Here is the recording of Robert Carl’s Symphony No. 4 (2009) that I promised you, with Christopher Zimmerman conducting the Hartt School Orchestra. The opening is very quiet. I’ll play it for my “20th-century” Orchestral Repertoire class this week – I just love giving them as much of the 21st century as possible.
UPDATE: Wow – it sounds so much like a real symphony that I keep having to remind myself I know the guy who wrote it. There is a sense of space in Robert’s orchestral music, a sense of allowing things to happen rather than trying to fill up the page, that makes his music “speak” with more authority than the glop by other composers that mostly passes for new American orchestra music these days. I think that comes through abundantly even in the mp3 (which I compressed a little to sound more present on your computer).