American Classics - Hanson: Orchestral Works Vol 1
Naxos
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Jul 01, 2000
Howard Hanson's music shows the same lifelong dedication to the promotion of a uniquely American style in concert music that led to the foundation of the Institute of American Music of the Eastman School during Hanson's forty year tenure as Director. His style is unabashedly romantic, building on the groundwork of his most admired non-American composers, Respighi and Sibelius. This is most apparent in his First Symphony, written while he was a student of Respighi, showing a similarly grand orchestration. The Nashville Symphony Orchestra conducted by Kenneth Schermerhorn round out the All-American theme of this Naxos release, from their American Classics series. Their version of Hanson's first symphony reverberates with fervor and tenderness. They capture the playful mood of Hanson's "Merry Mount" Suite in a sprightly rendition. The NSO also perform Hanson's tone poem "Pan and the Priest" and the obscure "Rhythmic Variations on Two Ancient Hymns" from a recently re-discovered score.
American Classics - Hanson: Orchestral Works Vol 1
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CD
Naxos
Jul 01, 2000
8559072
American Classics - MacDowell: Suites, Hamlet & Ophelia
Naxos
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Feb 01, 2001
I'll say one thing: Naxos gives great notes. Reacting against Dvorák's suggestion that American composers look to Negro Spirituals and other ethnic music for inspiration, Edward MacDowell retorted:
"Purely national music has no place in art. What Negro melodies have to do with Americanism still remains a mystery to me. Why cover a beautiful thought with the badge of slavery rather than with the stern but at least manly and free rudeness of the North American Indian...? What we must arrive at is the youthful optimistic vitality and the undaunted tenacity of spirit that characterizes the American Man."
So speaks the true voice of the oppressor. Really, a nicer guy never got run over by a horse-drawn cab. Still, this little extract teaches us two useful lessons. First, what a composer says about music in general doesn't necessarily have anything to do with what he actually writes. After all, "youthful optimistic vitality" and "undaunted tenacity of spirit" are about the last qualities that come to mind when listening to the pieces on this disc--more like faux Mendelssohn with a Liszt spritzer. Second, the fact that a composer may not be particularly agreeable, or even especially intelligent, doesn't detract from the purely musical value of his output (if any, of course).
MacDowell's two suites for orchestra have waited a long time to appear on CD, and the fact that they may not be all that audacious or exciting does not detract from their considerable charm, attractive fund of melody, and apt scoring. Takuo Yuasa and the Ulster Orchestra lavish genuine care on these pieces, playing with real dedication and more than enough sympathy to justify the composer's pride in the Indian Suite's "Dirge" as one of his finest achievements. The Second Suite is, in fact, a very substantial work that does not deserve its obscurity. And yet we have to wonder just what a composer whose music was approvingly described in his own lifetime as "agreeably free of the fevers of sex" could make of Hamlet & Ophelia; and whatever the music's qualities, let us just say that it fully lives up (if that's the word) to MacDowell's chaste reputation. As noted, Naxos' documentation is exceptional, and the sound fine. --David Hurwitz, ClassicsToday.com
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Naxos
Feb 01, 2001
8559075
American Classics - Barber: Violin Concerto, Souvenirs, Etc / Buswell
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Jan 01, 2002
This album was nominated for the 2002 Grammy Award for Best Instrumental Soloist(s) Performance with Orchestra.
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American Classics - Barber: Violin Concerto, Souvenirs, Etc / Buswell
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Naxos
Jan 01, 2002
8559044
American Classics - Hanson: Piano Sonata, Etc / Thomas Labé
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May 01, 2000
Howard Hanson wrote most of the solo piano music on this disc early in his career, before he became the first American to win the Prix de Rome in 1921, and before his forty-year tenure as director of the Eastman School of Music. Though he later focused on orchestral writing in emulation of Respighi, his teacher in Rome, Hanson's piano music intimately defines the romantic and popular character of his work. Hanson's music is emotionally yearning, tuneful Americana. Critically acclaimed American pianist Thomas Labé has researched Hanson's music extensively, which was necessary, as many of Hanson's scores are unpublished. His labor informs his virtuosic playing with keen insight in these performances, five out of eight of which are world premiere recordings.
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American Classics - Hanson: Piano Sonata, Etc / Thomas Labé
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Naxos
May 01, 2000
8559047
American Classics - Riley: Cantos Desiertos / Hawley, McFadden
Naxos
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Jun 01, 2003
Alexandra Hawley and Jeffrey McFadden offer a wonderfully eclectic program for flute and guitar. If you haven't heard this combination of instruments before, on the evidence presented here you'll very likely agree that it's a most musically rewarding pairing. The flute's smooth timbre ideally complements the guitar's non-legato and softly percussive tone quality--aspects put to good use in Robert Beaser's Mountain Songs, where McFadden's rustic, folksy picking and strumming is tempered by Hawley's serenely floating melodies. Joan Tower's quasi-impressionistic Snow Dreams initially conjures up idyllic, pastoral images before the composer's spiky harmonic style slightly sharpens the music's edges. Likewise, Lowell Liebermann's Sonata for Flute opens with a blissfully ruminative Nocturne, an atmosphere that dissipates immediately with the start of the nervously dancing Allegro finale.
Based on Mexican folk tunes, Terry Riley's Cantos Desiertos features delightfully stirring dances rendered with the aid of percussion. Finally, Peter Schickele's Windows offers a neo-Renaissance Pavane and a songful Cantilena before charging into an all-out strum-fest for the closing Refrain. Hawley and McFadden play beautifully, sounding convincingly at home in all of the varying styles and modes presented by this unusual mix of composers. Naxos' engineering gives listeners a realistic sense of the recording venue. This is one of those discs you just put in your player and totally enjoy. --Victor Carr Jr, ClassicsToday.com
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Naxos
Jun 01, 2003
8559146
American Classics - Flagello: Symphony No 1, Etc / Amos
Naxos
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Apr 01, 2003
"Nicolas Flagello is one among many worthy 20th-century American composers to have fallen between the cracks. His language is post-Romantic in the manner of Barber and Menotti, but that only provides certain jumping off points. He is also rigorously neo-Classical, an adept orchestrator, and a master of the rhetorical gesture. Both the point and pithiness of his Symphony No. 1 and his Theme, Variations, and Fugue would have made Brahms and Roussel, among others, smile." "David Amos is an old hand at producing effective performances of pieces that don't as yet have a performing tradition. Here he elicits inspired playing from the Slovak Radio Symphony Orchestra. The recording is fine by current standards, and the liner notes by Fanfare's Walter Simmons are concise and informative. This is a wholly meritorious addition to Naxos's ongoing 'American Classics' series." -- William Zagorski, FANFARE
"Naxos's sound is couched in an ideal balance of spaciousness, presence, and detail, with climactic moments packing a startlingly gutsy wallop. The timing claimed on the cover is 10 minutes short of the actual disc duration: one is getting even greater value for very little money, and at Naxos's price it would amount to self-defeating, criminal neglect to pass this by." - Adrian Corleonis, FANFARE
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Naxos
Apr 01, 2003
8559148
American Classics - Griffes: Complete Piano Works Vol 2
Naxos
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Mar 01, 2000
Charles Tomlinson Griffes only lived 35 years; his death in 1920 cut short one of the most promising careers in American music. During his short life span he created a collection of short, rhapsodic works that are full of color and romantic adventure. The Pleasure-Dome of Kubla-Khan is best known in its orchestrated version, expanded and altered somewhat from the original piano composition. It is a lush, lyrical, and dramatic work whose exotic melodies exude Middle-Eastern and Oriental influences. Of the other compositions, the Piece in D minor, from 1915, stands out. Elegant, impassioned impressionism reigns in this engaging work, and it certainly deserves wider recognition. Though the rest of the pieces on the CD are all worth hearing, the early transcription for two pianos of the Hansel and Gretel overture is most impressive. Griffes had gone to Europe to study with Humperdinck, and no doubt intended his masterful arrangement as a tribute. As performed here, it is one of the most charming duo-piano pieces in the repertoire. Michael Lewin plays the rest of the program with passion and precision, though his interpretations lack that last measure of urgency given by James Tocco on Gasparo. The latter, however did not record all of this music, so at the low Naxos price, no one should mind duplicating a few of these works. The recorded sound is exemplary, using 24-bit technology for the highest resolution. --Rad Bennett, ClassicsToday.com
American Classics - Griffes: Complete Piano Works Vol 2
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Naxos
Mar 01, 2000
8559046
American Classics - Harris: Symphonies No 7 & 9 / Kuchar
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Aug 01, 2002
"The two symphonies on this latest release from the superb American Classics series, infused with characteristic, deliciously pastoral, lyricism, show off Harris at his most colourful. The National Symphony Orchestra of Ukraine brings to the fore some intricate instrumentation in its adept performance under the guiding hand of Theodore Kuchar."
- Tarik O'Regan, The Observer
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Naxos
Aug 01, 2002
8559050
American Classics - Copland: Works For Violin And Piano
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Jul 01, 2002
from Daniel Felsenfeld's Liner Notes:
Copland seemed to have two separate sides, the populist and the aesthete. The Sonata for Violin and Piano seems to fall in between the two, being jaunty and full of good tunes, but also based on sophisticated harmonies and unorthodox musical schemes. The piece is dedicated to Lieutenant Harry H. Dunham, a close friend of Copland’s who died in battle, and the date of its première (17th January 1944, with violinist Ruth Posselt and the composer at the piano) shows that war was probably very much on the pacifist Copland’s mind. Cast in three movements with traditional titles (Andante, Lento and Allegretto giusto) this is truly a neo-classical work, but it is also pure Copland; as with everything, he took what he needed of the theoretical conceits, but ultimately composed to his instincts.
Two Pieces for violin and piano, which Copland wrote in the mid 1920s for himself and violinist Samuel Dushkin to play in a Boulanger-sponsored concert in Paris, is a chance to see Copland playing with new ideas, including a new fascination with jazz (this is also the period he was writing his heavily jazz-influenced Piano Concerto). Much of this music would be mined for later scores, but they do hold interest on their own. This is music that is bitonal (in more than one key at once), undoubtedly influenced by Darius Milhaud, whom Copland esteemed highly. In the Ukelele Serenade Copland is having a good time trying to make the fiddle sound like something it is not.
Copland’s piano trio Vitebsk, one of his few "Jewish" works, is here arranged for violin and piano. It is a startling piece, full of wailing dissonances, even using microtones, notes which fall in between the cracks of piano keys, not of the "Western" well-tempered system. It is based on The Dybuk, a Jewish folk-tale, which also fascinated George Gershwin and Leonard Bernstein, about spirits and doomed love in a small Hasidic community, and Copland hoped the music would, in his own words, "...reflect the harshness and drama of Jewish life in White Russia." It is, therefore, a lean, almost angry work, with many moods contained in its taut single movement.
Dipping even further into the well of Copland’s juvenilia, Two Preludes for Violin and Piano are attempts to translate poetry into music, as Liszt had done in his tone poems. The poets in whom Copland found inspiration were Witter Bynner and Wallace Stevens, both contemporaneous and American. Here we see the seed of the Copland yet to come, the off-kilter rhythms, the stark harmonies, and the sparseness of texture. The titles offer their own explanations; these are musical moment pieces, composed to a single-focused and specific idea of mood.
Originally scored for flute and piano, Copland’s Duo was re-scored by the composer in 1977 at the request of Robert Mann, the violinist for the Juilliard Quartet and Copland enthusiast. The "all-but" sonata was therefore transcribed into this version, which took a good deal less time than the composition - Copland worked for three years on the Duo, commissioned by William Kinkcaid. The famous flautist wanted something that would work "...like a sonata," and Copland certainly delivered the goods, offering a tightly formed work in three movements. The second movement in particular, the composition of which took most of the three years, evokes, in the composer’s own words "a certain mood that I connect with myself - a rather sad and wistful one, I suppose."
The ballet Rodeo was a divisive moment in Copland’s career, a complete smash hit, and yet the piece that managed to alienate him from much of his community. Copland, they thought, had sold out. Copland even incorporates some memorable American folk-tunes. It is a cowboy romance, full of wranglers and cowgirls, and culminating in a hoedown. The choreography and scenario were by Agnes de Mille, who, on the strength of her work on Rodeo, was hired to choreograph a new musical by Rodgers and Hammerstein called Oklahoma!, and Copland composed dutifully to her vision, though he preferred his idea for a ballet about Ellis Island. The 1942 première at the Metropolitan Opera was an enormous success, with a standing ovation. The suite from the work is one of Copland’s most recognizable achievements, with hundreds of performances and countless wonderful recordings.
Daniel Felsenfeld
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Naxos
Jul 01, 2002
8559102
American Classics - Creston: Symphonies No 1-3 / Kuchar
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Apr 01, 2000
It's good to see Paul Creston's music making a bit of a comeback. Neeme Järvi recorded the Second Symphony for Chandos, and Gerard Schwarz did the Third (and much else besides) for Delos, so this latest entry in Naxos' American Music Series faces some stiff competition. Fortunately, the performances are excellent and hold their own without qualification. Kuchar and his orchestra already have recorded a first-rate Prokofiev symphony cycle for Naxos, and are working on Martinu as well, so it's no surprise that Creston fits their musical profile. New to CD is the zippy First Symphony, a typically American-sounding neo-classical piece in four brief movements variously marked "With Majesty", "With Humor", "With Serenity", and "With Gaiety". So they are, and so they sound.
The brilliant "song and dance" Second Symphony gets a particularly lively performance here: it's a truly original masterpiece in two movements that should be played and enjoyed at least as often as, say, the Third Symphonies of Copland, Harris, or Schuman. Inspired by episodes in the life of Christ (birth, crucifixion, and resurrection), the Third Symphony, entitled "Three Mysteries", combines Creston's love of Gregorian chant with his invigorating sense of rhythm. Its religious inspiration lends the music a calm solemnity that never becomes saccharine or insincere. Hopefully Naxos will get around to the remaining symphonies and other orchestral works. This is really good stuff, nicely recorded too. --David Hurwitz, ClassicsToday.com
American Classics - Creston: Symphonies No 1-3 / Kuchar
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Naxos
Apr 01, 2000
8559034
American Classics - Barber: Orchestral Works Vol 2 / Alsop
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Mar 01, 2001
Lyricism and obsessive patterns are finely realised by the RSNO, while conductor Marin Alsop shows a keen sensitivity to both scores and balances their rhetoric with the clean-edged clarity of their textures. In addition, her performance of the now-ubiquitous Adagio for Strings is a model of restraint, proving the saying that less equals more. Attractive sound, with a wide range and plenty of definition. - BBC Music Magazine
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American Classics - Barber: Orchestral Works Vol 2 / Alsop
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Naxos
Mar 01, 2001
8559088
American Classics - Fred Hersch: Concert Music 2001-2006
Naxos
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Oct 30, 2007
HERSCH Character Studies.1 Variations on a Bach Chorale.2 Lyric Pieces for Trio.3 Tango Bittersweet.4 Saloon Songs.5 • Natasha Paremski (pn);1 Blair McMillen (pn);2,5 Dorothy Lawson (vc);4 Fred Hersch (pn);4 Grammercy Tr3 • NAXOS 8.559366 (61:09)
The concept of crossover music is certainly appealing. After all, music should be, to paraphrase Duke Ellington, either good or bad, and not about categories. Doesn’t often work that way, though. Paul McCartney, arguably one of the most important figures in rock history, embarrasses himself when he attempts to write symphonic music. The prog rock world is littered with other cases of pretentious drivel from musicians who, when they stick to their roots, are capable of powerful, sincere artistry. There are exceptions, most famously, Gershwin, but also the trail blazing saxophonist Ornette Coleman, whose orchestral outing, Skies of America, is a minor masterpiece.
Add Fred Hersch, a widely respected jazz pianist who still spends a good deal of his professional life playing gigs on the club circuit, to the short list of successful crossover artists. He calls this material, created between 2001 and 2006, concert music, simply meaning that it is written out and not improvised. Although a rhythmic pattern here and there alludes to his jazz background, this is basically neo-Romantic material. There are two big pieces. Lyric Pieces for Trio is a lovely, rather Gallic feeling work for piano, cello, and violin, in which the instrumental lines are rendered with unusual independence, resulting in a very open texture. The other large piece, and for me, the standout composition on the program, is the 24 Variations on a Bach Chorale. The theme is the haunting recurring motif from Saint Matthew Passion that Bach adapted from an original theme by Hans Leo Hassler. This is a superbly written and engrossing variation set, in the manner of Bach and Beethoven, although I am certain that Hersch would forgive me for suggesting that he is not quite in those ranks. Nevertheless, the thoughtfulness and scope of drama here is impressive. There is never any sense that Hersch is merely filling out; all of the music counts for something. It is astonishing to read that he wrote this music in five days. This is a work that should get a wider audience, and the attention of more pianists. McMillen gets the notes across, but there are many moments where it seems that a higher degree of panache is called for, in terms of tonal color and dexterity.
The shorter pieces are of a kind, music of grace and beauty. The Saloon Songs reveal a sure sense and deep affection for an American vernacular sound. Tango Bittersweet, for cello and piano, is a written-out version of music that Hersch played as an improvisation (with cellist Erik Friedlander) for many years. It has a sweetly lilting flavor that is irresistable. The Character Studies, inspired by important figures in Hersch’s career, are similarly appealing. Despite my comments on McMillen’s playing, the performances and recorded sound are fine, although this is music of sufficient merit to attract additional musicians. In all, a delightful release.
FANFARE: Peter Burwasser
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Naxos
Oct 30, 2007
8559366
American Classics - Gallagher: Orchestral Music / Falletta, London Symphony
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Sep 28, 2010
GALLAGHER Diversions Overture. Berceuse. Sinfonietta for String Orchestra. Symphony in One Movement, “Threnody” • JoAnn Falletta, cond; London SO • NAXOS 8559652 (63:47)
For those who do not know about Jack Gallagher and the genesis of this recording, I refer you to the feature/interview elsewhere in this issue. The four works offered here are an overview of most the American composer’s career so far, from the 1977 Berceuse, written when he was 30 years old, to the Sinfonietta, completed in 2007 and revised the next year.
There probably is no better introduction to Gallagher’s beautifully crafted, accessible music than Diversions Overture, the opener for this CD. The concert overture seems to evoke the open prairies of the old West, complete with sunrise, sunset, and the excitement of discovery. I mean no irony; it is very much in the style of the American school created by Aaron Copland and Gallagher’s first composition teacher, Elie Siegmeister. If there is any irony, it is that Copland and Siegmeister were city boys from New York, and Gallagher was, too, before he took his university job in Wooster, Ohio. It doesn’t matter. In 1986, when Gallagher wrote this, he showed himself a natural heir to the style that his predecessors created. There is poignancy, explosive energy, good-natured humor (love those harp interjections in the middle section), and a warm-hearted directness that is tremendously engaging. This is a feel-good music in the very best sense of the expression.
On the other hand, the earlier Berceuse is so beautiful it could make you cry. How many times does a critic get to say that when reviewing a piece by a living composer? And it works because there is no sense that the composer is trying to make that happen. As is true of all of Gallagher’s music, there is unaffected honesty, the sense of being allowed to look into the composer’s heart. This gentle little lullaby, based on a piano work written for the daughter of friends, is one of Gallagher’s most played and recorded works. I have not heard it better done.
Originally a set of two pieces for orchestra, and expanded in to a full five-movement suite in 2007, the Sinfonietta is occasionally reminiscent of chamber-orchestra works by British composers like Moeran. At other times Britten’s more anxious string works are brought to mind. This is a different side of Gallagher’s art, emotionally more contained—though no less vigorous—and sparer in sound. Throughout there are surprises: an unexpected interval, an unusually timed rhythmic pattern, or a chord that deliciously refuses to resolve. In the Intrada, he uses the octatonic (diminished) scale to create a feeling of uneasy anticipation. In the Intermezzo he frames the melancholy, slowly shifting movement with a concertante opening and closing that is like murmured conversation against the sound of the night. The lively, slightly unsettling central Argentinean Malambo serves as a scherzo, but the bustle never seems joke-like. The Pavane is reminiscent of the Berceuse of 30 years previous, though now the innocence is bittersweet, and the gentleness a touch reserved. The pizzicato opening of the concluding Rondo Concertante brings us back to English pastoral, and the folk dance. Throughout there is a quality of understatement that is deceptive, as greater familiarity with the work reveals a deep complexity that isn’t immediately apparent; very like getting to know the composer, and very moving.
So is Gallagher’s Symphony in One Movement, subtitled “Threnody.” Written, in part, in memory of his mother, who died unexpectedly during its composition, this is understandably the darkest of the works here. The opening section may well remind you of Shostakovich’s wrenching adagios, and echoes of Bernard Hermann will come later, but the way this lament explodes into sudden anger in the second part is clearly Gallagher’s usual kinetic energy, agonized and held too long in check. It subsides eventually, played out in sinister snatches of manic solo violin, and racing piano chromatics, and the roaring of the brass. An eerie harp cadenza provides a release, but no sense of consolation, and the work dissolves into a fractured madness of spent rage and poignant remembrances before collapsing into despair.
As I have said before, this is a most welcome release of some absolutely fantastic music. It is not cutting-edge, nor self-consciously emotive as some neoromantic music is. It is richly and directly communicative. Naxos is to be commended for offering an opportunity to hear these four major works by a composer who richly deserves to be better known. JoAnn Falletta clearly loves these pieces, and brings them vividly to life. The LSO—need I say this?—plays with great conviction and energy. Only an occasional unevenness of ensemble in the swirling figurations of the Sinfonietta, or a moment or two of tentativeness in the brass, hint at any lack of familiarity. The sound is lovely, fully capturing the bloom of that great Abbey Road Studio One. Urgently recommended.
FANFARE: Ronald E. Grames
On evidence here, Jack Gallagher (b. 1947) is a composer of considerable ability. He wrote the notes to this release, not necessarily a good idea, since they read like a job resume and have about as much personality as stale bread, but the music happily says otherwise. The two big works, the Sinfonietta for strings and the Symphony "Threnody", have considerable substance. Among the five movements of the former work is an Argentine Malambo (think of the final dance of Ginastera's ballet Estancia), and a very good one too. The symphony manages the difficult task in a modern work of being turbulent and emotionally affecting without ever sounding petulant or gratuitously miserable. It's also very cogently structured in one movement, part of a long and distinguished lineage stretching back through Samuel Barber and Roy Harris to the Seventh Symphony of Sibelius.
Diversions Overture opens with some lovely modal harmonies in the woodwinds, and for a moment you might feel that you are listening to a lost work from the English pastoral school--not quite Vaughan Williams, but possibly E.J. Moeran or John Ireland. Gallagher's individuality soon reasserts itself, however, in the music's quick sections. The Berceuse is a slight but pretty little intermezzo.
As you may have guessed, this music is harmonically traditional and falls gratefully on the ear, but it never comes across as merely facile or clichéd. JoAnn Falletta and the London Symphony play it all with notable confidence and technical security, as we have every right to expect, and they've been well recorded at Abbey Road Studios. Gallagher is definitely worth getting to know.
--David Hurwitz, ClassicsToday.com
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American Classics - Gallagher: Orchestral Music / Falletta, London Symphony
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Naxos
Sep 28, 2010
8559652
American Classics - Bernstein: Serenade, Etc / Alsop, Et Al
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Nov 15, 2005
Bernstein?s Serenadefor solo violin, strings, harp, and percussion was inspired by Plato?s Symposium and the composer described it as a ?series of related statements in praise of love.? This is the only performance I know which treats it that way, rather than as a snazzy solo concerto. It?s partly to do with conductor Marin Alsop?s measured approach to tempo: the work bounces along, but the syncopated rhythms never race out of control, and moments of excitement are never whipped up in order to generate a buzz. It?s also partly to do with the soloist. Philippe Quint?s smooth-toned violin persuades and cajoles: there are flights of fancy, but there is also reasoned argument. In short, this really does sound like a group of articulate protagonists in intellectual parlay (a situation Bernstein himself loved to be in). Marin Alsop was a protegee of the composer, and here she salutes his memory by taking the program of the Serenadeseriously. The aforementioned sections of the Bournemouth orchestra are disciplined and tight.
The ballet score, Facsimile,perhaps needs to be drawn out of its shell a little more; it is the least flashy of Bernstein?s early concert works. Alsop and the orchestra do it justice, but this is one of those rare cases where only the composer (on Sony and Deutsche Grammophon) can bring it to shining life. Jerome Robbins?s ballet was set to a nihilistic scenario of ?post war malaise and the spiritual vacuum of modern man,? to quote the notes. (I thought the post-war era was optimistic! Robbins should have been around now.) The music is, likewise, a little gray, though Bernstein?s natural ebullience peeps through whenever it can. In any case, the playful moments need to be more playful, the dramatic fortes a little more dramatic than they are allowed to be here. The prominent piano part is nicely integrated into the orchestral fabric in this spacious recording.
Facsimile is an exception to my theory (which I?m sticking to) that, generally, Bernstein?s music speaks for itself and it?s musicality suffers when points are over-emphasized or climaxes inflated. The late Divertimento (written for the centenary of the Boston SO) provides a good example. Once more, Alsop reins in the highjinks and as a result, the piece seems more substantial and less ?occasional? than usual. These works are available in the composer?s recordings and many other fine interpretations exist (such as Hilary Hahn?s dazzling Serenade, with David Zinman conducting the Baltimore SO on Sony?if it?s still around) but Naxos gives us more than mere bargain-basement versions. These are smart, sharply realized, well-recorded performances.
FANFARE: Phillip Scott
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Naxos
Nov 15, 2005
8559245
American Classics - Lauridsen: O Magnum Mysterium, Songs / Edison, Elora Festival Singersa
Naxos
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Oct 27, 2009
Recording information: St. John's Church, Elora, Ontario, Canada (01/25/2006-01/28/2006).
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Naxos
Oct 27, 2009
8559304
American Classics - Sousa "At The Symphony" / Brion, Razumovsky SO
Naxos
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Aug 10, 2004
Includes work(s) by John Philip Sousa. Ensemble: Razumovsky Symphony Orchestra. Conductor: Keith Brion.
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American Classics - Sousa "At The Symphony" / Brion, Razumovsky SO
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Naxos
Aug 10, 2004
8559013
American Classics - Gloria Coates: Symphonies 1, 7 And 14
Naxos
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Apr 18, 2006
G. COATES Symphonies: No. 1;1 No. 7;2 No. 143 ? Jorge Rotter, cond;1 Siegerland O;1 Olaf Henzold, cond;2 Bavarian RSO;2 Christoph Poppen, cond;3 Munich CO;3 Raymond Curfs (kd)3 ? NAXOS 8.559289 (65:47)
First, this is Gloria Coates (b. 1938) not Eric. Second, we have a welcome addition to a still-too-small discography of one of the most original living American composers. I will confess this is my first encounter (far too late) with her music, but I have been primed by word of mouth, above all by former Fanfare critic Kyle Gann, who praises her lavishly in his American Music in the Twentieth Century. And the advance word has been confirmed by the music I?ve finally heard.
Coates is definitely a composer in the mold of the American ?ultramodernists? of the early 20th century. The listener will immediately sense an adventurous, uncompromising, cantankerous spirit in her work that is a descendant of such as Ives, Ruggles, Cowell, and Crawford. Her most distinguishing technique is that of the string glissando, which in lesser hands can be a cheap symbol of modernist instability, and a passport to aural seasickness. Not here. Coates is careful to place her sliding tones at the service of larger processes: canons in particular, or ?additive/subtractive? lines that expand and contract the range of the glissando over time and in perceptible patterns. She?s a wonderfully paradoxical composer because, on the one hand, the music is highly experimental in its surface technique, but on the other hand, classical in its attention to form and development within the symphonic argument. She?s a very conceptual composer, as both the titles of movements (Symphony No. 7?s movements are ?The Whirligig of Time,? ?The Glass of Time,? and ?Corridors of Time?) and her attachment to strict processes, nowadays called algorithms, may suggest. But no matter how idealistic the music, it always carries a visceral impact, or in good old American terms, a real wallop.
The three works on this program nicely cover the composer?s entire symphonic cycle (up to this point), dipping into the start, the middle, and end. Symphony No. 1 (1972?73) is her best-known work, also referred to as ?Music on Open Strings.? The work begins with an alternate pentatonic tuning of the instruments, and in the third movement incorporates the scordatura (retuning) of the strings back to the conventional tuning into the real-time performance fabric. Not all the sounds are just the five pitches, though, as Coates inserts all sorts of glissandos that enrich the texture, even if they don?t establish other firm pitch centers. It?s a highly original work, and a bracing combination of both minimalist and modernist practices.
The Symphony No. 7 (1990; a tribute to ?Those who brought down the Wall in PEACE,? though there is little I hear that?s programmatic in the actual music) is the most European sounding of the three works: not a surprise, as the composer has lived her mature artistic life in Germany, another marker of her ?outsider? status. It?s highly abstract in its materials, and verges on being the work whose glissandos wear out their welcome. But just when I started feeling the music was becoming predictable (in the first and third movements), it marshals its forces to create overwhelming climaxes that simultaneously sound surprising yet natural. I don?t know exactly what the technique is, but I suspect Coates has deep processes at work that lead to a culmination one desires but can?t easily predict. The relentless growth and impact of the piece, a storm in sound, is similar to Xenakis?s Jonchaies for orchestra, though I don?t claim it?s quite as great a work.
The final work, Symphony No. 14 (2001?02, ?Symphony in Microtones?), is by far the most American-sounding piece, for at least two obvious reasons. First, the piece (for strings and timpani?only the Seventh uses full orchestra on this collection) divides the string orchestra into two halves, tuned a quarter tone apart. Some of the music is so dense one doesn?t really perceive the differences, but in cases of the hymn quotation discussed below, it can be striking. The effect is the most Ivesian of this set and, in particular, I think of the composer of the Robert Browning Overture as an antecedent here.
Second, the first two movements quote pieces by Supply Belcher (a late 18th-century Maine hymnodist) and William Billings, the Boston Revolutionary-period composer who was himself an aesthetic revolutionary of the first order. The Billings choice is particularly apt, as it is ?Jargon,? his completely atonal (though better stated, it could be called ?non-functional,? as all the intervals are consonant, but they don?t make up traditional tonal chords) choral work, a message from another universe to the 18th century. In both movements, the antique sources emerge from Coates?s swirling textures like apparitions, an effect that is magical and unnerving. In the Billings movement, after appearing, the source is then stated with the quarter-tone difference, which feels like a true enrichment rather than a mere distortion.
In short, this is remarkable music. At times it can seem too crude and obvious, spurning standards of polish and taste, and then at the next moment it blindsides you with the power of its vision, a balanced match of manner and substance, form and content, style and idea. And on top of it all, if the booklet?s cover is any guide, Coates is a talented visual artist as well, in the tradition of Ruggles.
The sonic standards of the disc are variable: Symphony No. 1 is a recording from 1980, with more surface noise than we?re now accustomed to, and No. 7 comes from a concert recording of the world premiere. Only No. 14 has the clarity and crispness listeners have come to expect. At the same time, this doesn?t bother me, as none of the earlier sonic flaws are too distracting, and the music overcomes any such obstacle on its innate strengths. There is one serious competitor to this disc, cpo 999 392, which includes Nos. 1 and 7, substituting No. 4 for No. 14. I have not heard it, but I note from its online data that No. 1 is also a live recording from the same year as the Naxos (1980), and No. 7 was recorded in 1991, so I suspect at the very least there are similar sonic issues involved. I have a hunch that, based on repertoire, the Naxos disc will be preferable as an introduction, providing a broad sweep of the composer?s career. But based on what I?ve heard, I also suspect if you are hooked on Coates, you?ll probably need to get the cpo eventually.
This may well reappear on my 2006 Want List.
FANFARE: Robert Carl
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American Classics - Gloria Coates: Symphonies 1, 7 And 14
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Naxos
Apr 18, 2006
8559289
American Classics - Hadley: Symphony No 4, The Ocean, Etc
Naxos
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Jul 01, 2001
Henry Kimball Hadley (1871-1937) came from a highly musical Massachusetts family and showed considerable compositional promise early in his life (he completed his first opera at age 17). A major figure in Hadley's development was George Chadwick, with whom he studied counterpoint and composition before continuing his musical education in Vienna. Hadley's music shows an accomplished technique and, as with that of many American composers of his generation, it bears heavy European influence (though in Hadley's case, it also contains occasional traces of his home soil). The Ocean, composed between 1920 and 1921, is as atmospheric as its title suggests, displaying Hadley's skill at evocative orchestration. The musical language sounds at first to be purely impressionistic, but further along there are indications of the German post-romantic style, especially Zemlinsky. The Culprit Fay (1908) revels in the pre-impressionist sounds of Paul Dukas (La Peri comes to mind) as it relates Drake's fairy-tale poem.
It's surprising that Hadley's Symphony No. 4, composed three years later, sounds stylistically like a much earlier work, with roots firmly planted in the 19th century. The four movements act as a musical compass, describing the four regions of the globe: North portrays the frigid artic regions in terse declamations reminiscent of Richard Strauss' Macbeth; East is spiced by "oriental" modes and colors; South, the most "American"-sounding movement, captures that region's flavor with the use of ragtime melodies; and West combines adventurous "outdoors" music with Native American melodies and rhythms in a movement that not surprisingly brings to mind Dvorak's New World Symphony. This is really fine music and you can't help but wonder how it all but disappeared from modern concert programs. But if it had received anything like the wholly persuasive and committed (as well as enjoyable) performances provided by John McLaughlin Williams and the National Symphony Orchestra of Ukraine, it certainly shouldn't have. This team once again has put together an irresistibly fresh and rewarding program, and Naxos has captured it all in fine sound. --Victor Carr Jr., ClassicsToday.com
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American Classics - Hadley: Symphony No 4, The Ocean, Etc
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Naxos
Jul 01, 2001
8559064
American Classics - Sousa: Music For Wind Band Vol 6
Naxos
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Feb 27, 2007
Includes work(s) by John Philip Sousa. Ensemble: Royal Artillery Band. Conductor: Keith Brion.
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American Classics - Sousa: Music For Wind Band Vol 6
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Naxos
Feb 27, 2007
8559132
American Classics - Sousa: Music For Wind Band Vol 5
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Sep 21, 2004
Includes work(s) by John Philip Sousa. Ensemble: Royal Artillery Band. Conductor: Keith Brion.
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American Classics - Sousa: Music For Wind Band Vol 5
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