REVIEWS
"His craft reaches its zenith in...the Two-Piano Inventions, which won the SAI/C.F. Peters competition
in 1990, and the Third Symphony; in both these works, organic growth inspires music of great strength
and formal clarity, as opening bars generate the textural and thematic contours that forge contrasting
sections of reflection and cross-rhythmic dynamism."
-The New Grove Dictionary of Music and Musicians
"Quartet No. 3 (1999) is an impressive three-movement work in a style blending modern and romantic
sounds in a large canvas lasting 32 minutes. ...These works [Rituals, Aria Concertante] are a bit
more acerbic in tone than the quartet, yet their breadth of expression and virtuoso writing
are impressive."
-Fanfare
"Anthony Iannaccone's Night Rivers, on the same CD, contains a shimmering work which brings
influences of his teachers Copland and Diamond into his own personal synthesis."
-Wiener Zeitung
"[Iannaccone's music] was the most successful...verdant, light-footed, and always beautifully
orchestrated [with] an engaging deftness...[his sense of form] is concise and clear."
-New York Times
"I can't be more direct: Night Rivers (1990-92), the Third Symphony of Anthony Iannaccone is
stunning-a rare work that achieves a dramatic balance of the cerebral and visceral. To my mind,
it is one of the supreme American symphonies. ...After listening to Night Rivers frequently over
the past four years and never failing to be enthralled by the insights of its argument and
development, I have been moved to submit a "Hall of Fame" review for only the second time.
...Somehow, even in its fortissimo parts, the Symphony retains an aura of misterioso. The music's
sonic diversity and ensembling of colors are masterful, and its progression toward a conclusion,
even in its more-or-less static passages, keeps the listener enthralled hearing after hearing.
And not since George Rochberg's quite different Symphony No. 2-a neglected masterpiece...
do I remember being so convinced by a symphony's quiet ending as I am by that of Night Rivers.
A further sample of Iannaccone's compositional gift can be heard in his Two-Piano Inventions
on an even-more-difficult-to-find Redwood CD."
-Fanfare
"Michigan composer Anthony Iannaccone was set to conduct his new symphony "Night Rivers"
for the first time, before a sizable audience. ...Inspired in part by Walt Whitman's
metaphorical use of the word "river" and "night," [Night Rivers] explores the spiritual
qualities of motion as a journey through the tumult of life onto death and then rebirth. The
piece is breathtaking...Although "Night Rivers" does not engage straightforward melodies,
its chilling, swirling theme is unforgettable and deeply touching."
-The [Plymouth] Observer
"The Whitman renaissance in American music surges on. Beginning in Whitman's lifetime, Europeans
launched major Whitman settings....[The repertoire is] now being enriched by American settings
by Rorem, Adams, Tilson Thomas, and, as this important CD attests, Anthony Iannaccone. ...In both
works [Sea Drift and Apparitions], tiny cells of color and melody, beautifully scored for winds,
gradually coalesce into poetic paragraphs. The music is delicate and sensuous without ever becoming
sentimental, much like Whitman's verse. ...I find this music full of character... It certainly has
a compelling sound and atmosphere."
-American Record Guide
"Iannaccone's work [for orchestra] was the most skillful in form and development and in the use
of the orchestra."
-The Columbus Dispatch
Anthony Iannaccone..."who has a way with serialism and aleatorality that leads to an effective
synthesis of the traditional and the new."
-Fanfare
"[After a Gentle Rain] contains some of the most genuinely beautiful moments of wind ensemble
scoring in the entire repertoire..."
-American Record Guide
"[Antiphonies] reveals a superb craftsmanship...in extraordinarily skillful writing..."
-American Record Guide
"The real revelations on this disc are the works by Anthony Iannaccone. I was especially taken with A
Whitman Madrigal , which was written in 1984. This is very beautiful writing...that admirably catches
the scope of the gorgeous poetry. Moreover, Iannaccone has the necessary formal sense to hold
together a work that lasts over eleven minutes. The rhapsodic piano episodes are particularly
effective in conjunction with the richness of the homophonic choral textures. The same composer's
Chautauqua Psalms with biblical texts are also extremely effective ...both dreamy and
compelling, a fitting successor, not dissimilar in mood, to Ive's remarkable setting of the same
text. Examples of contemporary choral music that have real depth and are romantic without being
simplistic are rare. These pieces are a real find."
-American Music
"These chamber compositions of Anthony Iannaccone (born 1943) are refined, musicianly, and
intellectually honest. Rituals, for violin and piano, is an extended composition skillfully fashioned
and adroit in its adaptation of characteristic "gestures" of the virtuoso recital piece. In Iannaccone's
hands these "gestures" are transmuted into something personal, while retaining, for the listeners' sake,
the general shape of familiar territory. The blend of old and new, alternating between broadly lyrical
and dramatic, adds up to a satisfying musical experience." [Pignotti and Mehta] play it with especially
scrupulous attention to its architectural requirements and its carefully calculated coloristic effects.
...Partita for Piano is an accomplished essay in the neobaroque. Its rhythms are supple, its keyboard
writing clean. Its harmonies are piquant-frequently familiar enough, in all truth, but ever escaping the
cliché, and often surprising in its ingenious avoidance of the obvious. The second movement,
Sarabande, a delicate combination of luminous grace and tremulous sensibility, is a good example
of this, and of the Partita at its best. Joseph Gurt's performance is first-class."
-American Record Guide
"Iannaccone's music has all the marks of a knowledgeable composer. The orchestration is imaginative
and colorful. Here is obviously a workman well-schooled in his craft."
-Detroit Free Press
"Though it is contemporary, Divertimento is far from being atonal. ...I found it to be delightfully
light and lyrical."
-Kalamazoo Gazette
"the [Kalamazoo Symphony] orchestra premiered Anthony Iannaccone's orchestral tone poem,
"West End Express", commissioned by and for the KSO. To capture in musical language the sense
of traveling the New York subway route during his growing up, the composer made marvelous use of
scoring that replicated the driving energy of the mechanical behemoth. Wheels clicking the rails
juxtaposed with panoramic visual allusions of open spaces as well as dark, smothering tunnels.
A sense of zipping along prevailed in Iannaccone's effective instrumental colorings. ...virile,
hypnotic syncopation fused with brilliant brass."
-Kalamazoo Gazette
"I feel that Anthony Iannaccone's "Chautauqua Psalms" is an important work, important in that
startling sense which causes reasonable, critical people to begin whispering crazy, old-fashioned,
and half-forbidden words like "genius" and "masterpiece."..."Chautauqua Psalms" is musically
difficult, but deserves to join the company of its illustrious ancestors such as Charles Ives'
setting of Psalm 67 and Stravinsky's Symphony of Psalms as a guidepost of what is highest, purest,
noblest, and best in our sacred choral culture."
-Choral Journal
"Anthony Iannaccone (b. 1943) is a gifted American composer. ...each of the works [Rituals, Partita,
Bicinia, Sonatina] is noteworthy and merits the consideration of anyone seeking new music for the
instruments represented here. The prize-winning Rituals for Violin and Piano is perhaps the most
difficult and exciting work of the four. It requires virtuoso technique and vigorous determination
from both players. Iannaccone's writing is consistently idiomatic and original, and this album is a
good example of his talent and imagination.
-The Instrumentalist
"The scoring [of Sea Drift] is imaginative, the melodic content immediately arresting, and the shape of
each work so skillfully constructed that you are left in that state of musical appetite that asks
for more... Even if the performances had been half as good, I would still have welcomed such
interesting music to the catalog.
-Fanfare