Kevin Puts (b. 1972)
Concerto for Orchestra (2023)
Silent Night Elegy (2018)
Virelai (after Guillaume de Machaut) (2019)
St. Louis Symphony Orchestra/Stéphane Denève
rec. live, 21-22 September 2019 (Virelai), 7-9 February 2020 (Elegy), 21-22 January 2023 (Concerto), Powell Hall, St. Louis, USA
Delos DE3620 [51]
Kevin Puts is a Pulitzer Prize and Grammy winner. He has become known for composing modern classical music which need not conform to serial or 12-tone techniques. All works here are resolutely tonal – and attractive.
Puts wrote the Concerto for Orchestra in response to one of the horrible school shootings so noticeable in the USA in recent times. The short opening Hymn for the Hurting is a gentle, memorable introduction that was the composer’s immediate reaction to the news. The music flows into the second movement Caccia No.1, which depicts a hunt or chase. IThe percussion section interrupts and accompanies the other instruments which repeatedly play a short rhythmic figure, rising in volume until a very brief respite at the end.
The third movement, Music Box with Arietta, is just 97 seconds long. It explores the gentler side of percussion led by the celesta and harp followed by woodwinds. It is quietly beautiful, and could have been expanded somewhat to the overall advantage of the work. Next come two minutes worth of Toccata. As might be expected, it makes liberal use of percussion section supplemented with brass outbursts.
The fifth movement, Sicilienne, is the longest at nearly ten minutes. Puts says that he uses most of the instruments, especially the orchestral piano, in a lyrical manner – and very enjoyable is the sound they make. It opens with the violins singing a warm theme that is then presented gently by the piano with the orchestra’s quiet accompaniment. Eventually, after a section where the bulk of the orchestra play, the solo violin sings the melancholy theme which dominates the movement, then taken up by wind and brass. The movement proceeds in a similar fashion. The composer maintains the listener’s interest by the way the various sections of the orchestra are deployed.
The work ends with Ecco la Marcia? (CacciaNo.2), a riotous festivity for the entire orchestra, complete with whooping horns and a repeat of the opening movement theme.There also is a brief quote from Le nozze di Figaro which inspired the movement. This rounds off what is an engaging orchestral showpiece.
The next work is for me the centrepiece of the programme. Silent Night Elegy is an orchestral work based on the opera of that name which Puts composed in 2011. It follows the narrative of the stage work but – unlike most orchestral suites – is set as a continuous single movement. The opera itself is about the spontaneous ceasefire between the British (largely Scottish, it seems), French and German armies on the Western Front on the first Christmas Eve of World War 1.
The Elegy begins with the introduction of the principal thematic material. There follows a contrapuntal overlaying of the battle songs of the armies. It leads into the violent battle music – a huge orchestra mish-mash. Next comes the aftermath: the soldiers have agreed amongst themselves to extend their truce to enable the burial of the dead. A solo flute with harp accompaniment introduces the burial scene. It is then played by the full orchestra: lyrical yet poignant powerful music with no trace of sentimentality, which culminates in a bagpipe melody.
The music changes into an angry jig. It represents the enraged generals of the three armies who order the soldiers to be transferred to the part of the front where the fighting is most severe. The work ends with Sleep, in which the three armies drift off to sleep on the evening of the greatest battle, singing about their homelands. Snow begins to fall and, in the opera, the music forms a chorus, here represented orchestrally. The harp accompanies the orchestra as the work comes to a quiet, songful, elegiac end.
I found the Elegy to be rather moving. I suspect that the opera itself must be an emotional experience in a production that is respectful of the actual events portrayed.
The final work is Virelai (after Guillaume de Machaut). Virelai is a form of medieval French verse popular from the late 13th to the 15th century. Machaut was among the most famous composers of virelai. Kevin Puts took a bouncy tune of his and subjected it to modern harmony and rhythm. At just under four minutes, it is an effective encore piece.
The recordings are excellent, clear and subtle where they need to be, and impactive when the music demands it. The disc, in a folding cardboard sleeve, comes with a booklet in English. There are brief biographies of the composer, the conductor and the orchestra, descriptions of the music, and a list of the members of the orchestra.
Jim Westhead
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Previous reviews: Dominic Hartley, David Barker (September 2025)
