Reviews and Commentary

The American Academy of Arts and Letters has cited the work of Phillip Rhodes as music (which) radiates an evocative warmth of expression, while also exhibiting a highly disciplined approach to matters of form, continuity and textual setting. Born and raised in western North Carolina, his work is as strongly influenced by the traditional music of the Appalachian South as by the works of Bartok, Schoenberg, and Stravinsky which were the foundation of his early training. The aura of lilting fiddle tunes, mournful ballads, and compelling hymns permeates several of his most well-known works, including Reels and Reveries (Variations for Orchestra) and the Concerto for Bluegrass Band and Orchestra, Fiddletunes for Solo Violin and Synthesized Strings, Three Appalachian Settings for Chorus and Fiddle, and Two Appalachian Settings for String Quartet. In every case Rhodes speaks with a clear and convincing voice as noted in the following reviews:

This is a superb introduction to the music of American composer Phillip Rhodes the Love Song (Two Appalachian Settings] in particular is six minutes of sheer beauty All of this cycle [Mountain Songs] is seldom less than great but Jehovah is a towering achievement a spine-chilling Gaelic lament. It is the most outstanding piece on an outstanding disc and demands to be heard – to call it transcendent is not an exaggeration. Rhodes has another tour-de-force waiting at the end of the disc. Reels and Reveries is again, to these ears anyway, a masterpiece I cannot recommend this highly enough.

Over the past 30 years, North Carolina native Phillip Rhodes has written a series of pieces fusing concert music with folk tunes from the Appalachian South. This album brings together a number of them, ranging from austere vocal settings of The Unquiet Grave, Birdie Went A-Courtin and others, sung with austere power by Phyllis Bryn-Julson accompanied by Anne Mayer, to a rollicking Bluegrass-oriented variation set called Reels and Reveries, vividly played by the Owensboro Symphony under Michael Luxner. The notes don’t say this, but other composers are attempting similar fusions, among them John Beal, Wynton Marsalis, and Peter Schickele. But unless we count Ives and Copland, Rhodes was one of the first, and his works have an unusually wide range of moods and degrees of complexity. Reels is uninhibited fun, for example, whereas Fiddle Tunes has Bartokian experiments in dissonance and rhythmic displacement. The most appealing track is the first, a lovely and haunting quartet setting of Black is the Color of My True Loves Hair, which Rhodes wrote for his sons wedding. It is soulfully played by the Veblen Quartet. This album is ideal for those who love Bluegrass and old-time music as well as classical. There are more of us than you might think.