ALBUM REVIEW: Kevin Puts Symphony No.2 – Flute Concerto – River’s Rush

by Maggie Molloy

In that singular moment when the hijacked airplanes crashed into the World Trade Center on September 11, 2001, everything changed. It was as if, overnight, the entire world became louder, more turbulent, more terrifying—and far more fearful.

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Kevin Puts. Photo Credit: David White

This sudden paradigmatic shift was the sole inspiration for Pulitzer Prize-winning composer Kevin Puts’ Symphony No.2, a 21-minute masterwork exploring the way in which the events of 9/11 shook our nation to its very core. Though the symphony first premiered in 2002, just shortly after the terrorist attacks, it still rings with the same tempestuous passion and urgency today—nearly a decade and a half later.

The Peabody Symphony Orchestra, under the baton of Marin Alsop, breathes new life into that harrowing moment with a brand new album featuring three world-premiere recordings of works by Puts, his cataclysmic Second Symphony among them.

The programmatic symphony opens with a slow and steady orchestral build across the first eight minutes of the work, with a familiar timbral palette of piano and strings laying a soft foundation for delicate woodwind flourishes: the tonal soundscape of a gentle, proud, and perhaps naive nation.

But the blissful innocence and patriotic rhapsody is short-lived. A wandering violin solo stumbles into a violent orchestral upheaval: the aural equivalent of the planes crashing into the twin towers. A visceral darkness stains the orchestra’s entire harmonic palette, the thunderous melodies intertwining and colliding amidst the terrifying chaos. Yet at the height of this catastrophe, the solo unaccompanied violin returns for another musical reflection, calming the orchestra and leading it into an intimate epilogue. A clock-like pulse creates a sense of expectancy, uncertainty, and fear—yet as time passes the orchestra becomes unified once again, finding light, color, and enduring hope even amidst the lingering uncertainty.

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Marin Alsop. Photo Credit: Grant Leighton

The work is followed by a performance of Puts’ “River’s Rush,” inspired in part by the extraordinary grandeur of the Mississippi River. Rapid successions of short melodic motives capture the coursing waves of the river, at one moment stormy and intimidating, the next gentle, soft, and reflective. Freely combining major and minor chords from different keys, Puts illustrates the utter majesty of the river: the delicate reflection of light against its waves, the constant, natural flow of its coursing veins, and the organic life both within and around it.

The album concludes with Puts’ Flute Concerto featuring soloist Adam Walker. Spritely, agile, and endlessly virtuosic flute melodies soar across all three movements, from the poignant and lyrical introduction of the first through the nocturnal andante of the second (featuring an unmistakable quote from Mozart’s Piano Concerto in C Major, K. 467), and clear through the tremendously energetic toccata finale of the third. The piece closes with an spirited flute solo playing off the rhythmic hand-clapping of the orchestra.

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It’s a perfectly upbeat ending to an album which traverses the full range of human emotion, reminding us of the distinct power of music to help us reflect on our past, embrace and exist wholly in our present, and look forward with hopeful hearts toward our future.

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STAFF PICKS: Friday Faves

Second Inversion hosts share a favorite selection from this Friday’s playlist. Tune in during the indicated hours below on Friday, August 12 to hear these pieces. In the meantime, you’ll hear other great new and unusual music from all corners of the classical genre 24/7!

Daniel Wohl: 323 (Transit) on New Amsterdam Records

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Like so much of what we play on Second Inversion, “323” by Daniel Wohl is difficult to categorize.  It’s an exuberant piece full of interesting sounds, found noises, and jangly percussion that I’m fairly sure is pots and pans yet the overall feel of the piece can be summed up with the word “radiant.”  It’s music that pulsates and cuts into your tympanic membrane with its soft edges.  “323” is like if drone and a junkyard gave birth to… a solar system?  It’s confusing, but it is a bold confusion that truly works and inspires. – Rachele Hales

Tune in to Second Inversion in the 1pm hour today to hear this recording.


Darcy James Argue: Phobos (Darcy James Argue’s Secret Society) on New Amsterdam Records

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If you’re someone who is immersed in (small ‘c’) classical music most or all of the time, it can be refreshing (and necessary) to bend your ears on something that really challenges you to think about what makes music “classical.”  Where are the boundaries of the art form?  Darcy James Argue’s track Phobos can help you grapple with (if not answer) these questions.  This is first and foremost jazz, but it has so many elements more closely associated with other types of music that it really forces listeners to ask themselves some tough questions (if they are insistent on classifying the music at all!).  Among the shades of minimalism and post-rock, those big-band “jazz” chords begin to sound like tone clusters…  Listen to the barriers fall!  Wonderful! – Seth Tompkins

Tune in to Second Inversion in the 4pm hour today to hear this recording.


Missy Mazzoli: Vespers for a New Dark Age (Victoire, Lorna Dune, and Glenn Kotche) on New Amsterdam Records

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The Western classical music tradition as we know it began in the Church. And both the Church and the Western classical music tradition have historically excluded women from positions of power and authority.

Which is a big part of what makes composer Missy Mazzoli’s 30-minute masterwork Vespers for a New Dark Age so striking, so liberating, and—for lack of a better word—so brilliant. Performed with her all-female new age art pop ensemble Victoire, electro keyboardist Lorna Dune, and rock drummer Glenn Kotche, the piece reimagines the traditional vespers prayer service in the modern age, replacing the customary sacred verses with the haunting and elegant poetry of Matthew Zapruder.

The result is a 21st century version of the vespers service which explores the intersection of our modern technological age with the old-fashioned formality of religious services. Oh, and I guess it could also be heard as a feminist assertion of women’s immense (and too often forgotten) contributions to the classical music tradition. – Maggie Molloy

Tune in to Second Inversion in the 6pm hour today to hear this recording.


Kevin Puts: River’s Rush (Marin Alsop, Peabody Symphony Orchestra) on NAXOS Records

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With its churning arpeggios and big, muscular orchestration, this piece reminds me of hurtling down the Salmon River in Idaho on a whitewater rafting trip. The tremendous excitement that the opening music generates is matched by the beauty of a lushly-orchestrated, flowing middle section. A winner of the Pulitzer Prize for his opera Silent Night, Puts is known for his flute and piano concertos and four symphonies, but this stand-alone work might be my new favorite. – Geoffrey Larson

Tune in to Second Inversion in the 9pm hour today to hear this recording.