American Classics - Muczynski: Complete Works For Flute
Naxos
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Oct 01, 1999
Robert Muczynski, born in 1929, has been sparsely represented on recordings since the early days of the LP. The 35 movements of various works on the disc average under two minutes each; he is obviously terse-he tosses an attractive idea out and then goes on to the next thing. His mid-20th-century idiom is consistently engaging, and he writes very well for winds. The brief Movements for Wind Quintet is gorgeous. Hawley plays strongly in every work (joined briefly by her former teacher Rampal in a work for duets), and the composer is still a very adept pianist.
American Classics - Muczynski: Complete Works For Flute
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CD
Naxos
Oct 01, 1999
8559001
American Classics - Siegmeister: Piano Music Vol 2 / Boulton
Naxos
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Aug 01, 1999
If you're encountering the late American, New York born composer Elie Siegmeister for the first time, skip the first five tracks for now. Cue up Track Six to his gritty, uncompromising 1964 Second Sonata. The one movement work commences with stabbing, isolated pitches. These work their way into petulant clusters and stark, flickering triads. Leaping rhythmic patterns forge a grim, motoric path of no return, on which teasing jazz flourishes and starburst, two-handed arpeggios provide breezy relief. Siegmeister's predilection for granitic sonorities and bleak lyricism informs both his early 1932 Theme & Variations and his notey, rigorous Third Sonata from 1979. Five movements from the 1985 suite "These Shores" depict a quintet of American writers, whose identities are difficult to decipher without a score card. Yet this composer could write simple, accessible music too. Turn now to the opening "Sunday in Brooklyn" suite, a five movement work laced with wistful tunes and gentle, wrong-note Gershwinisms. This is music that deserves to be played much more than it is. One regrets that the composer, who died in 1991, didn't live to hear pianist Kenneth Boulton's dynamically charged, fiercely committed, and brilliantly virtuosic performances. He would have been delighted.--Jed Distler, ClassicsToday.com
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American Classics - Siegmeister: Piano Music Vol 2 / Boulton
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Naxos
Aug 01, 1999
8559021
On Wings Of Lightning Vol. 3
Naxos
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Aug 01, 1999
This recording celebrates Sousa's important early associations with dance and the music theatre. Picture a young John Philip Sousa, a tiny young man aged eleven, confidently standing in front of a group of much older musicians, playing his violin in the style of the famous Strauss and leading his own popular dance orchestra as Washington's society swirls and dances in front of him. It is impossible to overestimate the effect this interaction of the young man, his orchestra and the dancers was to have on the later Sousa -the composer to be. He was once quoted as saying, "I want my marches to make a man with a wooden leg stand up and dance." The dance never left him. Dancing rhythms for ever permeated his compositions, marches and dances alike. A young Dance Prince begat the March King. Soon also, his musical activities brought him to the theatre, where he began to experience the close and often raucous give and take of audience and performer that constituted the popular side of nineteenth century American theatre and early vaudeville. By the age of 21 he was the leader, arranger and concert master of the orchestra at Ford's Theatre in Washington. Later he led the Chestnut Street Theatre Orchestra in Philadelphia. Once again the magical chemistry of music and rhythm, as it reaches for audiences, became central to the composer's thinking. While many of the dances found here stem from this early period of Sousa's life, these initial encounters with the infectiousness of music and how it infuses dancers and listeners never left him. Throughout his long and sparkling career he continued to write music for each new craze: waltzes, gallops, two-steps, gavottes, tangos, cakewalks, rags, polkas, marches of course, and sometimes even a foxtrot or two.
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On Wings Of Lightning Vol. 3
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CD
Naxos
Aug 01, 1999
8559029
Meredith Willson: Symphony No. 1 and 2 / Stromberg, Moscow SO
Naxos
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Oct 01, 1999
Meredith Willson, certainly one of the most remarkable individuals in the history of American music, is finally given his due by these world premiere recordings of his two symphonies of 1936 and 1940. The First Symphony was written as a commemorative piece for the 30th anniversary of the San Francisco earthquake of 1916. But rather than recall the horror of that event, the piece is more of a tone poem celebrating the city. The second movement, however, is poignant in its evocation of a city rebuilding itself. The rising opening violin line, emulating a rebirth out of the ashes, is particularly effective. The Second Symphony, another work celebrating the glory of California, has a vague Spanish character to it as it pays homage to Father Junipero Serra, a "padre-pioneer" in the words of Willson. As with the First Symphony, the outstanding movement is the Andante with its veiled references to Gregorian chant and its Spanish motives as an allusion to the Spanish mission founded by Serra. William Stromberg, a conductor who has an affinity for performing film music, is to be commended for bringing to light these once forgotten works with sterling performances from the Moscow Symphony Orchestra.
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Meredith Willson: Symphony No. 1 and 2 / Stromberg, Moscow SO
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Naxos
Oct 01, 1999
8559006
American Classics - MacDowell: Piano Music Vol 1 /Barbagallo
Naxos
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Oct 01, 1999
All this music needs loving care and I can hardly imagine it played with greater warmth or affection than by James Barbagallo. The recordings are as natural as the performances ...I can hardly wait for a second volume. - Gramophone
American Classics - MacDowell: Piano Music Vol 1 /Barbagallo
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CD
Naxos
Oct 01, 1999
8559010
American Classics - Foote: Piano Quintet, Quartets /Da Vinci
Naxos
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Oct 01, 1999
The first real school of American composers arrived in the last quarter of the 19th century and were known as the Boston classicists. Comprised largely of well-to-do New Englanders who were trained in Europe by way of Harvard and worshipped Brahms, they were a pretty conservative bunch all around. Prominent among them was Arthur Foote of Salem, Massachusetts. His studies with John Knowles Paine at Harvard culminated in the first graduate degree in music ever granted by an American university and though he did not go on to study in Germany, he spent the following summer at Bayreuth soaking up the rays before returning to Boston to teach, compose and serve as choirmaster and organist of the First Unitarian Church. Foote's chamber music is strongly influenced by Mendelssohn and Brahms, neoclassical in outlook, graceful and lyrical with little hint of storm or stress. This disc, featuring the Piano Quintet along with the Op. 32 and Op. 70 string quartets, is one of two of all-Foote releases which are part of Naxos' admirable American Classics series. The recordings feature the Da Vinci Quartet, a very good Colorado-based ensemble which has undertaken the performance of all of this composer's chamber works.
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American Classics - Foote: Piano Quintet, Quartets /Da Vinci
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Naxos
Oct 01, 1999
8559009
American Classics - MacDowell: Piano Music Vol 3 /Barbagallo
Naxos
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CD
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Jun 01, 1999
One of the most important contributions Edward MacDowell made to American music was his reputation: born in New York City, trained in Paris and Vienna, he was the first Native-American composer to win respect in Europe. Among his supporters were Grieg and Liszt, and while MacDowell's music is frequently compared to the Norwegian master's for its lyricism and use of folk melodies--heard in miniatures such as the 'Forgotten Fairy Tales'--there is also strong affinity to the Faustian heroics of Liszt, as evidenced by the Piano Sonata No. 4, the 'Keltic.' James Barbagallo has the full measure of the sonata, reveling in its dash and fire, and is quite fluent in the legerdemain of the 'Twelve Virtuoso Studies' as well as the rustic reveries of the 'Fairy Tales' or the Six Heine Poems. The young American pianist was well into a series of the complete MacDowell piano music at the time of his sudden death from a heart attack in 1996, but this disc serves as a powerful reminder of his accomplishment.
American Classics - MacDowell: Piano Music Vol 3 /Barbagallo
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CD
Naxos
Jun 01, 1999
8559019
American Classics - Piston: Violin Concertos /Buswell, Et Al
Naxos
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Oct 01, 1999
Walter Piston was one of the more influential American musicians of the twentieth century. For nearly four decades he was a mainstay of the Harvard Music Department, authoring a series of widely used textbooks and teaching generations of composers. Like many Americans who went to Paris in the 1920s he fell under the influence of Stravinsky and neoclassicism and it was that aesthetic that prevailed at Harvard and in Piston's own composition. Piston worked in all the formal genres, leaving a substantial legacy of quartets, symphonies and concertos. His two violin concertos are among his most important works and Naxos has provided an invaluable service by placing both on one disc, along with the later Fantasia, as part of their American Classics series. The performances by erstwhile prodigy James Buswell are strong, he is able to get inside these cerebral scores and light the fires within. Theodore Kuchar and the Ukraine National Symphony lend solid support and the recording is first rate.
American Classics - Piston: Violin Concertos /Buswell, Et Al
$19.99
CD
Naxos
Oct 01, 1999
8559003
American Classics - MacDowell: Piano Music Vol 4 /Barbagallo
Naxos
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Jul 01, 1999
MACDOWELL: Second Modern Suite / Etude de Concert / 12 Etude
American Classics - MacDowell: Piano Music Vol 4 /Barbagallo
$19.99
CD
Naxos
Jul 01, 1999
8559030
American Classics - MacDowell: Piano Music Vol 2 /Barbagallo
Naxos
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CD
$19.99
$9.99
Oct 01, 1999
Barbagallo is every bit the piano-bard that MacDowell could have wished for...the recording communicating, however, the energy and range Barbagallo can deliver in person. I could listen to this fine player in just about any repertory he chooses - American Record Guide
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American Classics - MacDowell: Piano Music Vol 2 /Barbagallo
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CD
Naxos
Oct 01, 1999
8559011
American Classics - Romeo Cascarino
Naxos
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$13.99
Sep 26, 2006
CASCARINO Pygmalion. Portrait of Galatea. Blades of Grass.1 Prospice. Meditation and Elegy. The Acadian Land • JoAnn Falletta, cond; Geoffrey Deemer (Eh); Philadelphia Philharmonia • NAXOS 8.559266 (76:02)
Here we go again. A good man spends his life writing music for the love of it, putting bread on the table by teaching harmony and counterpoint at a small local institution. During his lifetime, he gets a few performances, writes a bassoon sonata that’s a modest hit among bassoonists, and then spends 25 years writing an opera, which gets two performances. The good man dies at 80, unknown outside of local musical circles. A few years after his death, his music is finally recorded.
Romeo Cascarino was a fine but almost completely unknown midcentury American composer in the great Copland-Barber-Bernstein tradition who wrote delicious music obviously meant to be enjoyed rather than edified. His inspirations may be a little musty (Greek mythology, 19th-century romantic poetry) but they provide ample raw material for rich music that runs the emotional gamut from, say, C to V. (The wildest extremes are absent from his gracious music.) He’s not Beethoven, but by not trying to be profound, he manages to avoid writing the kind of pedantic, grey music that makes the music of many midcentury Americans more dutiful than beautiful. The music on this CD is beautiful from beginning to end, some of it exceptionally so. Its clarity, wit, and unabashed lyricism put me in mind of Francis Poulenc, although the sound is more 1950s Leonard Bernstein (including the more symphonic theater music), with a splash of the more overt populism of some Copland or, say, Morton Gould. Some of it is so tasty I found myself listening to it two or three times in one sitting.
Tom DiNardo’s brisk, informative notes include a rather concise biography of Cascarino in which even the high points are modest. Born in Philadelphia (in the venerable Italian community of “South Philly”), he was an autodidact. At 17, he “was invited to Tanglewood after Aaron Copland looked at some of his early works.” (Just looked at? This is where the standard issue composer bio says “was impressed by.”) In 1945, while still in the army, he won a prize in the George Gershwin Memorial Contest. (I assume that had it been first prize, it would have been so mentioned.) This was a small contest sponsored by two Jewish organizations, although later winners included Peter Mennin and Harold Shapero. A 1947 Bassoon Sonata for (hometown) Philadelphia Orchestra bassoonist Sol Schoenbach once circulated on a Columbia recording, and he received two Guggenheim Fellowships. He refused commercial music work, and remained loyal to a low-paying local college despite having better offers. His first orchestral score, the ballet Prospice—which, along with everything else on this CD except for Pygmalion, is recorded here for the first time—was only ever performed in a two-piano arrangement. The later Pygmalion was “intended” for a ballet, with a libretto that “would appeal to a choreographer like Anthony Tudor, whom [Cascarino] greatly admired.” This reads like a composer whose dreams exceeded his grasp. Cascarino was evidently not naive about this, however; as DiNardo points out, Cascarino described himself as “an idealist, which for me is a realist who’s learned what to live for.” But the whole story seems rather sad.
Well, happily both pieces are much, much better works than their performance history intimates. Why any conductor who saw this appealing, lively, vividly drawn, and wonderfully scored music would not want to perform it is beyond me. Pygmalion is, indeed, the pick of the litter, as its prior recording suggests, although it appears to have been an extremely modest recording from the 1950s or 1960s, based on a fuzzy photo of its cover that I found somewhere in the musty corners of the Internet. No performers were indicated. The rich harmony, tidy orchestration, and stateliness of this music remind me of a John Ireland work. Portrait of Galatea is intended to be more impressionistic, and it is more loosely constructed and not as memorable. Prospice is based on a stiffly proud Browning poem, and is appropriately inspirational.
Cascarino was also commissioned by what DiNardo terms the “Benjamin Tranquil Music Project” which elsewhere is termed the Benjamin Award for Tranquil Music. In either version, it sounds like a parody, but the resulting work, The Acadian Land (based on Longfellow) is, for me, the other high point of this CD. It holds up well after many playings.
Alas, there’s nothing from Cascarino’s magnum opus, the opera William Penn, based on the life of the Quaker statesman who established Pennsylvania and founded Philadelphia. Cascarino worked on this from 1950 until 1975, and it was finally staged for two performances at the venerable Academy of Music, thanks in no small part to the efforts of Tom DiNardo (who doesn’t credit himself in his booklet notes). Evidently, this CD, too, owes its existence in part to DiNardo’s efforts. (Listed as executive producer, he’s also the music critic for Philly’s “second” newspaper, which doesn’t give him as much space as he deserves.)
This CD makes me want to hear more of Cascarino’s music. According to DiNardo, the composer’s output is small. His dates are 1922–2002, but the music on this CD is mainly for orchestra or chamber orchestra, and spans the years 1945–1960. (The Meditation and Elegy was written for piano in his teens and transcribed for string orchestra in 2000 by one of his pupils.) Did he write any other orchestral music after 1960, or did the opera take up all his energy? Did he write anything after completing the opera in 1975? Is there any chamber music besides the Bassoon Sonata? I wish the booklet notes provided more information. And there’s no further information online. I guess I’ll just have to check out Cascarino’s childhood haunt (and mine), the music division of the Free Library of Philadelphia, whose Fleisher Collection is the world’s largest orchestral lending library and holds Cascarino’s scores. Regional orchestra conductors: hint hint.
It remains only to praise enterprising conductor JoAnn Falletta for shaping immaculate performances. The orchestra of record is the “Philadelphia Philharmonia” which, as a lifelong Philadelphian, I’d never heard of until I read the note in the booklet that reveals its secret identity as the Chamber Orchestra of Philadelphia, a venerable local organization not to be confused with the Philadelphia Virtuosi Chamber Orchestra (which also has done a couple of CDs for Naxos) or the late Philadelphia Chamber Symphony (which did some lovely LPs for RCA in the 1960s). Even though it’s a major part of Philadelphia’s musical life, the COP has evidently never recorded under its own name. Why they didn’t take credit for this CD is beyond me. Except for a couple of minor trumpet slips, the playing is quite fine. The recorded sound is decent, with good orchestral balances. And thank you to Naxos for making it possible for this lovely music to be heard by millions worldwide, even if the composer didn’t live to see it happen.
FANFARE: Eric J. Bruskin
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American Classics - Romeo Cascarino
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Naxos
Sep 26, 2006
8559266
American Classics - McKay: Violin Concerto, Etc
Naxos
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Jan 18, 2005
We start with a pretty conventional three-movement, neo-Romantic Violin Concerto, written in 1940. The conductor’s program notes equate it with Bruch, but it’s not that old fashioned; there are hints of Bloch as well. Still, I find the opening Allegro too predictable and, at 14 minutes, too long. The Bruch connection could be some actual quotations in the violin part, but there are also some original ideas presented. McKay’s music is strongest, and most original, in his slow movements; he had a gift for the long melody and knew exactly what to do with one. Right from the opening note, the Andante quasi adagio rings true. Even the solo part changes instantly: the ultra-conventional figurations and filigree of the first movement give way to a soaring, wide-ranging line, which shares and exchanges ideas with solo woodwinds. Did the soloist feel the same way? His earlier cadenzas sound uncommitted; now he is all heart and beauty. A happy, lively finale also makes more use of winds than did the opening movement, and the solo line becomes more brilliant. One can’t help liking it.
The Suite on 16th-Century Hymn Tunes (an homage to one Louis Bourgeois) relapses into convention, recalling Vaughan Williams without matching him. It was written for organ in 1945, scored for strings shortly thereafter, and rescored for two string orchestras in 1962, the version heard here. A celesta joins in the fourth (Choeur céleste) of five movements; the work’s slow movement, it again stands out. A cogent listener (she doesn’t like being identified as my wife) thought the piece might be William Boyce, and English for sure. The Sinfonietta (1942) is a surprise: romantic excess has abdicated in favor of sharp, clean harmonies and rhythms. McKay has jumped a musical generation in the two years since the Violin Concerto; he seems as much at home in what was a very modern idiom for its day as he was in the earlier style. An Allegro . . . con brio (he writes verbose movement indications) has bite and wit; the Moderato pastorale makes varying use of a ripe oboe tune, enriching a nearly 10-minute movement at every turn. The colorfully scored finale, Allegro . . . molto, is brilliant fun.
Song over the Great Plains (1953) is a serious 14-minute tone poem, looking backward to Howard Hanson from McKay’s days at the Eastman School. Rich, mildly dissonant harmonies and heavy-duty scoring dominate, as trombones prevail. There is an occasional piano obbligato, played by Ludmilla Kovaleva, which serves primarily as respite from the tense atmosphere. The whole is not quite convincing, running just a touch too close to Hollywood. On another day, I might fall for it. All the performances are expert and seem sympathetic; the recordings are satisfactory.
I have to confess that I was a bit concerned at the opening of this new performance of Roy Harris' Third Symphony, where Marin Alsop and the otherwise very good Colorado Symphony fail to match the urgency and passion of Bernstein's benchmark Sony recording. Once the piece gets moving, however, the music quickly builds to an explosive account of the big fugue, with brilliant contributions from the brass, while the tragic conclusion with its pounding timpani pedal is perhaps the most intense yet captured on disc. Certainly no one has made the final bars sound more convincing or inevitable. Just a touch more drive at the very beginning and this might have been the new reference recording for the work, but as it is my reservations are minuscule and it's definitely a "keeper".
Having a modern recording on hand of the delightful "Folk Song Symphony" certainly adds to the disc's attractions. There's only one other that enjoyed general circulation, Golschmann's on Vanguard, and heaven only knows if it's still available. In any case, this one is definitely superior sonically, though I marginally prefer the earlier version's quicker tempos in Western Cowboy and Negro Fantasy (the second and sixth movements, respectively). Alsop still has the edge, though, in terms of both singing and playing, and her quicker sections pack an even bigger punch than the Vanguard release. This is a really attractive work that ought to be better known. If the composer in question had been English/Irish (and some of the tunes actually are: The Girl I Left Behind Me, a.k.a. The Wandering Laborer, also appears in Hamilton Harty's "Irish" Symphony), we'd no doubt have a plethora of modern recordings from which to choose. Never mind: this one will do very nicely. --David Hurwitz, ClassicsToday.com
Xavier Cugat, the daddy of Latin American music, introduced Latin music and dance rhythms to the world. 'Viva Cugat!' was his first adventure into the ear-arresting world of stereo with a group of outstanding Afro-Cuban melodies performed with a rare lyricism and rhythmic drive. 'The Best of Cugat' presents twelve great songs of the 1930s to the 1950s with a Latin touch all of which receive the Cugat treatment. Of the six bonus tracks, American classics such as "Chattanooga Choo Choo" and "In the Mood" are performed with an innovative and fun Twist beat.
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