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This is one of those musical projects that crosses genre so much that it is likely to go unnoticed. As the leader of the jazz-fusion group Weather Report and later as a solo artist, keyboardist Joe Zawinul went for a tribal vocal and rhythmic sound using electronics. Here, however, he composed a symphony. Aside from his unrecorded live duos with Frederich Gulda, "Jozy" did not approach classical music as a general rule. However, like Gulda he was an Austrian pianist with ears for all sorts of music, so the results of this experiment could be interesting.
The first thing that strikes one hearing this record is that Zawinul and his band act as soloists only in small segments of this hour long symphony. The first three pieces are purely orchestral with no band. Zawinul put titles to each of the ten parts, so the intent was to create associations through purely musical means. So this is what used to be known as "program music" or a "symphonic poem"; a musical form with a wide appeal but that classical composers have avoided since the development of film music in the 1920s effectively took over that tradition. This is a pity, really, because the challenge of writing instrumental music that is actually "about something", or can create "visual programs for the mind", is not an easy one, and if that tradition continued in music it could, perhaps, have saved the classical music world from some of the debilitating or pedantic ways of academia to which it is prone by ensuring that imaginative or communicative expression came first.
Zawinul was from Vienna, but a look at the title of the movement shows he is looking at the full ethnic diversity of this part of the world. This begins with the fourth and fifth part (Gypsy) which is based on a wordless vocal is the style of Arab/flamenco/gypsy music. This calls for a switch for the orchestra, to complement a band. The ninth part 'Sultan' is likewise a reflection of ethnic diversity (or the Ottoman Empire) that features a band. Zawinul experienced the horrors of World War 2 first hand, although his "unknown soldier" movement, though subtitled "a stream of blood and violence: the second world war", is remarkably placid. The finale ('the nations of the Danube celebrate peace') is a brief fanfare type piece and perhaps not too successful, but then again how many lengthy pieces of music ever truly have great endings? Maybe the most successful part here is "voices of the Danube" where Zawinul imaginatively puts himself inside the "mind" of a rock in the river that has watched history floating by for thousands of years. It is a nice six minute orchestral composition made more enjoyable for the idea behind it.
On the whole, this is a likeable record for a number of reasons: its effective integration of orchestral and band music, its imagination and its "fusion-like" effort to draw from the best of various genres of music without conforming to any one. Call it a "world music symphony". If that idea appeals, so might the music. Fans of Weather Report or Zawinul's other projects might be disappointed by the absence of a rhythmic drive to this music - it is not akin to Zawinul's "pursuit of the woman in the feathered hat" music - as well as by the fact that it is essentially "classical" rather than "jazz" music in that it is not improvised. But this is perhaps Zawinul at his most musically imaginative strictly as a composer.
Zawinul was not a soppy hippie by any strength of the imagination, but his idea of composing a piece of music whereby the River Danube is allowed to tell its own story of history through music is a quite a romantic one. The same idea exists behind a recent project, "Rhinegold" (the story of the River Rhine, over thousands of years) by Rudiger Oppermann, which utilises purely folk instruments and musicians, but Zawinul here uses the classical orchestra first and foremost. Maybe in the next century, classical composers might take up once again the idea of programme music that they invented in the nineteenth century. In the meantime, however, there are "world music" works like Stories of the Danube in existence for us to enjoy.
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