I just heard about a review in Opera News of the Mendelssohn Club‘s Innova disc called “Metamorphosis” that includes my Fire-Memory/River-Memory. If you subscribe, you can find it online – it was posted in October. Here is the discussion of F-M/R-M:
The third work, James Primosch’s Fire-Memory/River-Memory, from 1998, sets two poems by the British-born American poet Denise Levertov. Primosch ranges freely and effectively across the tonal spectrum, holding the listener in his emotional grip even when the harmonic language becomes harsh. The first poem, “What Were They Like?”, is a series of rhetorical questions and answers, posed to victims of the Vietnam War. Toward the end, a solo violin emerges from the choral texture with poignant beauty. The second poem, “Of Rivers” builds grandly and evokes nature’s majesty, as well as the divine, metaphoric ability of rivers to “remember.” This makes an effective counterweight to “What Were They Like?”, emphasizing that the horrors of war must not be forgotten.”
Pretty nice, huh? This for a disc that was named Disc of the Week by WQXR when it was released. Read more about the recording here, here and here. Thank you so much to the Mendelssohn Club and Alan Harler.