The Royal Scottish National Orchestra teams up with its Assistant Conductor Kellen Gray to record works by three of the twentieth century’s greatest African American voices. Released to coincide with Black History Month, the two symphonies by William Levi Dawson and William Grant Still proved to be fundamental in the utilization of Afro-American idioms within the symphonic form. Each composer focused on one of the two original staples of African American music: folk and jazz.

William Levi Dawson’s Negro Folk Symphony takes its inspiration from West African folk idioms, American Negro spirituals and early African American folk rhythms and songs from Gullah culture. William Grant Still’s Symphony No. 1 draws its influence from elements popular in jazz and pre-jazz popular genres. Although the latter is the more well-known figure in American music, Dawson was every bit as significant in the timeline of African American music, and his only published symphony is astonishingly mature for a composer’s earliest efforts at symphonic writing. This program also celebrates the centenary of George Walker’s birth with the inclusion of his Lyric for Strings.

Frank La Rocca extends the genre of the festal Missa solemnis in his Mass of the Americas, a sublime setting of the Traditional Latin Mass for choir and orchestra. La Rocca weaves a rich tapestry with serene Gregorian chants, folk melodies from 18th-century regions of México, and florid praises in Nahuatl, the language spoken by Our Lady of Guadalupe to St. Juan Diego in 1531. Cultures past and present are joined musically as a witness to faith, hope, and reconciliation in this masterpiece of liturgical art.

George Frederick Bristow and William Henry Fry constituted the first generation of major, native-born composers of instrumental music in the United States. Both were fierce proponents for American music as composers, writers, and performers. Of particular note: Bristow's Symphony No. 4 the "Arcadian" is recorded here in its entirety for the first time. The 1967 recording made by Karl Krueger with the Royal Philharmonic Orchestra made large cuts in the first and last movements, reducing the length of the piece by at least ten minutes.

REVIEW:

Muscular recordings of rare symphonic products of 19th century American orchestral romanticism. These are no dutifully played museum exhibits. The whole orchestra plays with golden age verve and astonishing elation.

— MusicWeb International

All World Premiere Recordings!

Featured in the New York Times' "5 Classical Albums You Can Listen to Right Now"

William Grant Still, the “Dean of Afro-American Composers,” was part of the Harlem Renaissance and wrote nearly 200 works including nine operas and five symphonies. Still’s many awards included three Guggenheim Fellowships and eight honorary doctorates. His work combines Classical forms with jazz and blues idioms and was inspired by the rich tradition of African American spirituals. Still hoped that his music would serve a larger purpose of interracial understanding, and this joyous, moving and hauntingly beautiful program –featuring all world premiere recordings – is infused with Still’s love of God, country, heritage, and even his mischievous dog Shep.

REVIEW:

William Grant Still's music evokes the melting pot that makes up the American experience, incorporating sounds and textures from many genres, including blues, African-American spirituals, French impressionism, and more.

The three movements of the Violin Suite of 1943 fall in the traditional fast-slow-fast format, but the styles of each vary dramatically, with the second movement, "Mother and Child," a beautiful, passionate lullaby bordered by two dance movements. The final work, Threnody: In Memory of Jean Sibelius, was commissioned for a celebration concert marking the composer's 100th birthday. This work displays Still's adaptability, infusing aspects of the Romantic symphonic sound with mid-20th century modern American.

--Allmusic.com (Keith Finke)

All the items on this program are world premiere recordings, so I think it would not be amiss if some information were to be forwarded for the benefit of all those interested in this very special music.

Can’t You Line ‘Em (1940) captures the rhythm and spirit of the construction gangs, particularly those lining up railroad tracks. A CBS commission, this piece was premiered on 17 February 1940 with the CBS Radio Orchestra on their network program American School of the Air.

Originally composed as the second movement of three Visions for solo piano, Summerland (1936) is Still’s delicate description of the serenity and purity of Heaven.

Another work originally written for solo piano, Quit Dat Foolnish (1935) conjures up a jazzy romp with the composer’s mischievous dog, Shep. Still also wrote a version for solo saxophone and orchestra, transposed for this recording by Dana Paul Perna.

Pastorela (1946) is a tone picture of a Californian landscape, peaceful but exciting, arousing feelings of languor in some of its aspects, and of animation in others, presenting an overall effect of unity in its variety.

American Suite (circa 1918) is the composer’s first symphonic work. Still sent the parts of the American Suite to Chicago Symphony conductor Frederick Stock. In 1998, Still’s daughter Judith Anne shared the orchestral parts with Dana Paul Perna, who created the present score.

Fanfare for the 99th Fighter Squadron (1945), which resonates with pride, courage, and patriotic resolve, was composed in honor of the Tuskegee airmen who during WWII gave everything for the cause of peace and justice. This work was premiered by Leopold Stokowski and the Los Angeles Philharmonic on 22 July 1945 in commemoration of the end of war and the valiant service of those Airmen.

Serenade (1957) was originally intended as material for a cello concerto proposed by Still’s friend, the famous cellist Gregor Piatigorsky. Instead, it became a commission by the Great Falls, Montana High School Orchestra, with its lush cello writing hinting at its conception.

The Violin Suite (1943) is a musical impression of three works of art. African Dancer is a stunning bronze statue by Richmond Barthe (1901-1989). Mother and Child is a poignant colored lithograph by Sargent Johnson (1888-1967). Gamin is a sassy bronze bust by Auguste Savage (1892-1962). These works were featured in The Negro in Art, a book published in 1940 by Still’s friend and champion Alain Locke (1885-1954). The book so impressed Edith Halpert (1900-1970), a Russian-Jewish refugee, visionary and art promoter, that she contacted Locke to promote an exhibition in her Downtown Gallery in New York. The exhibition opened on 8 December 1941, the day after the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor, but despite the deep sadness that engulfed American society, this first major commercial showing of African American art in New York was a great success. Still rose to the occasion and translated the artists’ imagination into music full of verve, tenderness and very often charm.

The beautiful Threnody: In Memory of Jean Sibelius (1965) was commissioned for a concert in memory of Finland’s national hero, composer Jean Sibelius (1865-1957), on the one hundredth anniversary of his birth. Still’s tribute is a noble and haunting farewell, channeling the spirit and mystique of Sibelius the man and the composer.

This is a marvelously exciting hour of music by a composer of substance whose recorded catalog is still only average. Hopefully, Naxos’s advocacy for Still’s oeuvre will induce more labels and listeners to turn to this uplifting repertoire which is as moving as it is entertaining. Do not remain still to Still’s sound world. You will be missing an experience and you might come to regret that. A peach of an issue, superbly performed, recorded and annotated.

--Classical Music Daily (Gerald Fenech)

SOMM RECORDINGS adds to it's acclaimed treasure trove of historic recordings with Volume III of Elgar from America, again masterminded by the extraordinary restoration talents of Lani Spahr. It's centrepiece is a live 1959 Carnegie Hall recording of Elgar's masterpiece, The Dream of Gerontius, with the Philharmonic-Symphony Orchestra conducted by one of the composer's most eloquent and ardent champions, Sir John Barbirolli. Elgar hailed Barbirolli as "a rising hope of music in England for whom I have admiration and in whose work I have confidence". His trust in the conductor led to a long, mutually admiring relationship between two men who did so much to define English music. The soloists include Richard Lewis (Gerontius), Maureen Forrester (The Angel) and Morley Meredith (The Priest and the Angel of the Agony). Also recorded live in 1959 is the Introduction and Allegro for Strings, with Barbirolli and the NYP-SO joined by violinists John Corigliano and Leopold Rybb, William Lincer on viola, and cellist Laszlo Varga. Making their first appearance on album are two choruses from Scenes from the Saga of King Olaf with J Spencer Cornwall directing the Mormon Tabernacle Choir in 1953 and 1956.

Arthur Farwell has been called 'the most neglected composer in [American musical] history.' Hounded by accusations of 'cultural appropriation,' he has posthumously fallen prey to changing notions of cultural authenticity. As the leader of the 'Indianists' movement, Farwell believed it was a democratic obligation of Americans of European descent to try to understand the indigenous Americans they displaced and oppressed. To this end, he merged Indian music and lore with Western concert forms - today, a controversial practice. The performances here recorded originated at a landmark PostClassical Ensemble festival at Washington's National Cathedral. The Dakota String Quartet, resident quartet of the South Dakota Symphony Orchestra (SDSO), comprises principal string players of the orchestra. First violin Doosook Kim has been concertmaster with the SDSO since 1995 and performs as a soloist and chamber musician in the US and internationally.

Shortlisted for the 2022 Gramophone Awards!

All four American composers on this new album by the Basque National Orchestra and conductor Robert Trevino wrote music that was known, played and esteemed during their lifetimes, but none of them ever had a huge “hit” and so the pieces here are likely familiar only to musical scholars. Yet while it is uncommon enough to find Charles Martin Loeffler, Henry Cowell, Carl Ruggles and Howard Hanson sharing the same album, the conductor Robert Trevino has taken his exploration still further, into the recesses of their repertory – complete with a Hanson piece, Before the Dawn, that has had to wait a century for this, its premiere recording. Robert Trevino’s debut album with the Basque National Orchestra on Ondine featured orchestral works by Maurice Ravel and has received excellent reviews in music media around the world, including the Limelight magazine's 'Recording of the Month'.

REVIEWS:

Americascapes...is an exciting success all the way. Great American music, or great music by American composers? Instead of answering that question, I’d prefer to say that this is great music, full stop. This CD is a must for anyone who wants a thrill without having to resort to yet another recording of music by Ravel or Pictures at an Exhibition. This is Want List material, to be sure.

--Fanfare

The performances here are all splendid. As you may have surmised from their excellent previous Ravel CD, Robert Trevino and the Basque National Orchestra seem to have a great thing going: an enterprising conductor leading a talented and enthusiastic ensemble with both swagger and sensitivity to burn. Ondine’s fine sonics let you hear everything that you should, in a warm, well-balanced acoustic frame. You’ll love this.

--ClassicsToday.com

I have thoroughly enjoyed encountering the works on this CD. They are very well played and excellently recorded, with a most detailed booklet produced to a high standard.

--MusicWeb International

A fascinating and gloriously played programme of little-known American orchestral works, assembled and conducted with real care and passion by Robert Trevino. If there’s a masterpiece among the four works on this disc, I’d argue it’s [Cowell's Variations for Orchestra]. William Strickland’s 1963 CRI recording has held up remarkably well but Trevino’s is equally authoritative, played with greater polish, and the recorded sound is first-rate. Urgently recommended.

--Gramophone

This album of guitar concertos from the Americas features pieces composed for David Tanenbaum. Building on a tradition of prominent guitarists generating repertoire through new commissions, these works present the guitar in a variety of settings. Kernis's concerto dips with ease into the world of pop music, whereas his Lullaby and Soliloquyare reflective, lyrical and romantic. Sierra's concerto asserts a rhythmic and percussive character, while Piazzolla's dark and sentimental double concerto is one of his least-known works.

Hailed by The Times for its ‘exhilarating performances’, the Kaleidoscope Chamber Collective was dreamed up in 2017 by Tom Poster and Elena Urioste, who met through the BBC Radio 3 New Generation Artists scheme. The Collective operates with a flexible roster which features many of today’s most inspirational musicians, both instrumentalists and singers, and its creative programming is marked by an ardent commitment to celebrating diversity of all forms and a desire to unearth lesser-known gems of the repertoire.

This ethos is clear in their repertoire selection for this their début recording. The Piano Quintet is one of Amy Beach’s better-known works, which the KCC collectively fell in love with during a residency at the Cheltenham festival. Composed in 1907, the work reflects the strong influence of the music of Brahms. Florence Price faced ‘two handicaps – those of sex and race’, and much of her music remained unpublished at the time of her death. Additionally, a significant quantity of her manuscripts had disappeared without trace. It was not until 2009 that a cache of them (including two lost symphonies) was discovered by property developers in the attic of an abandoned house in Illinois – including the score for the Piano Quintet in A minor that receives its world première recording here. Although characteristically conservative in its late-romantic idiom, the piece celebrates Price’s African American heritage with echoes of spirituals and hymns, and the popular juba stomping dance rooted in the slave plantations of the Deep South. Between these two piano quintets sits Samuel Barber’s early Dover Beach, a setting of Matthew Arnold’s famous poem that has remained one of the best-known works in the voice-and-quartet repertoire.

REVIEW:

I’d be delighted to listen to more Beach and Price performed with this courage, erudition, and aplomb, and keenly anticipate the Collective’s next offering.

– Gramophone (Editor's Choice, July 2021)

The Lansdowne Symphony Orchestra and conductor Reuben Blundell release "American Discoveries", a continuation of their series of promoting previously unrecorded orchestral repertoire unearthed at the Fleischer Collection in Philadelphia. This collection features music by three composers whose work deserves to be more widely known: Priscilla Alden Beach, Linda Robbins Coleman, and Alexandra Pierce. The Lansdowne Symphony Orchestra was founded in 1946 to provide music for the First Presbyterian Church of Lansdowne. Belgian-born conductor and publisher Henri Elkan led the orchestra from 1955 until his passing in 1980. One of the most distinguished community orchestras in the world, the LSO performs a regular season of five concerts at the Upper Darby Performing Arts Center, and other various projects. Led by its sixth Music Director, Reuben Blundell, the orchestra continues its traditions of musical excellence, service to the community, and promotion of area talent.

American Percussion Works is a rare collection of seldom heard works each with specific rules or themes as a basis for the compositions. In John Cage’s First Construction the principle is based on the figure 16. Alberto Ginastera’s work Cantata para America Magica, uses pre-Columbian texts based on the conditions of human life, with war, natural phenomena, daybreak, night and love. Lou Harrison mixes non-European forms which ‘follow the pattern of having a single melodic part accompanied (or enhanced) by rhythmic percussion’ in his Koncherto. Varese’s Ionisation also enters a new land being his first solely percussive work where ‘he finds a new grammar for the language of music.’

“American Music for Violin and Horn” presents 19 tracks of world-premiere recordings with music by 12 American composers. A varied program which includes original and transcribed works for violin and horn by David Amram, Vernon Duke, José Serebrier, Duke Ellington, Sean Hickey, Rebecca Clarke, Phillip Ramey, Francine Trester and several others, this album also features poetry by Emily Dickinson and Francine Trester, recited by the performers Elmira Darvarova (violin) and Howard Wall (horn). Several of the original works for violin and horn were written for these two performers (new compositions by David Amram, José Serebrier, Sean Hickey, Phillip Ramey, Francine Trester), while other works were transcribed by the performers as duets for their two instruments (“Black Beauty” by Duke Ellington, “Two Pieces” by Rebecca Clarke, “Etude” by Vernon Duke, “Calliope” & “Gramophone” by Jan Bach, two Bop-Duets by Bugs Bower, and other arrangements). Of note is Scott Dunn’s arrangement of Vernon Duke’s iconic standard “April in Paris”, in a version for violin and horn. All 19 tracks on this album are offered in their world-premiere recordings. Violinist Elmira Darvarova (first and only woman-concertmaster of the Metropolitan Opera Orchestra) and hornist Howard Wall (a New York Philharmonic member, formerly with The Philadelphia Orchestra) offer splendid interpretations.

The “King of Instruments,” the pipe organ, has a long and storied history. Its long association with the church has been a source of strength but also, in recent times, led to its seeming neglect by contemporary concert composers. Organon Novus is a monumental effort to bring together this hidden slice of American music. Clocking in at over three hours of music, and running the gamut from Adler to Zorn, it includes 25 works from the past 25 years by 25 celebrated composers – composers not often associated with their organ oeuvre. With 8,565 pipes in 132 ranks available to them, the 1928 E.M. Skinner symphonic organ in Rockefeller Chapel at the University of Chicago is no modest resource for a composer’s imagination (not to mention a player’s active limbs). Randall Harlow, in this marathon tour de force, reaches them all. Compositional approaches range from the sonic tapestries of Thomas and Zorn, to the linear complexity of Adler and Mamlok; from the full-bodied symphonic approaches of Ran and Tower, to the eclectic and unique voices of Lang, Johnson, Lucier and Wolff. The album concludes with the premiere of Aaron Travers’ monumental Barlow Prize work, Exodus. Exploring the extremes of what is possible on the organ, the work offers a way forward for the instrument in contemporary art music, an exit from the common modern associations of the organ with churches and staid liturgical Gebrauchsmusik. Organon, “the device”: the original Greek word for the pipe organ from the third century BCE. Novus, “the new.” From its beginnings as a noise maker to its apotheosis as a contrapuntal keyboard-controlled orchestra, all coupled with the acoustic and architecture of its location, the organ can be many things. This musical snapshot is both a chronicle and a revelation.

SOMM RECORDINGS is delighted to announce Elgar from America, Volume II: the first commercial release of three historic performances from 1940s’ New York featuring legendary Elgarian interpreters including violinist Yehudi Menuhin and conductors Malcolm Sargent and Arturo Toscanini at the helm of the NBC Symphony Orchestra. The results offer a fascinating transatlantic perspective on a titan of British music while revealing his musical legacy in a country he visited annually from 1905-07 and again in 1911. The featured recordings date from the first half of the 1940s and have been restored and remastered by the multi-award-winning audio restoration engineer Lani Spahr, who also provides informative booklet notes. Menuhin, long associated with Elgar since his 1932 recording of the Violin Concerto, is heard here in a 1945 performance of the work, abbreviated to fit radio constraints of time. It is conducted by Sargent who also leads an account of Cockaigne (In London Town) Concert-Overture from the same year. Toscanini’s 1940 performance of the Introduction and Allegro for Strings marks the only time he conducted it with the NBC SO, joined here by Mischa Mischakoff and Edwin Bachmann violins, Carlton Cooley viola, Frank Miller cello. Elgar from America, Volume I (ARIADNE 5005) was hailed by Classical Music Daily as “a fine start to this historic cycle” while MusicWeb International called it “a model of one of the things the album should be doing: filling the medium to capacity with engaging and/or controversial interpretations that one cannot simply over-hear... Essential listening.”

The three sonatas on this recording were written at the behest of violinist Cho-Liang Lin, who worked closely with each composer at their premiere performance. Paul Schoenfeld's Violin Sonata references literary influences and the composer's past as well as his Jewish heritage in the work's final Freilach or 'joyous dance.' Steven Stucky acknowledged Debussy as the source of inspiration in his work, while the alchemy of John Harbison's style creates music that is simultaneously abstract and narrative. Wryly introduced as "crazy modern music," Bernstein's brief Canon for Aaron was composed for Copland's 70th birthday celebrations.