Dominick Argento: Jonah and the Whale

BMOP/sound 1015
February 2010
SACD, 53:37

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Track Listing

Disc 1
  •  Jonah and the Whale (1973)
  •  Part I
  • 1.I. The Lesson
  • 2.II. The Charge to Jonah
  • 3.III. His Flight
  • 4.IV. The Storm at Sea

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  • 5.V. In the Belly of the Whale
  • 6.VI. His Prayer

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  •  Part II
  • 7.VII. In Ninevah
  • 8.VIII. Jonah's Despair
  • 9.IX. The Booth
  • 10.X. God's Rebuke
  • 11.XI. The Lesson Restated

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News & Press

Opera News reviews Dominick Argento: Jonah and the Whale
August 1, 2010 — Dominick Argento’s Jonah and the Whale, completed in 1973, is an idiosyncratic, colorful, stylistically varied musical version of the well-known Biblical tale. The work is scored for narrator, tenor, bass and mixed chorus, accompanied by the unusual forces of three trombones, three percussionists, piano, harp and organ—a “trio of trios,” as the composer points out in his informative notes.
Opera News Full review
American Record Guide reviews Dominick Argento: Jonah and the Whale
July 1, 2010 — Dominick Argento’s Jonah and the Whale (1973), for narrator, two soloists, chorus, and a small chamber group of three trombones, three percussionists, piano, harp, and organ, cobbles together the story through the 14th-century poem “Patience, or Jonah and the Whale” interspersed with 4th-century Vulgate Psalms, 17th-century Protestant hymns, 19th-century work songs and sea shanties, and vaguely lyrical 20th-century Britten-esque 12-tone declamation set against a firm tonal background.
American Record Guide Full review
Fanfare reviews Dominick Argento: Jonah and the Whale
July 1, 2010 — Dominick Argento delivers a vivid account of this Bible story. Completed in 1973, it is an early contribution to a genre—the large-scale choral work—in which Argento (b. 1927) has increasingly worked.
Fanfare Full review
A pacy performance of a vivid retelling of the old Bible story
June 1, 2010 — The Boston Modern Orchestra Project’s newest recording vibrantly illustrates Dominick Argento’s ability to merge myriad artistic sources. Jonah and the Whale was inspired by an Albertus Pictor painting on the ceiling of a church in Härkeberga, Sweden. Scored for chorus, instrumental nonet, narrator and soloists, the work exemplifies the American composer’s colorful and discerning aesthetic, as well as his heightened gifts in the vocal realm.
Gramophone Full review
Jonah and the Whale delivers a morality tale for the ages
April 30, 2010 — Given the short shrift faced by choral music in the twentieth and twenty-first centuries, it’s surprising that Dominick Argento has attained the status he has. Argento’s creative output includes a vast array of operas, choral works and song cycles (one of which, From the Diary of Virginia Woolf, earned him the Pulitzer Prize in music in 2004), yet a surprisingly small output of orchestral works: a relatively small number of symphonies and concerti, and practically no chamber works.
The Tech Full review
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