Album

This disc includes two of David del Tredici's monodrama/melodramas for orchestra and singer who doubles as narrator. Vintage Alice: Fantascene on "A Mad Tea Party," dating from 1972, is one of his earliest Alice pieces. It consists largely of a narrator reading Lewis Carroll's text, punctuated by explosions of orchestral commentary and moments when the narrator breaks into song. Much of the music is derived from the tunes "Twinkle, twinkle, little star," (or, in Carroll's version, "Twinkle, twinkle, little bat! How I wonder what you're at!"), and "God save our gracious Queen," here referring to the Queen of Hearts. The whole enterprise is so sublimely silly and so skillfully executed that it's hard not to give in to its charms and just guffaw, or at least smile. Del Tredici is a master of creating a highly sophisticated but immediately communicative sense of the absurd, and he has impeccable comic timing. His sure sense of drama is perhaps even more clearly evident in Dracula, written in 1998 for the Eos Orchestra and the Cleveland Chamber Symphony, based on the poem "My neighbor, the distinguished guest" by Alfred Corn. The piece is flamboyantly melodramatic, and vacillates between macabre humor and genuinely sinister moments.

Soprano Hila Plitmann's performance is stunningly virtuosic and hilarious—she's a genuinely talented comedian, and the subtleties of her speaking voice are as finely tuned as her brilliant and supple coloratura. (Dracula has a range of over three octaves, which she executes without any apparent strain.) The composer leads the Cleveland Chamber Symphony in polished and exuberant performances. The sound is generally clean, but at a few points the tone gets unaccountably woofy, and there are clearly audible clicks at the beginning of the tracks, which is annoying in Vintage Alice, which is in 13 sections, played without pause.

© Stephen Eddins, All Music Guide

CD 1
David Del Tredici Composer Vintage Alice, Fantascene on "A Mad Tea Party", for soprano/narrator & ensemble Work Recorded 2001 26:02 Philip Blackburn Director, Richard Shanklin Saxophone (Soprano), Thomas Reed Saxophone (Soprano), Cleveland Chamber Symphony Orchestra, David Del Tredici Conductor, Robert Tye Banjo, Henry Doktorski Accordion, Michael George Mandolin, Hila Plitmann Soprano
1	Narration	2:23			$0.99
2	First Evocation of the Queen. With crude pomposity	0:24			$0.99
3	Cadenza 1. "Bat! - at!. Bat! - at!"	1:05			$0.99
4	The Mad Hatter's Song: Verse 1. "...little bat! Twinkle, twinkle, little bat!" / The Star: Verse 1	3:55			$0.99
5	Second Evocation of the Queen. With crude pomposity	0:29			$0.99
6	Cadenza 2. "Fly - sky... Fly - sky..."	0:32			$0.99
7	The Mad Hatter's Song: Verse 2. (with the Time "murdered") "...world you fly...Up above the world y	2:35			$0.99
8	Interlude. "Little bat!". Then a bright idea came into Alice's head	1:51			$0.99
9	Changing Places. "Let's all move one place on". He moved on as he spoke	3:24			$0.99
10	Cadenza 3. "move...moving...Let's all keep on". "But what happens when you come to the beginning ag	1:28			$0.99
11	Quodlibet-Return. "Ah! Ah! Ah! Ah!"	2:47			$0.99
12	Hymn to the Queen. "God save our gracious queen". Here the Dormouse shook itself, and began singing	3:16			$0.99
13	Sleeping-Coda. "Twinkle, twinkle"	1:53			$0.99
David Del Tredici Composer Dracula, monodrama for soprano/narrator & ensemble Work Recorded 2000 David Del Tredici Conductor, Hila Plitmann Soprano, Henry Doktorski Accordion, Robert Tye Banjo, Cleveland Chamber Symphony Orchestra, Philip Blackburn Director
14	Dracula, monodrama for soprano/narrator & ensemble	21:46			$3.49