Graeme Koehne - Symphonic Works

Graeme Koehne Inflight Entertainment*/Powerhouse/Elevator Music
Diana Doherty, Oboe*; SydneySymphony, Takuo Yuasa Naxos 8.555847

The name of this Australian composer is new to me, so I come to th record with no prior knowledge. The titles suggest the ambient music of Brian Eno so I’m quite surprised to hear the brash sounds of Elevator Music, the opening piece. It fact it’s quite jazzy in an Aaron Copeland sort of way – Rodeo – that type of thing. Very well accomplished with it too.
Inflight Entertainment – an oboe concerto – is quite derivative too, but in the best sense – I’m reminded of Dvorak’s New World and Bernstein’s West Side Story and perhaps a little Gershwin and an Elmer Bernstein western theme, during the first movement, entitled Agent Provocateur. No – sadly, it’s nothing to do with sexy underwear, but hurries along suggesting a chase situation. Maybe this indicates that Inflight Entertainment probably refers to the films shown onboard during a long-haul air journey. {Surprise, surprise!] The second part, a slow movement – Horse Opera – is again very pastoral and filmic – it’s thoughtful and not too melancholy. Good chill-out music, some might say. The third movement – Beat Girls - returns to a dramatic situation. Busy-ness, maybe some turmoil, more urban, more modern – more exciting. In fact, it’s very exciting!
Unchained melody is another very exciting piece which moves along at a great pace – one can’t help comparison with Adams’s ‘Short Ride in a Fast Machine’ or Philip Glass’s ‘The Canyon’. The sleeve notes tell us Koehne was keen to bring the energy of pop music into symphonic composition. [He supposedly picked the title from a ‘relatively obscure 1950s pop song.’ I trust this reflects the ignorance of the sleeve note writer rather than the composer – although this turns out to be James Koehne – Graeme’s brother – perhaps Australia’s pop charts were even duller than one suspected – they never even got Jimmy Young!] Whether he succeeds in this stated task is dubious – the piece is again far more jazz based than pop. But it’s of little importance – the music’s energetic anyway.
Powerhouse – the final offering on the CD – is essentially another angle on the same themes as before – and is equally powerful stuff.
The album as a whole is to be thoroughly recommended even though I think the general style returns to relatively safe ground of pre-sixties modernism rather than presenting us with anything particularly new or startling. I also wish the titles had not been quite as misleading – I certainly can’t see the relevance of ‘Elevator Music’. Having said this I’d love to see music like this become part of the everyday repertoire, replacing some of the tired worn-out second-rate standards that concert planners still insist on subjecting us to. It’s great twentieth century music and deserves to be in everyone’s record collection.

Comments

[Daniel Yuen]

Hi Mr. Rhodes,
I was just searching around for downloads of Graeme Koehne and came across your site. Seeing how you have this rare CD, I was just wondering if I could leech some of the songs off you?
Thanks so much.

Daniel

[Abi Rhodes]

Daniel
It's not so rare - Naxos is a world wide operation issuing records at a budget price. You should be able to obtain this for a fiver (£5) - probably less in US - or via Amazon etc