The latest entry in Cedille's very worthy African Heritage Symphonic Series offers the most interesting repertoire yet. The four works included here, all by living composers, demonstrate a wide range of styles and compositional techniques that place their respective authors squarely in the mainstream of contemporary music. Whereas earlier issues focused on the process of "assimilation", of artists coming to grips with a musical culture that labeled them outsiders and aliens, and while even here prejudice and stereotyping to some extent determined the career options open to the two older composers (David Baker and Coleridge-Taylor Perkinson, born in 1931 and 1932 respectively), these works all project the feeling of having been written from the "inside".


The reason for this impression probably results from two factors: increased acceptance of African American composers as writers of "classical music", and probably more importantly, acceptance of African American popular music idioms (especially jazz) into the language of so-called "art" music. Baker's Cello Concerto and Perkinson's Sinfonietta No. 2 make this process very clear. The first work, written for the composer's friend and teacher Janos Starker and commandingly performed by Dutch cellist Katinka Kleijn, remains a gritty and harmonically dense piece in which the soloist communes with various sections of the orchestra in sustained dialog. It's chamber music writ large, its improvisatory feel pointing more powerfully to the composer's extensive jazz credentials than to his facility for more overtly popular elements. On the other hand, Perkinson's piece combines various folk songs with the famous BACH motive to create a Bartókian synthesis quite unlike anything else.


William Banfield's Essay for Orchestra reveals a touch of Sibelius in its accumulation of incident over long-held pedal tones, but its thematic material and interesting orchestral garb, with extensive percussion commentary accompanying all of the other instruments, create a very distinctive impression. The first work on the disc, Michael Abels' Global Warming, refers both to the environmental phenomenon and to the emotionally contrasting idea of improved relations among nations, and the music illustrates this dichotomy beautifully, with an opening (and concluding) evocation of heat and stillness enfolding a dance section in which imitation Irish folk music rubs shoulders with something vaguely Middle Eastern. It's delightful. The Chicago Sinfonietta's amazingly assured performances of this wildly diverse assortment enjoy perfectly balanced, warmly focused recorded sound. This is a very satisfyingly executed project that makes its points in the only way that ultimately matters: by offering excellent interpretations of interesting, thoughtful, and enjoyable music. [2/8/2003]
--David Hurwitz, ClassicsToday.com

Czech composer Jan Vorišek (1791-1825) was a talented musician just beginning to make a name for himself, particularly as a composer of piano music, when he died prematurely of tuberculosis. The excessively enthusiastic notes to this release take full advantage of speculative historical hindsight and describe his orchestral style as an amalgam of Beethoven's (which he may have known) and Schubert's (which he certainly didn't), asserting in passing that "Beethoven was never a great melodist...(!)" This hardly corresponds to the reality of what you actually hear on the disc, but it represents the only questionable aspect of this otherwise splendid production.


Vorišek's style arises directly from the classical language of Haydn, Mozart, and Beethoven. Of incipient Romanticism or the Schubertian long melodic line there's nary a trace, and the music is none the worse for that. His single symphony might pass for early Beethoven: indeed, the end of the first movement exposition apparently lifts a famous passage directly from the finale of the older composer's Fourth Symphony, but this doesn't diminish Vorišek's modest originality. You can hear this at work, among other places, in the characterful use of timpani at the very beginning and in the wonderfully passionate minor-key opening of the slow movement. For some time now, the reference recording of this piece has been Charles Mackerras' reading on Hyperion with the Scottish Chamber Orchestra. Paul Freeman does him one better, having a superior orchestra, more tactile recorded sound, and slightly broader tempos that, combined with punchier accents (especially in the first movement), give the piece an appropriately grander stature. Let's just say that Freeman evidently views the work as closer to Beethoven while Mackerras places it closer to Haydn and Mozart.


Mackerras couples the Vorišek symphony with another singleton effort, by Arriaga. Cedille gives us more Vorišek, his marvelous Mass in B-flat, which (I believe) receives its CD debut recording here. This piece really is a find. Close in style to the language of Haydn's late masses, it contains numerous original touches, such as the thrilling augmentation of the fugue subject toward the end of the Gloria, an almost violent Crucifixus characterized by syncopated rhythms and jagged interjections from trumpets and drums, a sweetly lyrical second Hosanna following the Benedictus, and a startling ending scored for pianissimo timpani and brass. Its stylistic provenance may be clear, but there's no other mass setting quite like it, and fans of choral music really owe it to themselves to give it a listen.


Once again Freeman turns in an excellent performance (though he should have had a soloist intone the opening lines of the Gloria and Credo, as Vorišek, designing the work for a genuine liturgical setting, leaves these to the officiating priest). His soloists manage their assignments capably, the Prague Chamber Chorus sings with appropriate fervor, and the recording copes with the vast reverberation of the Rudolfinum in Prague very well. At the loudest moments the textures tend to thicken a bit, but this seems primarily a result of Vorišek's tendency to keep all of the parts close to their middle register, creating a certain density of sound (and I suspect making the work easier to perform by early 19th century church choirs). This is, in any case, a major release and a very pleasant surprise. Good work, Cedille.
--David Hurwitz, ClassicsToday.com

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Music and lyrics by Jerry Herman.

Principal cast includes: Pearl Bailey (Mrs. Dolly Gallagher Levi), Cab Calloway (Horace Vandergelder), Emily Yancy, Chris Calloway, Winston DeWitt Hemsley, Sherri Peaches Brewer, Mabel King, Morgan Freeman, Roger Lawson.

Recorded November 17, 1967.

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Review quotes about "Lyric for Strings" by George Walker:

"Deserves to be as popular as the string elegies by Grieg, Faure and Elgar". Classical New Jersey
"Intense, haunting, lyrical beauty" News Journal, Mansfield, OH
"Hushed beauty and passionate intensity" American Record Guide
"A gorgeous find" Cincinnati Enquirer
"A finely crafted and deeply felt piece" Philadelphia Inquirer
"Intensely moving and beautiful" High Fidelity
"It reminds one of Barber's Adagio for Strings, only less sentimental and ultimately, more profound" Baltimore Evening Sun
"A Masterpiece" Fanfare Magazine
"One of the most beautiful pieces ever written" News Journal, Wilmington, Delaware
"A Gem." Baltimore Sun
"As a piece of gentle art . . . it has few peers." Philadelphia Inquirer

Cedille Records intends its African Heritage Symphonic Series as a follow-up to CBS Records' Black Composers Series from the 1970s, and I'm happy to say Volume 1 makes for a strong start. Samuel Coleridge-Taylor (1875-1912), chiefly remembered for his cantata based on Longfellow's Hiawatha, actually was British-born, and his music is understandably more European sounding than that of his African American colleagues, though in some cases you can hear instances of traditionally African harmonic modulations. Thus, the Danse Nègre from the African Suite (1898) sounds sort of like Vaughan-Williams' The Wasps spiced up by Dvorak's Slavonic Dances. Dvorak is a composer who comes to mind again in the Petite Suite de Concert (1910), where Coleridge-Taylor exhibits the same qualities of tunefulness, rhythmic fluency, and sparkling orchestration as the Czech master.


William Grant Still (1895-1978) greatly admired Coleridge-Taylor, but he also was heavily influenced by the great jazz musicians of his time, in particular W.C. Handy, known as the "Father of the Blues". It's the sound of the blues that opens Still's Symphony No. 1, and to hear it in full symphonic dress immediately calls to mind George Gershwin (both composers knew each other's music). Various forms of jazz and blues permeate the symphony, yet Still constructs his work according to classic symphonic principles, and the result is a highly original, thought-provoking, and ultimately enjoyable creation.


From the African diaspora, we turn to the motherland for the music of Fela Sowande (1906-87). Sowande's Africa Suite (1930) utilizes traditional melodies of his native Nigeria, allowing us to hear the actual modes and rhythms of Africa presented in European orchestral timbres--a hybrid that works thanks to conductor Paul Freeman's rhythmic exactitude and to enthusiastic playing by the Chicago Sinfonietta. Freeman and his band give vibrant performances of the Coleridge-Taylor works as well, and show a far less self-conscious demeanor in the Still Symphony than Neeme Jarvi and the Detroit Symphony Orchestra, playing with much more relaxed authenticity and "cool". Cedille's recording is a model of three-dimensional realism, making this disc both a sonic and musical treasure.
--Victor Carr Jr., ClassicsToday.com

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David Finko is a Russian American composer who studied at the Rimsky-Korsakov School of the Performing Arts and the Leningrad Conservatory. He was a member of the Union of Soviet Composers and also wrote commissioned works for the Soviet Ministry of Culture.

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Groundbreaking new music from Mason Bates and the Richmond Symphony! Reference Recordings is proud to present a World Premi�re recording of MASON BATES: Children of Adam, songs of creation- Commissioned by the Richmond Symphony; coupled with RALPH VAUGHAN WILLIAMS: Dona nobis pacem. These pieces both draw inspiration from Walt Whitman's poetry and this release celebrates his bicentennial (born 1819). Children of Adam is a collection of exuberant celebrations of creation, from American poets to sacred and Native American texts. The title comes from a Whitman poem that appears throughout the work in the form of brief "fanfare intermezzos." Between these choral fanfares, each movement of the work offers a different perspective on creation. Recently named the most-performed composer of his generation and the 2018 Composer of the Year by Musical America, Mason Bates serves as the first composer-in-residence of the Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts. Championed by renowned conductors such as Riccardo Muti, Michael Tilson Thomas, and Leonard Slatkin, his symphonic work has received widespread acceptance for it's unique integration of electronic sounds, and his opera The (R)evolution of Steve Jobs, won a GRAMMY� Award for "Best Opera Recording.

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The Complete Bud Freeman contains five Freeman originals and Bud's treatments of seven great standards. These selections give us the essential Bud Freeman: inventive music with strong emotional appeal; improvisation that is individual, tasteful, and memorable. The technique is faultless, but the true value is the original music Bud makes. And right there is the point: Bud is an original - a land mark in the story of jazz. Notably, this session, produced by Bill Borden, Steve Marvin for Monmouth-Evergreen Records in December of 1969, recorded at the famous A&R Recording studios in NYC by Phil Ramone & Dave Sanders and mixed by David Greene, finds Freeman in the prime of his over 40-year recording career.

W. brother Von Freeman, produced by Michael Cuscuna, Dec. '93 release date.

Wielding his courtly tenor, Von Freeman can define Chicago-tough or smooth romantic feathers in the manner of his early idol Lester Young - Petersen knows full well to expect the unexpected whenever he locks horns with Vonski.

George Freeman has been part of jazz for nearly a century. Brother of Von and uncle of Chico Freeman, he's worked with the greats, such as Charlie Parker and Ben Webster. Appearing on the recording is legendary organist Joey DeFrancesco, going into the studio just a couple of months before his untimely death. DeFrancesco admired Freeman's work on a Jimmy McGriff LP so it is quite touching that the two were able to collaborate here. Also featured on 4 tracks is bass phenom Christian McBride stoking up some swinging performances with Freeman. Drummers Lewis Nash and Carl Allen provide propulsive rhythms throughout. It must be said, however, that the pulsing heart of the band is Freeman himself, who plays with integrity and enthusiasm and who continues to bring an impressive lifetime of experience to his work.

SOWERBY: Symphony No. 2 / Concert Overture / All on a Summer

"František Vincenc Kramá?, as he is correctly named, is better known as Franz Vinzenz Krommer. Born in Bohemia in 1759, he was educated, in part, by an uncle, but taught himself theory. He left Bohemia in 1785 and worked extensively in Hungary for the better part of 10 years. From 1795 until his death in 1831 he worked in Vienna. His reputation was very high, and his works were quite widely known throughout Europe. His quartets were considered on a par with Haydn's, and overall he was often compared to Beethoven. From our point of view those statements may be excessive, but he certainly was a polished musician deserving considerable renown. His wind concertos are especially fine, and are gradually becoming well regarded in our own time.

His two oboe concertos were written in Vienna in 1803 and 1805. Both are dramatic works with virtuoso turns and leaps abounding. The first is more Mozartean in nature while the second has distinct overtones of early Beethoven. Both are first-class pieces that deserve to be known.

Johann Nepomuk Hummel is more of a known quantity. He was highly regarded in Vienna as a contemporary of Beethoven, though of somewhat lesser stature. His Introduction, Theme, and Variations is a polished, virtuoso piece of considerable brilliance.

Alex Klein was born in Brazil, trained at Oberlin College, and for the last five years has been principal oboist of the Chicago Symphony. His technique is flawless. He is well supported by Paul Freeman and the Czech National Symphony. Cedille's recorded sound is first-class, as expected from this source."-- John Bauman, Fanfare [11/1999]

Ganz: Piano Concerto in E-Flat Major / La Montaine: Piano Co

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