DETROIT FREE PRESS
Review
(excerpts)
October 21, 2000
By Mark Stryker

"The concert hall can be a rather dour place of pomp and circumstance, though not when William Bolcom's music is on the program. Of all our contemporary symphony composers, he offers the most winsome marriage of wit and consequence, of humor integrated into music of durable substance.

"...Bolcom's Concerto Grosso for Saxophone Quartet and Orchestra, given its world premiere Friday morning by the Detroit Symphony Orchestra...deliver[s] a frisky gambol, a 20-minute divertissement that pulsates with vernacular rhythms, clever melodic turns and true affection for the saxophone -- and for the Prism Quartet, for whom the piece was written.

"Bolcom mostly treats the quartet en masse, letting the saxes volley back and forth with the orchestra or alternately wail above it. The opening movement showcases the saxophones' darting virtuosity then ends in a bluesy sway. The second movement is a sumptuous ballad, the third a ballroom waltz.

"Most entertaining of all, the finale suggests a swing-band blitz. The saxophones scamper through syncopation, coloring their sounds with juicy vibratos and goosing the music with slap tonguing, nutty staccatos and other inflections

"The Prism Quartet's members -- Tim Ries, Michael Whitcombe, Matthew Levy, and Taimur Sullivan -- avoid the effete cliches of the classical saxophone. They play with grit, brio and take-no-prisoners accuracy."