The entire 'Bill' Schuman story in a nutshell—and Slatkin tells it like a true believer. He begins with a cheer. It was Leonard Bernstein who described conducting the American Festival Overture as like ''leading a cheer''. Let's just say that Slatkin's St Louis orchestra are some cheer-leaders. Not that Schuman needs much encouragement in this department: his brand of collective festivity is fired-up and there for the taking—shrill, excitable woodwind hoorahs, brassy fanfare-derived syncopations packed in with heavyweight percussion.

To sum up this music, you'd have to say that it exudes determination in every bolt and rivet: creativity equals energy—the American way. Schuman's is both music of the land—gritty, pioneering, open—and of the first cityscapes: iron and steel, always reaching outwards and upwards. It's always good to be reminded of the New England Triptych, of a bygone America where William Billings wrote hymns and hymn tunes became marching songs. Slatkin absolutely delivers the goods here, tough and buoyant but never muscle-bound in the celebratory outer movements, quick to respond to the old-world charm, too—as when the tumult of ''Be glad then, America'' momentarily subsides to leave flute and piccolo piping away like a distant view of the marching band. His solo oboe is an eloquent preacher in the second panel ''When Jesus wept'', the congregation of strings show great refinement.

Schuman's Tenth, and last, Symphony (here receiving its world premiere recording) quickly reveals that not much about its composer's philosophy and musical vocabulary had changed over a long and vigorous career. A survivor's resolve and strength of purpose is still at the centre of things, an overriding spirit of optimism still rules—energy still equals creativity (hence the subtitle ''American Muse''—a conscious act of homage to all those other 'creative pioneers'). But once beyond the declamatory contortions of the first movement (an abstract, but not so distant cousin of the first movement of the New England Triptych, its superstructure riveted with metallic percussion, jagged brass syncopations generating untold energy) we are into another of those protracted Schuman meditations where strings look east in heart-easing glissandos, a lone flute searches for something, and trumpets, as ever, suggest the close proximity of the city. This may be the spiritual heart of the American nation as Schuman understood it, but for all his outward optimism, it's still a very long, restless haul here to the moment of resolution: a radiant G major triad. No time to wallow, though: Schuman's finale is up and running, aspiring string legatos stabilizing inimitable rhythmic counterpoints in the wind. The pay-off—even by Schuman's standards, an uncommonly explosive tattoo of percussion—is raw energy. RCA have contained it in a spacious, vivid, punchy recording. The St Louis orchestra are again virtuosic.

Finally, it was a nice idea on Slatkin's part to throw in the Variations on ''America'', Schuman's affectionate wink to his gritty, visionary predecessor, Charles Ives. It's so deliciously irreverent, this bandstand burlesque: rarely was a tune so deserving of ridicule. The po-faced procession of muted brass and con legno strings punctuated with ludicrous baton-twirling trills of glockenspiel always makes me laugh; I love the wicked harmonic displacements, the operatic woodwinds and trumpet, the silliness of the xylophone, the mad Spanish pastiche—each and every variant, a well-turned raspberry.'

Edward Seckerson, Gramophone