023

https://www.aso.org/events/detail/andrew-brady-the-five-sacred-trees

 

 

Nice! I would have loved to hear this live.

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23 minutes ago, Jay said:

Would have loved?  This event is in the future.

 

Yes, 'would have' as in a conditional modal verb; I wish I'd had the opportunity to see and hear it, had it been close to me.

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I could plan all I want to, I wouldn’t be able to save enough to go to this in that amount of time, and I’m relatively close compared to a lot of people in here. We aren’t all so fortunate.

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