orchestra
duration c. 4:44
REVIEW: NAPLES DAILY NEWS
We’re in love with the word “new” until it’s applied to classical music. “New” preceding a work in a classical concert program evokes the same enthusiasm a lobster has for boiling water.
The opening Masterworks concert of the Naples Philharmonic may have knocked a dent in that attitude Thursday with a work of its own commissioning, “The Fire and the Water.” Its world premiere opened the evening, and the work veritably floated the audience over Florida in a sub-five minute, heavily layered musical tableau. It even elicited several audience cheers for composer D.J. Sparr, who explained the Florida connection to his piece during the pre-concert talk.
Sparr jokes about himself as “an electric guitar player who went to a lot of fancy music schools.” But it’s given him a blessed sensitivity for orchestration. He elicited a primal sense of being aloft with a full string fill, an undercurrent of swooping flutes and a horn fanfare heralding the sunrise off its Atlantic coast.
We’ve come to hate the word “accessible,” but this work was that, and more.