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Caricature Dance Suite / From My Tahoe Window - Summer Moods and Patterns / Americanistic Etude / An April Suite / Dance Suite No. 2 / Dancing in a Dream / Every Flower That Ever Grew / Excerpts from Five Songs for Soprano / Suite for Viola and Piano
CD$19.99$9.99Naxos
Sep 01, 20028559143
American Classics - Rochberg: Symphony No 5, Etc /Lyndon-gee

The notes to this recording make much of George Rochberg's braveness in the early 1960s in turning his back on strict academic serialism and atonality. Instead he dared to evolve a more nuanced, eclectic, personal style of expression in which tonal and atonal elements rub shoulders in a way that often comes across as sounding simply Romantic, in the best sense of the term. Without diminishing that achievement, in this less doctrinaire time the more important question is simple: How good is the music? We've been unable to answer this question because, aside from his string quartets, very few recordings have given us the chance to judge for ourselves. So this Naxos release is extremely important in that for many record collectors it will represent a first encounter with this seminal figure in 20th century American music--and it's magnificent.
The Fifth Symphony contains elements that many will find familiar: clear references to the finale of Mahler's Ninth and the Largo of Shostakovich's Fifth, aggressively virtuosic brass writing (it was a Chicago Symphony commission), a compelling mixture of dissonance and consonance, and an overtly emotional program apposing music of aggression with passages of sadness and consolation. It's all organized in a single movement whose multiple sections offer a gripping but easy-to-follow pattern of tension and release. To call the work a masterpiece doesn't begin to suggest its immediacy and impact: the symphony simply "goes" with the inevitability of fate itself, and its 28 minutes seem to pass by in a flash. Christopher Lyndon-Gee and the Saarbrücken orchestra give the music all of the intensity and passion that it needs, and they're marvelously well recorded too.
Black Sounds dates from 1965, and as the title suggests it's a darker, more abrasive work than the symphony. Inspired by the death of the composer's friend Edgard Varèse, the music pays respectful homage without ever descending to mere imitation. In particular, the scoring for 12 winds and brass, piano, celesta, and four percussionists clearly brings Varèse to mind, as does the music's violence and boundless energy. Standing at the opposite end of the harmonic spectrum, the gorgeously tonal Transcendental Variations for string orchestra consists of a reworking of the central movement of Rochberg's Third String Quartet, the breakthrough work in his mature style. Like the symphony, both works receive committed and compelling performances from Lyndon-Gee and his German forces.
Naxos has done some yeoman work in its American Classics series, but it's hard not to acclaim this release as one of the most important yet, not just for the excellence of its performances, the fine sonics, or even the marvelous music itself, but also in the human sense of doing some justice at last to a courageous composer whose importance is generally acknowledged but far too seldom confirmed by actual performance of his music. If this disc leads to further interest in Rochberg, then it will have achieved a greater purpose beyond gratifying a limited number of modern music enthusiasts. In the meantime, by all means, buy this and be gratified! [8/2/2003]
--David Hurwitz, ClassicsToday.com
Bernstein: Symphony No 2, Etc / Judd
"The opening "Candide" Overture is particularly poignant, for it reveals a band full of life and spirit eagerly responding to Mr. Judd's forward-leaning and even accelerating tempo. But perhaps the most valuable item here is Bernstein's Symphony No. 2, "The Age of Anxiety," a strong work -- alternately atmospheric and excitable, and ultimately carefree -- that is not overrecorded. Jean Louis Steuerman is a deft piano soloist, and the orchestra again does itself proud under Mr. Judd's steady hand." - James Oestreich, NEW YORK TIMES
Diamond: Symphony No. 1, Violin Concerto No. 2 / Talvi, Schwarz, Seattle Symphony
REVIEW:
It's so comforting to know that these excellent performances will have a new lease on life courtesy of Naxos. David Diamond's First Symphony (1841) is a compact, three-movement work lasting 22 minutes that stands with the best American products of the period. Characteristically springy rhythms in the outer movements make the music quite refreshing and emphasize the touching lyricism of the central Andante maestoso. The Violin Concerto No. 2 was receiving only its second performances ever when this recording was made. The talented Finnish violinst Ilkka Talvi proves an able exponent of this grandly conceived and marvelously scored work (listen to the imaginative violin/xylophone writing at the opening of the finale). It's a major statement by any definition and it surely deserves to return to the repertoire. The Enourmous Room, a fantasia for orchestra after the book by e.e. cummings, drives home Diamond's fundamentally Romantic outlook and caps a wholly winning disc that is as well played as it is well recorded. If you missed this the first time around, here's your chance to make up the loss.
--David Hurwitz, ClassicsToday.com
American Classics - Riley: Cantos Desiertos / Hawley, McFadden

Alexandra Hawley and Jeffrey McFadden offer a wonderfully eclectic program for flute and guitar. If you haven't heard this combination of instruments before, on the evidence presented here you'll very likely agree that it's a most musically rewarding pairing. The flute's smooth timbre ideally complements the guitar's non-legato and softly percussive tone quality--aspects put to good use in Robert Beaser's Mountain Songs, where McFadden's rustic, folksy picking and strumming is tempered by Hawley's serenely floating melodies. Joan Tower's quasi-impressionistic Snow Dreams initially conjures up idyllic, pastoral images before the composer's spiky harmonic style slightly sharpens the music's edges. Likewise, Lowell Liebermann's Sonata for Flute opens with a blissfully ruminative Nocturne, an atmosphere that dissipates immediately with the start of the nervously dancing Allegro finale.
Based on Mexican folk tunes, Terry Riley's Cantos Desiertos features delightfully stirring dances rendered with the aid of percussion. Finally, Peter Schickele's Windows offers a neo-Renaissance Pavane and a songful Cantilena before charging into an all-out strum-fest for the closing Refrain. Hawley and McFadden play beautifully, sounding convincingly at home in all of the varying styles and modes presented by this unusual mix of composers. Naxos' engineering gives listeners a realistic sense of the recording venue. This is one of those discs you just put in your player and totally enjoy.
--Victor Carr Jr, ClassicsToday.com
American Classics - Russell: Rhapsody, Middle Earth, Etc
American Classics - Harbison: Four Songs Of Solitude, Etc
In simplest terms, Harbison's Variations for piano, clarinet, and violin revolves around a theme and 15 concise subsets, joined by canonic interludes and culminating in a finale that binds them all together. The variations themselves, which move seamlessly from one to the next, also refer to different instrumental combinations. Within the work, the listener will detect clear groupings: the first four variations come across as lyrical statements, while variations five through 10 are much more agitated and rhythmical. The final set explores musical form in the context of the main theme, with clever examples of fugue, passacaglia, and waltz. Violinist Janine Jansen, clarinetist Lars Wouters van den Oudenweijer, and pianist Daniel Blumenthal fashion terrific ensemble playing and really bring this music to life.
Twilight Music is a sort of desultory conversation among the piano, violin, and horn, wherein the separate instruments, in an attempt to highlight their differences, occasionally come together in brief unison lines before moving on. As might be expected, the horn (played to perfection by Bernhard Krug) sticks out, both in terms of sonority and technique (the Presto second movement being particularly difficult for the instrument). The deceptively simple third movement (Antiphon) demonstrates just how much Harbison is able to say in such a compact form, probably the truest test of his prodigious compositional skills.
In the middle of this disc, which because of its rich content seems longer than 53 minutes, is the eloquent and intimate Four Songs of Solitude for solo violin, written as a present for Harbison's wife. Harbison is at pains to depict these as songs (as opposed to any other form) and no doubt this element is caught in their improvisational style, full of intervallic leaps, sighing arpeggios, and flexible tempos. Jansen gives a free-spirited, commited performance (this time, in the studio) and negotiates the more technically bracing fourth song with the same grace as the more lyrical ones before it. Without much in the way of competition, this latest entry in Naxos' American Classics imprint is welcome and long overdue. [5/31/2003]
--Michael Liebowitz, ClassicsToday.com
American Classics - Piston: Symphony No 4, Etc / Schwarz
The couplings are also very well done, the Capriccio's naturally dry string textures and bracing harmonic idiom providing an excellent stylistic foil to the solo harp. Three New England Sketches, one of Piston's very few "titled" works, also has impressive atmosphere, though Slatkin's out of print version on RCA was better still. No matter: these are fine performances very well recorded, and deserve your attention. Thanks to Naxos for keeping them in the catalog (and to the Seattle Symphony, which understood the necessity of not leaving the master tapes to molder in some closet or basement storage room once Delos deleted the original issues).
--David Hurwitz, ClassicsToday.com
American Classics - Piston: The Incredible Flutist, Etc
Listeners new to Piston's music would do well to audition this disc, as it includes a nice cross-section of the composer's output, from his first published work (Suite for Orchestra) to his last (Concerto for String Quartet). In between and opening this disc is the delightful ballet suite to The Incredible Flutist, a piece that features a slithering tango, a lusty Spanish waltz, and a spirited Circus March that concludes with a barking dog (a real one named Nori!). This quirky work--a sort of cross between Petrushka and Parade--alone belies the academic patina that has plagued Piston's name for decades. The fact that he wrote the leading textbook on orchestration should lead more people to think that maybe he actually knew something about it.
The dynamic Suite will excite anybody who loves Bartók, full as it is with resounding canonic brass fanfares, pounding percussion (watch out for the bass drum in the third movement), and chattering strings. Piston also had a flair for elegiac melodies, as evidenced by his soulful English horn writing (a bit aridly played and closely miked in this performance) in the Fantasy for English horn, harp, & strings, and by the slow, calmer parts for string quartet in the Concerto (especially the quixotic concluding viola solo).
Piston's orchestral expertise finds expression in the superbly crafted choral works that close this disc, works that are as buoyant as they are mysterious--and unforgettable. Of course, there are other superlative performances of these individual works (Bernstein's Incredible Flutist on Sony), but Schwarz's surveys remain essential listening for both lovers and newcomers to this great American composer.
--Michael Liebowitz, ClassicsToday.com
American Classics - Hovhaness: Symphony No 22, Etc
The coupling, the only available recording of the early (1936) Cello Concerto, is new to CD and features the redoubtable Janos Starker as soloist. It's not a great work, but it is an extremely pleasant, interesting, even important one. All of the Hovhaness fingerprints that we observe in the symphony are also present in this piece. Two lengthy slow movements frame a very short central Allegro, and the 25-year-old composer's writing for the cello doesn't sound all that grateful to play--although the soloist does get a lot to do. But what makes this piece so fascinating, and so deserving of your attention, is the fact that it does everything that we expect of music by, say, Arvo Pärt or John Tavener, and yet it was composed nearly 70 years ago! Hearing this, it's no wonder Hovhaness is only just coming into his own, and it's a fitting historical irony that a composer once denigrated as backward looking should in fact turn out to be a prophet of important musical trends.
It's also worth noting that about two seconds of this piece sounds 10 times better than anything by "spiritual opportunists" such as Tavener. Yes, the outer movements go on too long, but as with most of Hovhaness' music, the results fall easily on the ear, and Starker, despite a couple of moments of iffy intonation toward the start of the work, plays eloquently. The sonics in both works are also first rate. It was certainly a coup for Naxos to secure this recording of the Cello Concerto, and listening to it is more than just enjoyable in and of itself: it's cause for reappraisal of Hovhaness' historical position, and it's a useful commentary on the work of some important contemporary musical voices. Do try to hear it.
--David Hurwitz, ClassicsToday.com
American Classics - Flagello: Symphony No 1, Etc / Amos
"David Amos is an old hand at producing effective performances of pieces that don't as yet have a performing tradition. Here he elicits inspired playing from the Slovak Radio Symphony Orchestra. The recording is fine by current standards, and the liner notes by Fanfare's Walter Simmons are concise and informative. This is a wholly meritorious addition to Naxos's ongoing 'American Classics' series." -- William Zagorski, FANFARE
"Naxos's sound is couched in an ideal balance of spaciousness, presence, and detail, with climactic moments packing a startlingly gutsy wallop. The timing claimed on the cover is 10 minutes short of the actual disc duration: one is getting even greater value for very little money, and at Naxos's price it would amount to self-defeating, criminal neglect to pass this by." - Adrian Corleonis, FANFARE
Diamond: Symphony No. 3 / Schwartz, Seattle Symphony
REVIEW:
It's a mystery why David Diamond has not been generally acclaimed as one of the top handful of American symphonists. His Third Symphony has everything: good tunes, terrific orchestration, tight construction, and a satisfying form. Its beauties are numerous and immediately appealing, from the zesty rhythmic kick of its first and third movements to the lovely writing for harp and piano in the second movement, all grounded in a slow finale of ineffable purity and gentleness. Of course, it's that slow finale that probably seals the symphony's doom in terms of its chances for live performance, but there's no reason we can't enjoy it at home in this excellently played and recorded performance (here getting new lease on life from Naxos after its first appearance on Delos).
The two couplings at first might look to have a certain outward resemblance in that they both enshrine spiritual subjects, but they couldn't sound more different. Psalm (1936) is vintage early Diamond, a slow-fast-slow piece that bespeaks a certain French flavor (Ravel is never far away from Diamond's quiet music). Kaddish (1987), on the other hand, is an elegiac apotheosis of the modes of synagogue chant. It's beautifully played by Janos Starker, and altogether this collection represents a fine tribute to a still underrated major composer.
--David Hurwitz, ClassicsToday.com
American Classics - Sousa: Music For Wind Band Vol 3
One Nation Under God / Various
Ondine / From a Notebook of Sketches Suites Nos. 1-3
Copland: Appalachian Spring Suite, Quiet City, Clarinet Concerto
This disc substantially duplicates the repertoire on an all-Copland program produced by DG with the Orpheus Chamber Orchestra. However, where DG included the Short Symphony, Naxos offers the Clarinet Concerto. While the Nashville Chamber Orchestra doesn't offer quite the tonal refinement and polish of Orpheus, it basically plays just as well, and its slightly weightier, gutsier, more rustic sonority arguably suits the music even better. In the famous rehearsal disc that accompanied Copland's own recording of the original chamber version of Appalachian Spring, he can be heard exhorting his players not to sentimentalize the music: "...it's a little too much on the Massenet-side," he tells them. Obviously Paul Gambill understands this point, for he offers interpretations ideally poised between warmth and simplicity, full of those clean and clear sonorities that Copland made his own.
It should come as no surprise that, as a major musical capital, Nashville offers a large pool of excellent professional performers from which to draw, and as with its full-sized symphony, the Nashville Chamber Orchestra obviously employs some major talent, particularly among its strings. Copland's music is full of complex rhythms, often combining them with stratospheric violin writing. At such moments as the "Danza de Jalisco" from Three Latin American Sketches, or the initial allegro of Appalachian Spring, the Nashville players offer impressive accuracy of both rhythm and pitch. Quiet City benefits from some smooth-as-silk trumpeting from Scott Moore, while Laura Arden (principal clarinet with the Atlanta Symphony) turns in a masterful performance of the Clarinet Concerto. She commands a lovely, liquid tone in the lyrical opening movement (her pianissimo playing at the end is exquisite) and captures the finale's jazz elements without ever turning raucous.
The version of Appalachian Spring offered here is billed as the "Original Ballet Suite". It is not. The "original" ballet suite is the full orchestral version most familiar to music lovers, dating from just after the premiere in the mid-1940s. More than a decade later, in 1958, Copland published a new orchestration of the suite in which he returned to the chamber instrumentation used in the full-length ballet, allowing the option of a few extra strings (which I assume are used here), and this is what Naxos gives us. Gambill conducts this piece as well as anyone ever has; he's particularly adept at sustaining the flow of the slower sections without letting the music sag, and he gets an astonishingly full sound from his ensemble (listen to the focused tone of the basses when they first enter in the "Simple Gifts" variations). Sonics of ideal transparency and presence set the seal on a disc that's practically perfect from just about any perspective. [12/14/2002]
--David Hurwitz, ClassicsToday.com
Sonata for Violin and Piano / String Quartet / Piano Quintet
Bernstein: West Side Story / Schermerhorn, Nashville Symphony
This recording utilizes Bernstein's score in its original form, before it underwent the necessary revisions to make it more suitable to the needs of musical theater at the time. Actually, it sounds pretty much the same, the most obvious distinctions being a few missing bars near the end of the Prologue and the different vocal arrangement for "America".
Kenneth Schermerhorn was studying with Bernstein during the creation of West Side Story and briefly was considered as a possible conductor for the premiere. Finally getting his chance nearly 50 years later, Schermerhorn conducts the score with an authority and enthusiasm that reveals his intimate knowledge and personal conviction, even if at times his tempos drag (as in "I feel pretty" and "Gee Officer Krupke"), though not as much as the elderly Bernstein's. Then there's the somewhat obsessive concern with full note values at the expense of rhythmic flow (as in the "Jet Song", and in "Quintet", with its heavy articulation on the word "tonight") that occasionally robs the music of its spontaneity.
Throughout, the Nashville Symphony plays with an ideal blend of symphonic elegance and jazzy swagger that shows why this work is such a wonderful classic. Only the multimiked and obviously studio-bound recording, with its artificially close voices, slightly disappoints. Yet despite this and the above-noted concerns, this production faithfully recreates the magical and enthralling world that is West Side Story, and anyone coming to this piece afresh is in for a rare and special experience. [11/4/2002]
--Victor Carr Jr, ClassicsToday.com
Barber: Piano Concerto, Die Natali / Alsop, Prutsman
Prutsman puts steel into the music where required (the opening cadenza and much of the finale), but he offers a slow movement of great delicacy and tenderness too. He knows when to back off and let the orchestra have the spotlight, and together with Alsop manages a genuine dialog in such passages as the finale's second calm episode (music that's pure Prokofiev in its ironic wit). It's interesting how closely this finale resembles that of Ginastera's First Piano Concerto, composed at the same time, and both seem to be taking the finale of Bartók's Second Piano Concerto as a model. In any case, aside from Szell/Browning, there is no finer performance of this work available, and it's very well recorded to boot.
As for the couplings, the catchy Commando March plays itself, and Die Natali, a marvelously inventive fantasia on Christmas carols, receives a lovely performance. Why this charming piece isn't hauled out every December and played to death, as it surely deserves to be, is a genuine mystery. Medea's Meditation and Dance of Vengeance features an excellent "meditation", brooding but not too slow, that yields to a vividly detailed but somewhat underpowered "dance of vengeance", just fractionally under tempo and lacking the ultimate hysterical frenzy (as in Munch/Boston) at the climaxes. However, given the overall excellence of the other items on offer, this isn't a major liability, and for the Piano Concerto alone this disc will be an essential acquisition for anyone who cares about Barber's music.
--David Hurwitz, ClassicsToday.com
Berlin for Brass – Alexander’s Ragtime Band / Puttin’ On The Ritz / White Christmas
Caricature Dance Suite / From My Tahoe Window - Summer Moods and Patterns / Americanistic Etude / An April Suite / Dance Suite No. 2 / Dancing in a Dream / Every Flower That Ever Grew / Excerpts from Five Songs for Soprano / Suite for Viola and Piano
Grofe: Death Valley Suite, Etc. / Stromberg, Bournemouth Symphony
There's some great stuff here. The opening Hollywood Suite contains a dazzling movement called "Carpenters and Electricians" and a delightfully toe-tapping "Production Number". The Hudson River Suite offers evocative nature sounds and some authentic dog barks in "Rip Van Winkle", and concludes with a calamitous, Ivesian tribute to New York City. The Death Valley Suite features a vivid portrait of a wagon train, and like the more famous Grand Canyon Suite ends with violent weather (in this case a sandstorm). William Stromberg leads the Bournemouth Symphony in totally enjoyable performances, vividly recorded, with some particularly brilliant work from the brass section. If you like the Grand Canyon Suite, you'll be pleased to know that there's a lot more where that came from, and it's no less worthy of your attention.
--David Hurwitz, ClassicsToday.com
American Classics - Harris: Symphonies No 7 & 9 / Kuchar
- Tarik O'Regan, The Observer
American Classics - Copland: Works For Violin And Piano
Copland seemed to have two separate sides, the populist and the aesthete. The Sonata for Violin and Piano seems to fall in between the two, being jaunty and full of good tunes, but also based on sophisticated harmonies and unorthodox musical schemes. The piece is dedicated to Lieutenant Harry H. Dunham, a close friend of Copland’s who died in battle, and the date of its première (17th January 1944, with violinist Ruth Posselt and the composer at the piano) shows that war was probably very much on the pacifist Copland’s mind. Cast in three movements with traditional titles (Andante, Lento and Allegretto giusto) this is truly a neo-classical work, but it is also pure Copland; as with everything, he took what he needed of the theoretical conceits, but ultimately composed to his instincts.
Two Pieces for violin and piano, which Copland wrote in the mid 1920s for himself and violinist Samuel Dushkin to play in a Boulanger-sponsored concert in Paris, is a chance to see Copland playing with new ideas, including a new fascination with jazz (this is also the period he was writing his heavily jazz-influenced Piano Concerto). Much of this music would be mined for later scores, but they do hold interest on their own. This is music that is bitonal (in more than one key at once), undoubtedly influenced by Darius Milhaud, whom Copland esteemed highly. In the Ukelele Serenade Copland is having a good time trying to make the fiddle sound like something it is not.
Copland’s piano trio Vitebsk, one of his few "Jewish" works, is here arranged for violin and piano. It is a startling piece, full of wailing dissonances, even using microtones, notes which fall in between the cracks of piano keys, not of the "Western" well-tempered system. It is based on The Dybuk, a Jewish folk-tale, which also fascinated George Gershwin and Leonard Bernstein, about spirits and doomed love in a small Hasidic community, and Copland hoped the music would, in his own words, "...reflect the harshness and drama of Jewish life in White Russia." It is, therefore, a lean, almost angry work, with many moods contained in its taut single movement.
Dipping even further into the well of Copland’s juvenilia, Two Preludes for Violin and Piano are attempts to translate poetry into music, as Liszt had done in his tone poems. The poets in whom Copland found inspiration were Witter Bynner and Wallace Stevens, both contemporaneous and American. Here we see the seed of the Copland yet to come, the off-kilter rhythms, the stark harmonies, and the sparseness of texture. The titles offer their own explanations; these are musical moment pieces, composed to a single-focused and specific idea of mood.
Originally scored for flute and piano, Copland’s Duo was re-scored by the composer in 1977 at the request of Robert Mann, the violinist for the Juilliard Quartet and Copland enthusiast. The "all-but" sonata was therefore transcribed into this version, which took a good deal less time than the composition - Copland worked for three years on the Duo, commissioned by William Kinkcaid. The famous flautist wanted something that would work "...like a sonata," and Copland certainly delivered the goods, offering a tightly formed work in three movements. The second movement in particular, the composition of which took most of the three years, evokes, in the composer’s own words "a certain mood that I connect with myself - a rather sad and wistful one, I suppose."
The ballet Rodeo was a divisive moment in Copland’s career, a complete smash hit, and yet the piece that managed to alienate him from much of his community. Copland, they thought, had sold out. Copland even incorporates some memorable American folk-tunes. It is a cowboy romance, full of wranglers and cowgirls, and culminating in a hoedown. The choreography and scenario were by Agnes de Mille, who, on the strength of her work on Rodeo, was hired to choreograph a new musical by Rodgers and Hammerstein called Oklahoma!, and Copland composed dutifully to her vision, though he preferred his idea for a ballet about Ellis Island. The 1942 première at the Metropolitan Opera was an enormous success, with a standing ovation. The suite from the work is one of Copland’s most recognizable achievements, with hundreds of performances and countless wonderful recordings.
Daniel Felsenfeld
American in Paris (An) / Porgy and Bess Suite / Gershwin in Hollywood
