American Classics

[Suffolkcoastal]

The Copland CCE recording of the original scoring, isn't actually quite complete, Copland made several minor cuts for the recording. The complete ballet for full orchestra conducted by L Slatkin with the St Louis SO is complete. You can hear & watch the complete score in its original instrumentation, with Martha Graham dancing the role of the Bride recorded in 1959 on youtube (it's in 4 parts). Link to the first part here - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XmgaKGSxQVw a wonderful and moving historical performance.

[ferneyhoughgeliebte]

I just bought this. (Though not for that price!) It was mainly for the Babbitt Correspondences, as enthused about elsewhere, but I'm looking forward to hearing the Carter Concerto for Orchestra, which I don't know, and the Cage Atlas Eclipticalis, which I do although it can sound radically different from one performance to another. I don't know anything about Gunther Schuller's compositional work although his books on jazz are excellent. Does anyone know this CD?

I have that CD - as far as I can tell (not having the scores) the performances of the individual works sound committed, although I get the sense, based on absolutely no evidence whatsoever that the orchestra is doing its professional best with aesthetics it is somewhat unused to (and not entirely convinced by). As a programme, I rarely listen to the disc all the way through - preferring to play the individual items as and when I want to listen to them.

[Beef Oven!]

The Copland CCE recording of the original scoring, isn't actually quite complete, Copland made several minor cuts for the recording. The complete ballet for full orchestra conducted by L Slatkin with the St Louis SO is complete. You can hear & watch the complete score in its original instrumentation, with Martha Graham dancing the role of the Bride recorded in 1959 on youtube (it's in 4 parts). Link to the first part here - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XmgaKGSxQVw a wonderful and moving historical performance.

Thanks. I’m not fussed about it not being quite complete. If I get time, I’ll check that 1959 footage, sounds interesting.

[Richard Barrett]

I have that CD - as far as I can tell (not having the scores) the performances of the individual works sound committed, although I get the sense, based on absolutely no evidence whatsoever that the orchestra is doing its professional best with aesthetics it is somewhat unused to (and not entirely convinced by). As a programme, I rarely listen to the disc all the way through - preferring to play the individual items as and when I want to listen to them.

I might have something to say once I've listened to it. I was very impressed by the Babbitt when I listened to it on Youtube. I wouldn't know whether to call it a "committed" performance or not, I think that word is somewhat overused concerning orchestras, especially where contemporary music is concerned, but I would find it hard to identify anything I thought was missing or defective in it. Looking forward to hearing the rest though.

[teamsaint]

RBs mention of Gunther Schuller sent me back to his " Seven Studies on themes of Paul Klee", which was a good thing, as I enjoy it a great deal.
I didn't know that Peter Maxwell Davies had a work similarly inspired, so had a listen to that, although I can't really comment, as it 's the wrong thread.

[Pulcinella]

The Copland CCE recording of the original scoring, isn't actually quite complete, Copland made several minor cuts for the recording.

Pulcers knows everything about Copland, and more. I think he must get Aaron Copland Weekly magazine or something.

Not true: Suffy knew something I didn't.

And it's a quarterly: the latest issue is Appalachian (Spring).

[teamsaint]

Not true: Suffy knew something I didn't.

And it's a quarterly: the latest issue is Appalachian (Spring).

Hopefully you can get it delivered to the Quiet City.

[Pulcinella]

Hopefully you can get it delivered to the Quiet City.

I think that the Minster lives in the hope of having a new team of bellringers by Easter!

[cloughie]

Hopefully you can get it delivered to the Quiet City.

Unless the postman is having a Buckaroo holiday.

[Pulcinella]

Unless the postman is having a Buckaroo holiday.

The summer edition is of course Funfair for the common man.

[ferneyhoughgeliebte]

I might have something to say once I've listened to it. I was very impressed by the Babbitt when I listened to it on Youtube. I wouldn't know whether to call it a "committed" performance or not, I think that word is somewhat overused concerning orchestras, especially where contemporary music is concerned, but I would find it hard to identify anything I thought was missing or defective in it. Looking forward to hearing the rest though.

"Committed" meaning "not out to sabotage the performance" - my only experience of Babbitt's orchestral Music being at the 1981 Musica Nova Festival in Glasgow, where both the SNO and the BBCSSO had difficulties reading the Music. After one pretty hairy rehearsal (during which a trumpeter expressed his utter contempt that a composer would not only have the temerity to write a passage with a quintuplet, but compound his ineptitude by requiring the trumpeter to play a passage entering first on the second quaver of the group of four, and then later on the third!) and performance, I was in a pub with others who'd been at the concert, and with members of the orchestra. A violinist - a "freelance", employed specifically to play in that concert - proudly let everyone know that there was a determination amongst some of the performers to let the composer know exactly what they thought about his piece by playing arbitrary notes at approximate moments in the score.

I suppose that is "commitment" of a sort - but at least the CSO sound as if they're giving the composer the professional respect one would expect from such an ensemble. (Though which the NYPO signalling failed to accord to Cage when they deliberately - according to the composer - broke the pick-up mics he'd provided for them to perform one of his works).

Revisiting the Levine disc this afternoon, the Babbitt and Cage performances aren't as I "remembered" them; the opening of the Babbitt sounds a little insecure (some notes which sound as if they ought to be synchronised - again, I don't have a score - not quite together) but it settles down to a much "unstickier" performance than I was commenting on!

[cloughie]

The summer edition is of course Funfair for the common man.

Are you sure you're not just (Billy the) Kidding me

[ferneyhoughgeliebte]

Are you sure you're not just (Billy the) Kidding me

Bet you a (Red) Pony he's not!

[teamsaint]

I think that the Minster lives in the hope of having a new team of bellringers by Easter!

Way back when, my parents moved to to a house in a churchyard somewhere in Wiltshire. Nice place, right next to the church.
Anyway, first Saturday in the new house,I was just setting off for the station to catch the train to So'ton for the game ,when the bell ringing started .Well, it was in a churchyard, so a bit of campanology was to be expected, probably a bit of practice, or a weddng ? So, all the more reason to head off for the 12.09 and see my heroes take on Luton.
Home ,flushed with 3 points at about 6.30 , and the bells had started up again. Or so I thought, until ma and pa TS communicated (by sign language I think) that what was going on had turned out to be a full (?)peal,on one of Wiltshires finest sets of bells, and that the ringing had been more or less continuous.

They planned their saturdays more carefully after that.

Sorry,off topic.

[Beef Oven!]

Listened to this on Apple Music streaming last night and first thing this morning. Really taken by it. New to me, only come across her when mugging up a bit on Carl Ruggles while I was downloading a set of his (almost) complete music from Qobuz. Anyway, She’s kept the Ruggles off my turntable until further notice! I think I will buy the download of this music so I have it as part of my collection, always available.

"(July 3, 1901 – November 18, 1953), born Ruth Porter Crawford, was an American modernist composer active primarily during the 1920s and 1930s and an American folk music specialist from the late 1930s until her death. She was a prominent member of a group of American composers known as the "ultramoderns," and her music influenced later composers including Elliott Carter (Shreffler 1994)." Wikipedia

I could pick out the amazing string quartet, the songs and the Music For Small Orchestra (1926), but it’s all top-flight music and I’ve only listened twice-through and I’m sure other works will click into focus just as well. Excellent playing from The Schoenberg Ensemble and Oliver Knussen, as you'd expect.