American Classics

[ferneyhoughgeliebte]

Whether he was keen on Harris I don't know but he did point out in the interview that only he - oh and Roy - had been prolific with symphonies in the Golden Age. Consequently, once I have got a handle on these two, the rest should be a doddle.

Depends whether Diamond regards a mere eight Symphonies as "prolific", but there's William Schuman who is at least as worthy of attention as Harris and Diamond, and Walter Piston also with eight (whose work I don't know very well).

[Lat-Literal]

Depends whether Diamond regards a mere eight Symphonies as "prolific", but there's William Schuman who is at least as worthy of attention as Harris and Diamond, and Walter Piston also with eight (whose work I don't know very well).

Oh no, did Piston do eight?

(I've just seen that Sessions did nine!)

Added later:

Roy Harris: Right, I like 1, 3 and 4 and bits of 7.

And these are magnificent:

6, Gettysburg, 1st Movement - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QiAB6QpqMAs

11, 1967 - an opening to Glass? - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1Dr_jg-hl0g

(via Boulanger)

I reckon the two clangs in the first few bars are a Beatles chord.

Yes - they are the start of "A Hard Day's Night" -

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fG2evigIJIc

Also, I think I know now where Marc Cohn came from - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KK5YGWS5H84

[Lat-Literal]

Schuman: I would probably place him in a "not very easy" category with Diamond not that easiness is necessarily always desired. Also agree with Beef Oven on preferring what I have heard of the earlier symphonies - ie 3 and 4. I haven't especially persisted with the others but may come back to them. I do like this and it has hardly ever been recorded:

William Schuman - Undertow - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bI0am0WSm44

Added later:

I have been exploring in greater depth the symphonies of Piston, Hanson and Creston. Is there, I wonder, anyone other than Piston who left it until the age of 43 to write a symphony and then wrote a large number? I think I would choose Piston 2 first and then 6,4 and 3 while recognising that it is 4 and 6 that are most often mentioned. They are all reasonable but I am not sure that I am very excited by most of them. It is an odd thing, this, because I started off thinking that I would much prefer Piston to Schuman but then I went back to Schuman 3 and liked it better than I had done. It seemed more coherent. What I have heard of Creston so far is ok but it may not have much depth while Hanson could have been too easily scorned. For better or worse, Hanson 2 is not especially Romantic, whatever its title, and I feel Hanson 6 is imaginative and wide-ranging. More soon!

Walter Piston - Symphony No 2 - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BSWs0MqwgpM

(Probably Schwarz/Seattle - I like the Adagio very much)

[Lat-Literal]

Some bits and pieces while I take a break from American symphonies.

A couple of nonogenarians:

Halim El-Dabh - Michael and the Dragon - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IYQWYaCQ3g8
Arthur Frackenpohl - Sonatina (Trumpet) - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xM_KZ0bDsyg

Also:

Carl Ruggles - Exaltation - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NIj74w6osTY
Morton Gould - Harvest - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pcoKsFBmk6c

And one that will surely divide opinion if nothing else does:

Chris Theofanidis - Rainbow Body - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eixilvlGSt0

[Suffolkcoastal]

Piston grows on you over time and I love his music and have almost his entire output.

You're ready then for Mennin, Rochberg, Riegger, Persichetti & Corigliano next?

[Lat-Literal]

Piston grows on you over time and I love his music and have almost his entire output.

You're ready then for Mennin, Rochberg, Riegger, Persichetti & Corigliano next?

Thank you for the encouragement.

I haven't got on to any of those yet although the first two were on my list.

Am satisfied that Piston's 2, 6 and 4 are better than ok although I have dipped in to his other music too and don't think he will ever be one of "my" composers. Instinctively, I am more for Harris. I also think there is enough of the Ivesian in Ruggles to make him interesting. And I have revisited Diamond briefly. I don't mind Diamond's 4 and can comprehend his 2 but again he is not really for me. I also listened to "Rounds" which underpinned that point. I will go back to Schuman briefly soon and there is more to hear of Hanson.

Beyond the main five or six American composers (Copland etc), it will probably come as absolutely no surprise that I like the less challenging Fry (Niagara Symphony seems before it's time), Still, Gottschalk (who was ground breaking), MacDowell, Farwell, Gould, Chasins and especially the impressionist Griffes. I've also spent a fair amount of time with Gardner Read, Deems Taylor, Porter, Harl McDonald, La Forge, Grofe and Rorem but none of that latter group has ever seemed more than a temporary, pleasant enough, diversion.

I like Rzewski. I've been been enjoying what I have heard of Daugherty, Rosenboom, Ashley, Bennary, El-Dabh, Loeb and Palestine. I've dipped into Hailstork. There's also Babbitt, Sessions, Harrison, Zwilich and others to consider more than I have done. Plus, of course, there have been stop off points at Ellington, Artie Shaw, Previn, Pinkham and Whitacre!

[Suffolkcoastal]

I strongly dislike Rzewski, Daugherty & Rosner. Ruggles output is fascinating but small (can nearly fit on one CD). Rouse & Harbison however are well worth exploring. Of the Romantic period Paine & Chadwick stand out both have a distinctive style. Outside of the Symphonies Piston's finest works are the two Violin Concertos, the Piano Quintet, Flute Quintet and the 3rd & 4th String Quartets. I have all the Diamond symphonies except the complete 11th & think him a very fine symphonist he also composed for me one of the best String Quartet cycles of the 20th century. The 3rd Quartet is IMO a masterpiece.

[Lat-Literal]

I strongly dislike Rzewski, Daugherty & Rosner. Ruggles output is fascinating but small (can nearly fit on one CD). Rouse & Harbison however are well worth exploring. Of the Romantic period Paine & Chadwick stand out both have a distinctive style.

Thanks.

In two sentences, you have managed to find five names that were not on my list, three of whom I don't know at all.

Maybe it was premature of me yesterday to have been looking at Belgium and the Netherlands.

[Bryn]

I strongly dislike Rzewski, Daugherty & Rosner. Ruggles output is fascinating but small (can nearly fit on one CD). Rouse & Harbison however are well worth exploring. Of the Romantic period Paine & Chadwick stand out both have a distinctive style. Outside of the Symphonies Piston's finest works are the two Violin Concertos, the Piano Quintet, Flute Quintet and the 3rd & 4th String Quartets. I have all the Diamond symphonies except the complete 11th & think him a very fine symphonist he also composed for me one of the best String Quartet cycles of the 20th century. The 3rd Quartet is IMO a masterpiece.

Fred Rzewski is a fine chap. A bit a irascible at times perhaps, but a fine pianist and composer. What's not to like about him? The complete Ruggles published oeuvre may be found on a pair of CDs on the Other Minds label. Unfortunately, the 'buy it' link there does not work. Might be worth contacting the though. The CDs are of recordings licenced from Sony. There are a few other items by him to be found on a New Worlds CD. Unlike Rzewski, there was much not to like about the bigoted Ruggles, a racist and homophobe. He wrote some fine music though.

[Pulcinella]

I have the Ruggles 2CD set mentioned here (think you might have been the guy who alerted me to it, Bryn; I think I got it from a seller on Amazon US) and the DG MTT version of Sun-treader on the CD in Beefy's original posting that launched this thread.
The 2CD set claims it's complete, but it cannot be, given the 'other' music that's on the New World CD; any thoughts/comments on the music that's on that disc, Bryn?

Here's a link to the 2CD set on amazon.com; deep pockets required:

https://www.amazon.com/Ruggles-Complete-Music-Carl/dp/B007C7FFJA

[Lat-Literal]

Thank you both kindly. Sadly, the price of that compact disc definitely rules it out for me - and if I am ever to buy Ruggles, I'd want Sun-Treader and Exaltation at the very least.

I didn't know anything about his personality and/or politics. Those are in the area of questions that arise in music all the time. I am broadly of the centre left with a bit of what used to be called One Nation - no actually these days I'm really post-political - but I have always enjoyed music by people who are very evidently of the unequivocal left, not least in regard historically to civil rights. For a long while, I completely ruled out Wagner, not wholly on musical grounds. Alfano is tricky. I have looked in detail at where individuals in the Indianist Movement were personally positioned. And I nearly fell off my seat in a car yesterday in which the radio was tuned to R2. Someway into the Gambaccini programme - the one with charts from earlier years - there was a trailer featuring Richard Littlejohn who will be presenting a show on his favourite protest songs. I thought at first I had misheard.

I believe I have concluded that in many instances a blind eye has to be turned on somewhat dubious views and consequently that any music should be judged on its own merits. That isn't to say that I am about to start listening to Skrewdriver (the version of it after Mark Radcliffe was a member and probably the version of it during and before). Nor would I be choosing to listen to any current classical composer who went out of his/her way to suggest that Hitler was wildly misunderstood. Longer term history enables some room for manoeuvre. Different attitudes, some naivety and probably in the case of Alfano and people like him pressures by the state to produce what it considered was right for "its" people!

[Bryn]

QOBUZ has lossless downloads of both the Complete Ruggles and The Uncovered Ruggles, and various other downloads of albums which include his compositions, at reasonable cost. Just search for "Carl Ruggles" on their site. The Complete Ruggles includes a digital download of the excellent booklet. The Uncovered Ruggles does not, but the description on the QOBUZ set is useful.

[Lat-Literal]

QOBUZ has lossless downloads of both the Complete Ruggles and The Uncovered Ruggles, and various other downloads of albums which include his compositions, at reasonable cost. Just search for "Carl Ruggles" on their site. The Complete Ruggles includes a digital download of the excellent booklet. The Uncovered Ruggles does not, but the description on the QOBUZ set is useful.

Thanks Bryn. I do have a Spotify subscription and have checked. Both are on there. But - and here is an embarrassing thing - only CDs in the living room can be a combination of poor man's art and a statement of "this is who I am". It's really quite sad to tell the truth. Hardly anyone ventures in here and when they do there is no comprehension of this point or any apparent wish to comprehend it. However, for my own purposes, it is marginally more significant than the rest of what constitutes my life -and I fear it always has been.

[richardfinegold]

Piston grows on you over time and I love his music and have almost his entire output.

You're ready then for Mennin, Rochberg, Riegger, Persichetti & Corigliano next?

Piston is a particular favorite of mine. The 6th Symphony has been under represented on recordings. Schwarz and the Seattle SO apparently hadn't recorded it before their rupture. There was a Mercury recording by Hanson that afaik was never transferred to CD; the one lp that I was able to find was unplayable. That left a version played by the Harvard-Radcliffe Orchestra as the only choice.
Recently two other choices have become known to me. One is offered by Pristine Audio, Serge Koussevitsky leading the Boston SO in one of the first live performances. I listened to an excerpt on the Pristine site; it sounds listenable, certainly better than the aforementioned lp. Last week, however, while checking the Piston offerings in ClassicsOnline, I discovered an album of Charles Munch and the BSO pairing it with Martinu /6, in Stereo. The two works have a lot in common, and if listening casually it may be difficult to tell which is which. Piston and Martinu, despite their American and Bohemian, origins, respectively, both Composed in French Modernist vein.

[Pulcinella]

Piston is a particular favorite of mine. The 6th Symphony has been under represented on recordings. Schwarz and the Seattle SO apparently hadn't recorded it before their rupture. There was a Mercury recording by Hanson that afaik was never transferred to CD; the one lp that I was able to find was unplayable. That left a version played by the Harvard-Radcliffe Orchestra as the only choice.
Recently two other choices have become known to me. One is offered by Pristine Audio, Serge Koussevitsky leading the Boston SO in one of the first live performances. I listened to an excerpt on the Pristine site; it sounds listenable, certainly better than the aforementioned lp. Last week, however, while checking the Piston offerings in ClassicsOnline, I discovered an album of Charles Munch and the BSO pairing it with Martinu /6, in Stereo. The two works have a lot in common, and if listening casually it may be difficult to tell which is which. Piston and Martinu, despite their American and Bohemian, origins, respectively, both Composed in French Modernist vein.

Richard

I have a Delos CD, number DE3074, which has Piston 2, 6, and the Sinfonietta.
The symphonies are with the Seattle Symphony and the Sinfonetta is with the New York Chamber Symphony, all conducted by Schwarz.
The symphonies got reissued on Naxos:

http://www.prestoclassical.co.uk/r/Naxos/8559161

Not sure where the subtitle Gettysburg comes from: that's not mentioned on the Delos CD.

You can pick up a used copy of the Delos CD here, for $0.87 (plus p and p):

https://www.amazon.com/gp/offer-listing/B0000006WX/ref=tmm_acd_used_olp_sr?ie=UTF8&condition=used&qid=&sr=