CANNABICH: Symphonies Nos. 47 - 52

Vanhal: Symphonies, Vol. 2

Brahms: Four-Hand Piano Music, Vol. 8

Brahms: Four-Hand Piano Music, Vol. 6

Henry Kimball Hadley (1871-1937) came from a highly musical Massachusetts family and showed considerable compositional promise early in his life (he completed his first opera at age 17). A major figure in Hadley's development was George Chadwick, with whom he studied counterpoint and composition before continuing his musical education in Vienna. Hadley's music shows an accomplished technique and, as with that of many American composers of his generation, it bears heavy European influence (though in Hadley's case, it also contains occasional traces of his home soil). The Ocean, composed between 1920 and 1921, is as atmospheric as its title suggests, displaying Hadley's skill at evocative orchestration. The musical language sounds at first to be purely impressionistic, but further along there are indications of the German post-romantic style, especially Zemlinsky. The Culprit Fay (1908) revels in the pre-impressionist sounds of Paul Dukas (La Peri comes to mind) as it relates Drake's fairy-tale poem.


It's surprising that Hadley's Symphony No. 4, composed three years later, sounds stylistically like a much earlier work, with roots firmly planted in the 19th century. The four movements act as a musical compass, describing the four regions of the globe: North portrays the frigid artic regions in terse declamations reminiscent of Richard Strauss' Macbeth; East is spiced by "oriental" modes and colors; South, the most "American"-sounding movement, captures that region's flavor with the use of ragtime melodies; and West combines adventurous "outdoors" music with Native American melodies and rhythms in a movement that not surprisingly brings to mind Dvorak's New World Symphony. This is really fine music and you can't help but wonder how it all but disappeared from modern concert programs. But if it had received anything like the wholly persuasive and committed (as well as enjoyable) performances provided by John McLaughlin Williams and the National Symphony Orchestra of Ukraine, it certainly shouldn't have. This team once again has put together an irresistibly fresh and rewarding program, and Naxos has captured it all in fine sound.
--Victor Carr Jr., ClassicsToday.com

Brahms: Four-Hand Piano Music, Vol. 9

DISCOVER OPERA

It's good to see Paul Creston's music making a bit of a comeback. Neeme Järvi recorded the Second Symphony for Chandos, and Gerard Schwarz did the Third (and much else besides) for Delos, so this latest entry in Naxos' American Music Series faces some stiff competition. Fortunately, the performances are excellent and hold their own without qualification. Kuchar and his orchestra already have recorded a first-rate Prokofiev symphony cycle for Naxos, and are working on Martinu as well, so it's no surprise that Creston fits their musical profile. New to CD is the zippy First Symphony, a typically American-sounding neo-classical piece in four brief movements variously marked "With Majesty", "With Humor", "With Serenity", and "With Gaiety". So they are, and so they sound.

The brilliant "song and dance" Second Symphony gets a particularly lively performance here: it's a truly original masterpiece in two movements that should be played and enjoyed at least as often as, say, the Third Symphonies of Copland, Harris, or Schuman. Inspired by episodes in the life of Christ (birth, crucifixion, and resurrection), the Third Symphony, entitled "Three Mysteries", combines Creston's love of Gregorian chant with his invigorating sense of rhythm. Its religious inspiration lends the music a calm solemnity that never becomes saccharine or insincere. Hopefully Naxos will get around to the remaining symphonies and other orchestral works. This is really good stuff, nicely recorded too.
--David Hurwitz, ClassicsToday.com

Includes work(s) by various composers.

The competition is full-priced, from Nonesuch, and the formidable Glass-specialist and collaborator Dennis Russell Davies. On sonic grounds, I’d prefer this new Naxos disc of two symphonies from the mid 1990s. Davies is irreproachable as a Glass conductor, but in the case of these works, I find the Nonesuch recordings a touch claustrophobic, with much of the air sucked out of the acoustic. The older Glass/Naxos disc was even more successful in this regard (the Violin Concerto on 8.554568) but this is pretty good sound, captured by Tim Handley in the Concert Hall, Lighthouse, by the busy harbor at Poole in Dorset, England. The bustling, maritime setting seems to infect the music-making, especially for the rousing finale of the Second Symphony, like an Olympic yacht-race through a choppy sea on a bright, bracing morning. American symphonies used to stumble at the finale obstacle (so did symphonies everywhere) but through patient application of his familiar style, and his patented modal, orchestral dynamism, Glass whizzes around the course with no faults or penalties. This should make converts of anyone who enjoys symphonies from Bax to Bernstein.

Elsewhere, the dark and brooding moods are never overplayed or undersold by Marin Alsop. This isn’t the world’s most virtuosic band, but they rarely, and only very slightly sound strained by Glass’s high-lying violin lines. More performances from the big-name orchestras would bring a more expressive, forthright performing tradition, and maybe a faster finale for the Third. Glass’s Indian roots are often on display (there’s an Eastern cut to his thematic jib, here), but expressive results are fruitful. There are some reminders of other symphonists. In the Second it sometimes seems Alan Hovhaness, Lou Harrison, and Bill Schuman have met up for a drink with Sibelius, who is playing the Widor Toccata over there in the corner. Glass’s individual symphonism works, though, in this 43-minute piece, thanks to the skillful manipulation of orchestral contrasts as a structural device, a legacy, maybe, of his film-score experience. The Third Symphony is closer to the Glass mainstream, in four short movements for strings alone. Here, Alsop’s patient approach brings out the meaning in the music, away from the talk of polyrhythm and process. There’s fear, anxiety, and dismay (the world) behind some of those sunny repetitions, and physicality in the dance rhythms. Well-caught pizzicatos in the second movement, too, and an expressive solo display from the violin in the edgy, pulsating third section, which is a major success in this tense, sensual reading.

I wholeheartedly recommend this release (the first of a cycle, I trust), and again salute Philip Glass for doing it his way. The music deserves the widest exposure and popularity, and it deepens with acquaintance. This Naxos CD transformed my opinion of these works.

Paul Ingram, FANFARE

Philip Glass' symphonies are unique among the composer's output for their relative harmonic and thematic complexity. Listeners put off by Glass' endlessly repeated arpeggios will be relieved to find scant evidence of them in these works. Instead, like his opera Beauty and the Beast, Glass spins long melodic lines that go through many harmonic permutations before they are inevitably repeated. Thus, Symphony No. 2's first movement creates an air of expectation, something that Glass maintains through shifting instrumental timbres and stimulating dynamic contrast as the movement builds, Bolero-like, to a grand climax. After the soothing, somewhat meditative sonic environment of the slow movement, the finale breaks in with its agitated dance rhythms. This movement has the least harmonic variety of the three, and listeners unsympathetic to Glass' method may experience repetition fatigue.


Symphony No. 3 is almost radical in its use of traditional forms, including chaconne and rondo. Glass replaces the expansiveness of the earlier work with a highly concentrated thematic process that packs substantially more musical ideas into only slightly more than half the former symphony's duration. The second movement is particularly interesting, with its compound meters and hints of Bartók. Marin Alsop brings her long familiarity with the composer's music to her convincing performances of both works, although she faces strong competition in the No. 3 from Glass specialist Dennis Russell Davies, who leads a slightly more compelling rendition with the Stuttgart Chamber Orchestra. For its part, the Bournemouth Symphony plays keenly, maintaining enthusiasm and rhythmic exactitude even in the more repetitious passages. Naxos' warm and spacious recording presents the music with a compelling impact. [12/03/2004]
--Victor Carr Jr, ClassicsToday.com

Monteverdi's Orfeo, first performed in 1607, generates a special excitement because it is the first unquestioned masterpiece of opera. Notable for it's precise orchestration and powerful drama it was a groundbreaking work. It concerns the legend of Orpheus, the demi-god whose music had the power to conquer the forces of Hell and to bring his wife back, briefly, to life. The extracts used in this introduction are from Naxos's full recording; it uses authentic period instruments, which serve to evoke the early Baroque period of the opera's composition.

This selection includes an explanatory commentary of this opera, written by Thomson Smillie and narrated by David Timson.

Lyricism and obsessive patterns are finely realised by the RSNO, while conductor Marin Alsop shows a keen sensitivity to both scores and balances their rhetoric with the clean-edged clarity of their textures. In addition, her performance of the now-ubiquitous Adagio for Strings is a model of restraint, proving the saying that less equals more. Attractive sound, with a wide range and plenty of definition. - BBC Music Magazine

This is a first rate collection of some of Vaughan Williams' best choral works, both a cappella and with organ accompaniment. Fans of this composer definitely will want to have this disc, whose main attraction is the rarely recorded Mass in G minor. Why this stark and very moving work has received such scant attention on disc is a mystery, but it remains a unique and timeless masterpiece whose bold, bare harmonies and unadorned, chant-like melodies invoke the atmosphere of ancient worship while serving as a kind of musical embodiment of the imposing cathedral structures and spaces in which that worship took place. A good performance of this piece for a cappella double choir and a quartet of soloists first demands excellent singers and an ensemble that's well-balanced and especially solid on the bass end. The nature of the writing, including modal melodies and harmony, parallel fifths, and wide-spaced voicings, gives even the best choirs "intonational" fits; pacing is extremely important in order to keep key, dense-textured sections from bogging down.


None of these challenges proves troublesome at all for the Elora Festival Singers, which during the past 20 years has become one of Canada's--and the world's--finest choirs. Director Noel Edison obviously cares about balances and clarity of line, and also shows concern for his singers (and listeners) by maintaining sensible, effective tempos. However, in one significant place, the crucial, final Agnus Dei movement, I found Edison's tempo just too fast to allow the layers of vocal lines to build sufficient tension and create the energy to achieve the intended, truly powerful climax. Nevertheless, you never get the sense that Edison gets any less than he asks for, especially since the other works on the program are performed with equal intensity and technical confidence. (In the mass, he's also got a terrific quartet of soloists, who not only deliver the notes and maintain the mood in their individual passages, but also make a well-matched ensemble.) It's a real treat to hear the motets sung so well (just listen to that lovely opening to Lord, Thou hast been our refuge, and to the shimmering, jazzy dissonances in the Prayer to the Father of Heaven), and the setting of the beautiful hymn Come down, O Love divine (Down Ampney) makes an appropriate close, a tribute to this composer's immeasurable contribution to the English hymn repertoire. Placing O vos omnes immediately before the mass allows us to easily hear the similarities between these two compositions, written around the same time.


Now, for the slightly bad news: the recording levels make trouble for full enjoyment of these inherently full-bodied, rich-textured works. True, the acoustics of Toronto's illustrious Church of St. Mary Magdalene are somewhat tricky to tame, but if you adjust the volume high enough to comfortably hear softer passages--the beginning of the motet Lord, Thou hast been our refuge, for instance--the louder sections (the entrance of the organ and the work's conclusion), are just too loud. This is true for the mass as well; it seems that the engineers decided that a more distant listening perspective was preferable to a closer one that would have posed its own balance problems. Nevertheless, I eventually was able to find a satisfying middle ground that my ears quickly adjusted to, allowing me to put aside my sonic concerns enough to devote several more hours to this one disc. And I will certainly return to it again, because the performances are that good.
--David Vernier, ClassicsToday.com

Play this recording of Arcana next to the recent Boulez/Chicago on DG, and you're in for a big surprise. No, the Polish National Radio Symphony Orchestra isn't Chicago, and Naxos has paid for a recording of great immediacy and clarity of texture by accepting a very dry, attenuated bass. But musically, Christopher Lyndon-Gee blows Boulez away. His Arcana is only about a minute faster, but sounds about ten times more exciting, more dynamic, more rhythmically emphatic, more committed. Here is a conductor who understands what the composer means when he writes a triple forte, and he charts an unerring course from the pounding opening right through the mysterious closing bars.


The other works offer still more evidence of extraordinarily communicative musicianship. Tangy wind sonorities give a playful edge to Octandre's acerbic central movement, and a vocal, human warmth to its outer ones. Déserts, unlike the Boulez version, includes its taped interpolations and explores a stunning sonic landscape in which Lyndon-Gee's contributions sustain the work's atmosphere far more impressively. Intégrales reveals greater sensitivity to dynamic gradation than Boulez permits his Chicago players, and Offrandes' mysterious, sensual landscapes still mesmerize despite the dryness of the sound and the close-up focus on the otherwise fine soprano, Maryse Castets. In short, this wholly unexpected surprise of a disc will delight Varèse fans. You won't find Chailly's level of polish and sophistication, but Lyndon-Gee's interpretations offer a wholly winning freshness of their own. Now dare we hope for Amériques from these same forces?
--David Hurwitz, ClassicsToday.com

Benjamin Frith is no stranger to Naxos customers, having previously graced the catalog with a Mendelssohn cycle, John Field's Nocturnes, and other releases. Here he makes his first (and hopefully not last) appearance in Naxos' ongoing series devoted to the complete Scarlatti Sonatas. The playing is splendid. Frith's varied and intelligently deployed dynamic palette, together with his rounded, singing tone, conjures an intimate, poetic aura that's diametrically opposed to the brash, vivacious sound world Mikhail Pletnev brings to this repertoire. I like how Frith keeps the textures alive and vibrant by making very subtle changes in voicing on the repeats (the bass lines and trills in the D major K. 214 sonata, for instance). His unruffled, effortless scales and arpeggios may not bite with the individuality of a Horowitz or Schiff, but their elegant symmetry still delights the ear. With Naxos' first-class sonics, fine notes, and modest price, you can't go wrong. --Jed Distler, ClassicsToday.com

The second Naxos recording by the elite conservatory students of the National Orchestral Institute Philharmonic explores further examples of the breadth of American music. Randall Thompson, famed for his vocal works, is represented by his Symphony No. 2 which, with its syncopation and echoes of jazz, helped to establish a bright, vibrant American style. After an inauspicious debut, Samuel Barber’s tautly cyclical Symphony No. 1 became the first American symphonic piece to be performed at the Salzburg Festival. Samuel Adams offers a contemporary voice in Drift and Providence, which spectacularly captures the sound of the Pacific Ocean by incorporating electronic elements. The National Orchestral Institute Philharmonic at the University of Maryland’s Clarice Smith Performing Arts Center is formed each June from the musicians of the National Orchestral Institute. These musicians of extraordinary talent are chosen through rigorous international auditions and coalesce into one of the most dynamic orchestras in the country. Focused on creating future musicians and leaders in the world of orchestras, its alumni now occupy important positions in virtually every major symphony orchestra in the United States.

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REVIEW:

This is the second recording by the National Orchestral Institute Philharmonic, a summer training programme for conservatory students. It’s as impressive as its predecessor in terms of the quality of orchestral execution, and perhaps even more valuable in its choice of repertoire.

– Gramophone

DANZI: Wind Quintets, Op. 68, Nos. 1-3 / Horn Sonata, Op. 44

Classical Music

Julian Wachner' music has been described as 'bold and atmospheric', 'jazzy, energetic, and ingenious', and 'highly enjoyable, touching, clever, and inspiring'.

Margaret Brouwer (born in 1940) is head of the composition department at the Cleveland Institute of Music. Based on this excellent new Naxos recording, she has an individual voice with a fine ear for orchestral colors. Her 2002 Concerto for Evelyn Glennie? Aurolucent Circles ?is immediately arresting, with its powerfully phrased opening voiced in the lower strings. The evocative entrance of Glennie in its potent mystery reminded me of some of Holst?s outer and more arcane planets. This is appropriate, as the concerto?s first movement is titled ?Floating in Dark Space.? Besides virtuoso passages for the soloist accompanied by full orchestra, the work has strongly contrasting sections employing two concertino groups which show off the very fine first-desk players in the Royal Liverpool Philharmonic. Glennie?s solos cover a kaleidoscopic range of percussion instruments and colors. The second movement, ?Stardust,? takes those colors and plays them about the stage, drifting and more often sweeping through various sections of the orchestra. The final movement, ?Cycles and Dances,? continues the notion of motion about and through the orchestra in a frenetic dance interrupted by lower brass?a favorite gesture of Brouwer?s. Glennie is the star around which all this revolves. The recording of the concerto (and the remainder of the disc as well) is both exciting and detailed, with a convincing sense of space around the instruments.


Mandala was inspired by a Tibetan sand painting and a Dutch psalm melody (Psalm XCI in the Dutch Reformed hymnal.) The trombone intoning the Psalm tune could equally be playing a version of the Buddhist om. Adding to this interesting musical-cultural mix are musicians whispering barely audible bits of random text, always with the ever-present Psalm never far from the surface. Whether this adds up to a work that will stand up to repeated hearing remains to be seen: I have a strong feeling it well may.


Pulse is an accessible and attractive score with an unexpectedly melismatic theme heard mainly from the winds and then the solo violin. As someone who usually appreciates the elegiac mood, I was looking forward to hearing Remembrance, dating from 1996 and the earliest score on the recording. It is affirmative rather than mournful, but perhaps somewhat long for its material.


Brouwer?s musical commentary on the rapid pace of 21st century life is expressed in the disc?s final work SIZZLE . Three trombones and a horn play a similar role here as in Mandela : they stand apart in time and space, representing different currents in a fast moving stream.


Gerard Schwarz?s performance of all these works is authoritative and convincing. He is ably abetted by his orchestra and the fine production and engineering.


FANFARE: Michael Fine

This second volume of the series features 26 Ives's songs beginning alphabetically with "December" (1913) and concluding with "Grass" (1896). The performers include 14 singers, four pianists, and an organist. The organ appears on chronologically the earliest song on this CD, the hymn- like "Far From My Heav'nly Home" (1893). Ives's early and late, traditional and revolutionary are each represented. The highlight of this CD is Ives's 1914 setting of Vachel Lindsay's "General William Booth Enters into Heaven" a poem in it's character and enthusiasm made for Ives. Lindsay's poem and Ives's song capture the spirit of the founder of the Salvation Army as he ascends into heaven accompanied by the poor, the lost and the damned that Booth has brought to salvation. "Are you washed in the blood of the Lamb?" the songs asks. In it's raw liveliness, enthusiasm, changes of mood, and transcendentalism, this song is one of Ives's greatest efforts in the form. The bass David Pittsinger gives a convincing performance accompanied by pianist Douglas Dickson.

John Philip Sousa' tireless touring with his world-famous band and the distinctive quality of his compositions ensured legendary status and the affectionate title of 'The March King'.

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

This anthology brings together representative works from the mainstream of contemporary American choral music. Charles Ives's Psalm 90 evokes a mood reminiscent of congregational Sunday singing in New England.

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

The American composer William Bolcom (b. 1938) is best-known for his large-scale setting of William Blake's "Songs of Innocence and Experience," which is available on a 3-CD Naxos set. This new collection of Bolcom's songs also on Naxos shows the composers's lifelong fascination with Blake. It includes an early lyrical setting of Blake's poem, "Mary" which deals with a beautiful and intelligent young woman and her rejection by her society. In the several torch and cabaret-style works it includes, the collection also shows Bolcom's attempts to fuse classical with popular styles of music. Bolcom also has done so in his piano music, much of which is heavily influenced by ragtime. The songs on this CD are performed and selected by soprano Carole Farley with Bolcom himself at the piano.

Opera Explained: PUCCINI - Turandot (Smillie)

Includes work(s) by Arvo Pärt.

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