UNITED STATES ARMY BAND: From Sea to Shining Sea

This album received the 2008 Grammy Award for "Best Chamber Music Performance."

UNITED STATES AIR FORCE BAND OF MID-AMERICA: One Of Our own

United States Marine Band: Great Marches Not by John Philip

UNITED STATES NAVY BAND: Light Cavalry Overture and other Wa

William Bolcom' compositions, widely performed and recorded, include seven symphonies, various concertos, six operas and an extensive catalogue of chamber music.

Pare Lorentz's The Plow that Broke the Plains (1936) and The River (1937) are landmark American documentary films. Aesthetically, they break new ground in seamlessly marrying pictorial imagery, symphonic music, and poetic free verse, all realized with supreme artistry. Ideologically, they indelibly encapsulate the strivings of Franklin Delano Roosevelt's New Deal.

The first film created by the United States Government for commercial release and distribution, The Plow was also – in the words of the film-music historian Neil Lerner – "the most widely publicized attempt by the federal government to communicate to its entire citizenry through a motion picture." It became the first film to be placed in Congressional archives and, following the wishes of FDR, would have become the first film screened at a joint session of Congress had the capitol chambers been equipped to show a sound film.

Virgil Thomson's scores for both films – here recorded in their entirety for the first time since Alexander Smallens conducted the soundtracks – are among the most famous ever composed for the movies. Aaron Copland praised the music for The Plow for its "frankness and openness of feeling," calling it "fresher, more simple, and more personal" than the Hollywood norm. He called the music for The River "a lesson in how to treat Americana."

The Plow that Broke the Plains was denounced (accurately) as New Deal propaganda. Sensing competition, Hollywood barred The Plow from its distribution system. Billed "The Picture They Dared Us to Show!" it opened at New York's Rialto Theatre and was cheered nightly. Public demand prevailed: eventually, over 3,000 theaters (out of 14,000 commercial cinemas nationally) screened The Plow to enthusiastic reviews. The Baltimore Sun found "more serious drama in this truthful record of the soil than in all the 'Covered Wagons' and 'Big Trails' produced by the commercial cinema."

Voted the best documentary at the 1938 Venice Film Festival (beating Leni Riefenstahl's Olympiad), The River was an overwhelming critical and commercial success. Paramount Pictures accepted it for national distribution. Lorentz's script, a Whitmanesque poem called by James Joyce "the most beautiful prose that I have heard in ten years," was nominated for a Pulitzer Prize.

The rationale for the present CD is obvious: the original thirties' soundtracks, gritty and opaque, do not do justice to Thomson's scores; more recently, this music has only been performed and recorded in the form of suites culled by Thomson, with many pages omitted.

Overtures and Finales

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 Tr 3 • 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

Better late than never, these Rorem premieres are irresistible

How remarkable that two such delectable concertos should be receiving their world premieres on disc. Unapologetically romantic and accessible, those qualities may well have mitigated against acceptance among the industry’s fashion-mongers. The Second Piano Concerto (1951) was written for Julius Katchen (also the dedicatee of Rorem’s attractive Second Piano Sonata) and was given its first performance by that superb pianist in 1954. Since then it has lain dormant until its present revival by Simon Mulligan whose brilliance, ideally matched by José Serebrier, is worthy of Katchen himself. Here, the ghosts of Ravel, Françaix, Gershwin, Stravinsky and, most of all, Poulenc, jostle for attention. Yet Rorem’s idiom is as personal as it is chic. The final pages of the central “Quiet and Sad” movement, where the piano weaves intricate tracery round the orchestral theme, may owe much to the Adagio assai from Ravel’s G major Concerto but it maintains its own character. The finale, “Real Fast”, is an irresistible tour de force played up to the hilt by Mulligan.

In the Cello Concerto Rorem happily eschews a conventional form, giving programmatic subtitles to each section. These range from “Curtain Raise” to “Adrift”, offering Wen-Sinn Yang a rich opportunity, whether playing primus inter pares or revelling in Rorem’s alternating nostalgia and effervescence. Finely recorded, it’s a clear winner for the Naxos American Classics series.

-- Bryce Morrison, Gramophone [12/2007]

Naxos' ongoing series of Ned Rorem orchestral music recordings offers well-deserved recognition to a major American composer. This latest release is no less rewarding than the prior issues. The Second Piano Concerto dates from 1951 and shows the young composer writing with tremendous gusto. A large work (34 minutes) in the traditional three movements, its scoring is both vivid and at times a touch dense and "over the top", while the work's melodic generosity and rhythmic drive are undeniably infectious; its neglect must be counted a major mystery. Conductor José Serebrier's notes make much of the music's "American" qualities, particularly in the finale, but I was much more forcibly struck by Rorem's much-advertised love of French music. Whatever the answer to the "influence" question, this concerto is without doubt a major statement, and it's very impressively performed by Simon Mulligan, Serebrier, and the orchestra, who let the music speak with all of its delicious formal (in the first-movement cadenza) and textural excess.

Rorem's Cello Concerto dates from 2002, and like many of his late orchestra works it abandons traditional form in favor of a series of brief movements given cute names that may or may not have anything significant to do with their musical content. Frankly, I find this habit unnecessarily coy and distracting, but others may simply be intrigued; and if the listener's curiosity, once aroused, leads to giving the music more concentrated attention, then it's all to the good.

The sequence of eight movements is laid out for maximum contrast, and I particularly enjoyed the seventh, a characterful waltz. Indeed, Rorem is such a fine melodist when he wants to be that you have to wonder why he feels the need to venture into more aggressively "modern" territory now and then. Perhaps he's working a little bit too hard at being a "serious" composer. Never mind: this is a fine work, also strongly played by cellist Wen-Sinn Yang. Naxos' engineers have judged the balances very accurately between both soloists and the orchestra, while the occasional opacity at the climaxes of the piano concerto seems more a function of the heavy scoring than a suggestion of technical inadequacy. A fine disc.

--David Hurwitz, ClassicsToday.com

US Military Bands (Military Workout With Military Music)

United States Air Force Academy Band: The Big Blue Ball

Quincy Porter was one of a diverse generation of American composers who played a significant role in shaping and directing American musical culture in the mid-twentieth century. Although his orchestral works attracted considerable attention in. Quincy Porter: String Quartets Nos. 1-4 CD music contains a single disc.

Charles Wuorinen writes virtuosic music for virtuoso performers. He has a profound desire to engage with the listener and with sympathetic performers, and essential to this engagement is a spirit of adventure and fun.

Listen to a Sound Sample (Grand Tarantelle)

Listen to a Sound Sample (Night in the Tropics)

" A perfect delight of a disc, of music from that grand pioneer Louis Gottschalk, who charmed the crowds here and abroad up through Civil War days with flamboyant, virtuosic display pieces. From last year’s Hot Springs (Arkansas) Festival comes a whole disc of Gottschalk’s orchestral works, and it’s a hoot. It includes the hilariously lovable Célèbre Tarantelle and Night in the Tropics, guaranteed to lift you off your seat on first hearing, and Gottschalk’s own arrangement for five pianos, nine horns and 112-piece orchestra of The Young King Henry’s Hunt (don’t ask). There’s even an opera, 13 minutes long, something Cuban... " -- Alan Rich, LA Weekly

A child prodigy pianist who was touring Europe as a virtuoso concert soloist while still a teenager, Louis Moreau Gottschalk provides one of the most colorful chapters in the history of American music. Dubbed ‘the Chopin of the Creoles’, he was, above all, the first to capture the syncopated music of South Louisiana and the Caribbean in enduring works that anticipate ragtime and jazz by half a century. His orchestral works show a composer of considerable skill who could create memorable and catchy tunes. Included in this disc of the complete surviving orchestral music are several works recorded for the first time in the composer’s original version, as well as the world première recording of La Casa del Joven Enrique.

Symphony No. 2, 'À Montevideo' RO257
Restoring the Symphony No. 2 for modern performance posed many of the same challenges as the Symphony No. 1 ( A Night in the Tropics ) and Escenas Campestres Cubanas in that Gottschalk rarely notated complete percussion parts. For this performance and recording, the timpani part was reconstructed according to the stylistic pattern Gottschalk used to excellent effect in other works of the same period, such as the Variations de concert sur l'hymne portugais.
Listen to a Sound Sample

Célèbre Tarentelle pour piano et orchestre, RO259
During his lifetime, the Célèbre Tarentelle was Gottschalk's "warhorse", the work he presented whenever he needed to dazzle concert-goers. The composer was notorious for his practice of publicly performing his own works but leaving it to his disciples to notate them for publication. Of the more than 25 versions of Célèbre Tarentelle that appeared following Gottschalk's death, the best known was notated by his friend Nicolas Ruiz Espadero (1832-90), who published his edition in 1874. Very recently, however, Gottschalk's own original manuscript has surfaced. Thus, both his solo piano part and his orchestration appear for the first time on this disc.
Listen to a Sound Sample

Escenas Campestres Cubanas, opéra en 1 acte, RO77
As with many of the works that Gottschalk created for his Havana concerts, Escenas Campestres Cubanas (Cuban Country Scenes) brilliantly combines high art, populist sensibilities and mass appeal. For example, the manuscript indicates that Gottschalk intended the use of timpani, but there is evidence that a Caribbean güiro and the three-string tiple added local spice at the first performance. For this performance by the Hot Springs Music Festival, the nearly illegible libretto was painstakingly deciphered by renowned musicologist Marcello Piras, so that the original Ramírez text could be paired with Gottschalk's music for the first time since its première. The score's final five bars, which appear only skeletally in the manuscript, were also orchestrated to match the full instrumentation.
Listen to a Sound Sample

Variations de concert sur l'hymne portugais du Roi Louis I, RO289
The march tune on which Gottschalk based his Variations de concert was written by the grandfather of the Portuguese King Luís I (1838-1889), the Brazilian Emperor, Pedro I. Were it not for the political capital it afforded him in both Brazil and Portugal, it is unlikely that Gottschalk would have given the tune any attention whatsoever. Gottschalk enlivened the Italianate march with frequent chord substitutions and contrasts of mood. The music truly comes to life during the first slow variation, bringing to mind similar works by early Bohemian national composers.
Evident in the manuscript of the Variations de concert is its hasty composition. Although the orchestration is fully fledged, Gottschalk simply neglected to jot down the solo piano part after the first variation, with the exception of one dramatic scale leading to the finale. The present performance edition represents the interweaving of Arthur Napoleon's (born Arthur Napoleão dos Santos, 1843-1925) solo piano arrangement of the work (c. 1873) into Gottschalk's orchestra. Since Napoleon made some chordal modifications in order to claim the piano reduction as his own and reap the financial benefits, this restoration to the original required extensive editing with the collaboration of pianist Michael Gurt.
Listen to a Sound Sample

Ave Maria, RO10
(c.1864, arranged by Richard Rosenberg for two clarinets, two bassoons, four horns, harp and strings)

Ave Maria, gratia plena.
Dominus tecum.
Benedicta tu in mulieribus,
Et benedictus fructus ventris.
Ave Maria, gratia plena.


Hail Mary, full of grace.
Hail Lord, the Lord is with thee.
Blessed art thou among women,
And blessed is the fruit of thy womb.
Hail Mary, full of grace.
Listen to a Sound Sample


La Caza del Joven Enrique por Méhul, Gran overture
( La Chasse du jeune Henri or Young Henry's Hunt, overture) arranged by Louis Moreau Gottschalk after the overture by Étienne-Nicolas Méhul (reconstructed by Richard Rosenberg)
A prejudice against Americans kept the thirteen-year-old Gottschalk from being admitted to the Paris Conservatoire (" America is only a land of steam engines", he was told by the school's director), but he stayed in Paris to study privately with Charles Hallé, Frederic Chopin and Hector Berlioz. Thus inspired, he wrote in 1849 a highly original and elaborate fantasy on Méhul's La Chasse du jeune Henri overture.

Early in 1861, seeking material to include in a "monster concert" he was staging in Havana, he recast the La Chasse du jeune Henri fantasy as a gigantic concerto for multiple pianos and huge orchestra. Owing to confusion over rehearsal arrangements for so large an ensemble, the performance was never completed. In 2003, the manuscript of this concerto was rediscovered in the New Jersey basement of the composer's great-great-grandnephew. Thus, it was discovered that there were only five separate piano parts (three pianos, ten hands), which Gottschalk had divided among the forty pianists. For the sake of clarity, the work's première performance in Hot Springs on 8 June 2006 and this subsequent recording used one pianist a part and an orchestra of "only" 112.
Listen to a Sound Sample

Symphonie romantique, 'La nuit des tropiques', RO255
(Symphony No. 1, 'A Night in the Tropics'), edited and completed by Richard Rosenberg
Gottschalk's A Night in the Tropics (1859) had only been performed since his death in condensed and 'corrected' versions. My reconstruction of this work is based on the composer's autograph manuscript, with instrumental forces not quite as large as those employed at Gottschalk's own performances (which featured over 650 musicians) but quite large nonetheless. It retains Gottschalk's unusual voice leading and notation. I believe that the meticulous care Gottschalk took in consistently adding rests and dotted rhythms is a key to the 'tropical' passion he sought to evoke. The arrangement of this symphony for two pianos by Gottschalk's friend and colleague, Nicolas Ruiz Espadero, provided the basis of my orchestration of the lost forty-two bars at the end of the orchestral score. I incorporated the sound of 'harmonieflautas' at the end of the first movement (based on Gottschalk's own account of where and how it was employed), using an antique South American concertina. In the final movement of A Night in the Tropics, Gottschalk indicated only the first measure of the Afro-Cuban percussion, using the notation 'Bamboula'. He fully expected the ensemble to improvise the remainder of that samba movement in a manner that places it as a sort of 'missing link' between nineteenth-century concert music and a musical language that would soon evolve into that of Jazz.
Listen to a Sound Sample

Richard Rosenberg, 2006

This album was awarded the 2008 Grammy Awards for "Best Classical Album" and "Best Orchestral Performance."
All tracks have been digitally mastered using 24-bit technology.

After finishing the work in 1980, Schiff rescued some of the music in a purely instrumental score Divertimento from Gimpel the Fool (1982), one of the great post-war chamber pieces, which is how I first heard it (available, incidentally, on Delos 3058; however, Delos has had such trouble in recent years, you'd better grab it while you can). Nevertheless, the opera is just as wonderful. There's not a dull scene in it. The singers are ideal for the piece. The ensemble is sharp (a fiendishly close canon on the words "Mazel tov" to a klezmer riff made my jaw drop). Above all, the performance involves a listener in the drama. The CD case proclaims this as part of the "American Opera Classics" series. From the Naxos marketing department, to God's ear.

The young American composer Carson P. Cooman is one of the most active of his generation, having written over six hundred works in many forms. This disc presents a broad overview of his music, from orchestral to chamber and solo works.

Paul Moravec' music is firmly rooted in Western tradition, yet manages to sound at once fresh, elegant, and fiercely individual. His Tempest Fantasy, the work that wonhim the Pulitzer Prize in 2004, is a meditation on Shakespeare' the Tempest.

In his early career as a composer, Berlin-born Stefan Wolpe espoused social causes and wrote songs on revolutionary themes.

HUANG Chamber Concertos: No. 1, “Yueh Fei”; No. 2, “The Lost Garden”; No. 3, “Divergence”; No. 4, “Confluence” • Huang Ruo, cond; Int’l Contemporary Ens • NAXOS 8.559322 (63: 48)


Born on Hainan Island, China, in 1976, Huang Ruo moved to the US in 1995 and is now an American citizen. He has won several prizes, and his music has been conducted by Sawallisch, James Condon, and Dennis Russell Davies, among others. Huang is currently completing a D.M.A. degree in composition at Juilliard. In the week this review was written, his cello concerto People Mountain People Sea (commissioned by Chinese-born cellist Jian Wang) was premiered in New York to some acclaim. Huang’s chamber concertos were composed between 2000 and 2002, for varying sizes of ensemble: a quintet in the case of No. 3 (flute/piccolo, clarinet, violin, cello, and piano), an octet for Nos. 1 and 2 (adding a second violin, viola, and percussion), and 15 players for No. 4 (adding more strings, a brass section, and harp).


An anonymous reviewer from VPRO Radio Guide describes Huang’s style as “a convincing synthesis between the hushed Chinese sound world and modernist composition techniques.” That synthesis is the basis and raison d’etre of these colorful works. Certain instrumental signposts common to both idioms occur frequently, such as timpani “tattoos,” string glissandos, and drones. Forceful statements from timpani and other percussion often serve to separate musical segments, as in Chinese opera, and we hear imitations of Chinese stringed instruments (No. 1, first movement) and Chinese flute (much of No. 2). Western influences are equally present: the use of ostinato (No. 3, first movement) and the syncopated, aggressive rhythmic bite of jazz/rock (No. 1, fourth movement). Online reviewer David Toub of Sequenza21 found this to be problematical, dubbing Huang a synthesist but not a composer—unlike Ives who, in cramming various influences together, created a uniquely individual voice. I don’t have that problem with Huang’s music—cutting-and-pasting is a perfectly legitimate procedure—but, because these pieces are so segmented, it inevitably means some parts are likely to be stronger than others without an obvious through-line to connect them.


Then, there is the contentious matter of asking the musicians to sing, chant, or recite. While this sometimes contributes to the texture in a satisfying way (as in the final movement of No. 1), in Nos. 2 and 3 the effect puts a brake on the music’s progress, robbing it of force. And, it must be said, the expert instrumentalists of the International Contemporary Ensemble are less expert when it comes to vocalizing.


Concerto No. 2 is probably where the pros and cons of Huang’s synthesizing approach are at their most extreme. The concerto is subtitled “The Lost Garden.” The composer claims in his note that “one can feel the wind and hear the birds singing,” which is true, but we don’t reach that pastoral vision until the very end. Because of the segmentary nature of the preceding music, one has little sense of a peaceful conclusion having been earned. It feels tacked on; in this instance, the language of expressionism sits awkwardly with Asian detachment. Even so, Huang provides spine-tingling moments along the way, such as a passage featuring a long slow descent in double stops from the violin, falling into the black hole of a reverberant bass cluster from piano and tam-tam (very George Crumb), which slowly rises again as piano figuration like a flock of Messiaen’s birds.


My favorite among these concertos is No. 4 (originally premiered alone by the AKSO Ensemble). Formally, it is the tightest and most coherent of the four, as you would expect from the title “Confluence.” The larger ensemble enables Huang to command greater textural variety: indeed, the loveliest passage on the entire disc is the wind-dominated second movement, anchored by the warm tone of the bassoon. Another plus: in this work the musicians are not required to vocalize. Concerto No. 4 brings together musical ideas from the three preceding concertos, but I think that the parts of this cycle are greater than their sum and are best listened to separately.


It is thought provoking to hear Chinese-accented music emanating from a CD in the “American Classics” series— it speaks volumes about diversity in Western musical culture—and Naxos is to be commended for putting this young composer on its roster. The sound quality is excellent, and the musicianship of a very high standard. Despite my reservations above, Huang’s music is undeniably vibrant, visceral, and full of color.


FANFARE: Phillip Scott

Because John Adams' small yet substantial solo and duo piano output, succinctly described by my colleague Victor Carr Jr, has been so well served on disc, each new release necessarily becomes more vulnerable to comparison. Fortunately, pianist Ralph van Raat displays an innate affinity for the composer's idioms, be it China Gates' lyric beauty, Phrygian Gates' stamina-testing epic sprawl, or American Berserk's thorny, Ives-inspired ragtime allusions. Next to Gloria Cheng's chamber-like refinement and Emanuele Arciuli's extraordinary variety of color and touch, van Raat treats Phrygian Gates as an out-and-out virtuoso vehicle, with plenty of paragraphic sweep and brawny, roof-raising climaxes. Relate Cheng to Kempff, Arciuli to Michelangeli, and van Raat to Gilels, and you'll get my point.

Hallelujah Junction, with Maarten van Veen at the second piano, splits the difference between the aggressive, generously pedaled Andrew Russo/James Ehnes (Black Box) and the much leaner, crystal-clear Rolf Hind/Nicolas Hodges (Nonesuch) recordings. The ethereal impression van Raat conveys in China Gates' opening pages may have something to do with Naxos' slightly distant pickup, in contrast to the full-bodied detail BIS provides Jenny Lin's marvelous interpretation. Although I have yet to meet a China Gates recording I didn't like, on Nonesuch Nicolas Hodges' basic fast tempo and easily lilting inner rhythms appeal to me most of all.

To sum up, you can't go wrong with van Raat's strong performances, plus Naxos' modest cost and decent sonics. Just be aware that the more expensive Nonesuch reference compilation duplicates this repertoire in better sound, and adds a splendid performance of Road Games for violin and piano.

--Jed Distler, ClassicsToday.com

Includes work(s) by John Philip Sousa. Ensemble: Royal Artillery Band. Conductor: Keith Brion.

In his 1996 Fourth Symphony, Philip Glass reworked six out of the ten tracks from David Bowie's Heroes album into orchestral pieces that function both as independent entities and integral symphonic components. It isn't necessary to know the original Heroes in order to appreciate how Glass manipulates the essentially simplistic melodic content by way of striking harmonic juxtapositions, rhythmic vamps laced with unpredictable accents from the percussion, and orchestration that's cannily varied yet clear enough to take down by dictation. In The Light, Glass also generates considerable textural and dramatic mileage from the simple, undulating motives heard at the work's outset. What prevents the signature repetitive modules from running into the ground or sticking in the mud is the composer's unerring sense of when to introduce a new idea, slightly alter a chord voicing, or vary the instrumentation.

One main difference between Marin Alsop's interpretations and Dennis Russell Davies' premiere recordings on Nonesuch concerns engineering philosophy. On Naxos, the Bournemouth Symphony emerges in a more natural, concert-hall perspective as you might perceive from a dead-center orchestra seat in a vibrant but not overly resonant hall. The Russell Davies recordings reproduce their orchestras (the American Composers Orchestra in the Symphony, the Vienna Radio Symphony Orchestra in The Light) at relatively close, detail -oriented range and pack a more immediate punch. For example, in Alsop's slightly faster rendition of the symphony's fourth-movement Sons of the Silent Age, the antiphonal cross-rhythms midway through the work converge to more fluid and blended effect. By contrast, Russell Davies' slower, more heavily accented version beefs up the harps and low brass. And while Alsop begins V 2 Schneider (the final movement) at a bright clip that ever-so-slightly slows down within the first minute, Russell Davies is rock steady. Although I lean toward Russell Davies' recordings (which result from the composer's production team), Alsop's equally world-class interpretations unquestionably convey their own character and validity.

--Jed Distler, ClassicsToday.com

Hovhaness has found a strong advocate in Gerard Schwarz, and about time too. This prolific and at times prolix composer's music, with its expressively limited mixture of bell sounds, modal and Eastern harmonies, and simple counterpoint, can sound naïve and even irritating in large doses. What is so often missing from many performances is committed playing, giving the music the strength, beauty, and confidence that so often makes all the difference between "getting through the notes" and the quality of response that these pieces need and deserve. This disc, all premiere recordings, does the latter, and even if you dislike Hovhaness you might well be impressed by the results.

Khrimian Hairig is a short, pretty work for solo trumpet and strings much like the composer's Prayer of St. Gregory. It makes a very nice program opener even though it tells us nothing especially new. That certainly isn't true of the larger works. The Guitar Concerto must be numbered among the more successful works in its genre. It has all of the composer's hallmark fingerprints, but it also reveals an astutely judged understanding of how to pit such a weak-toned instrument against a large orchestra. In terms of color, texture, and contrast, the music is wholly beguiling and never overstays its welcome.

The same holds true for Symphony No. 60. At a bit more than half an hour, this is a long work for Hovhaness, but the inclusion of some American folk music makes an interesting contrast with his usual Eastern modes, while the four movements once again offer an unusually broad range of contrast and sonority. Best of all, the entire program is extremely well played, from guitarist David Leisner on up. This isn't difficult music technically, but it must never sound tired or lazy, and here it doesn't. The disc offers what in effect is an entire mini-concert--overture, concerto, and symphony--and you can listen to the whole thing straight through without fear of monotony. Sensitive and coherent notes by the late composer's wife add to the overall appeal, as does the excellent sound, particularly in the difficult-to-balance Guitar Concerto.

– David Hurwitz, ClassicsToday.com