"American" composers, i.e. Randall Thompson, etc.
St. Aloysius Gonzaga
I recently discovered Mr Thompson..... his first and third symphonies
(those third movements!) are wonderful. Then I ran across Paul
Creston's "Gregorian". Fry's "Santa Clause Symphony" is also an ear
catcher....
Other there OTHER American composers worth goiving a listen to who
are, from my POV, greatly ignored?
MaestroDJS
it, new discoveries always await. One of the joys of recordings is that it
lets us hear music which we might not ever hear performed live.
One of my major discoveries of 2000 was the original music of Robert Russell
Bennett. He remains best known for his orchestrations and arrangements of
music by other composers: Irving Berlin, George Gershwin, Jerome Kern,
Frederick Loewe, Cole Porter, Richard Rodgers etc. Bennett was the leading
orchestrator on Broadway, and from 1920 to 1975 he contributed to more than 300
shows. However, Bennett considered orchestrations and arrangements to be
merely his day job. Outside of his purely commercial work, Bennett also
completed nearly 200 original works in many different forms. Most striking is
of course his colorful orchestration, but his music also shows considerable
invention and originality.
Every so often an unfamiliar piece of music will make me stop everything and
just listen. One such work was _Sights and Sounds_ by Robert Russell Bennett.
It is absolutely stunning, inventive and colorful, and I played it 5 times in
succession the first time I heard it. Wow. Needless to say his orchestrations
are superb, but the musical invention beneath the tone colors is also
impressive. This is a delightful work.
_Sights and Sounds_ (An Orchestral Entertainment) (1929)
I-Union Station (Vigoroso)
II-Highbrows (Andante tranquillo)
III-Lowbrows (Allegro)
IV-Electric Signs (Ben moderato)
V-Night Club (Fox Trot)
VI-Skyscraper (Adagio religioso)
VII-Speed (Presto)
The son of a bandmaster, Bennett was born in Kansas City, Missouri in 1894, and
was primarily a home-schooled musician. He also studied with Carl Busch, a
Danish composer and conductor who founded the Kansas City Symphony Orchestra.
Bennett moved to New York City in 1916 and became a copyist for the music
publisher Schirmer, and soon afterward an arranger at Harms. He married Louise
Merrill in 1919 and they had a daughter the next year.
Bennett completed his first theater orchestrations in 1920 and soon became the
leading arranger in the business. However, Bennett left for Europe in 1926 to
pursue further music studies in Paris and Berlin. Except for a few commissions
to orchestrate shows in London and New York (such as _Show Boat_ for Jermone
Kern in 1927), Bennett sought to improve his compositional skills. He studied
with Nadia Boulanger, who encouraged him to pursue his serious musical skills
while he earned his living as a commercial orchestrator.
In 1928 The RCA Victor Company offered a prize of $25,000 for "an outstanding
serious composition for orchestra." Bennett submitted 2 works: _Abraham
Lincoln: A Likeness in Symphony Form_, and _Sights and Sounds: An Orchestral
Entertainment_. Both are scored for huge orchestras, but Bennett handles the
massive forces with astonishing clarity and vividness. The judges were Leopold
Stokowski, Serge Koussevitzky, Frederick Stock, Rudolf Ganz and Olga Samaroff.
They announced not 1 but 5 winners: $5000 each for Aaron Copland (Dance
Symphony), Louis Gruenberg (Symphony), Ernest Bloch (Helvetia) and two $5000
awards for the 2 Bennett works.
After Bennett won these prizes, he entered an active career as composer. He
spent the late 1930s in Hollywood, primarily at RKO Studios. Later he was
active on network radio in New York, and his orchestration for Broadway shows
resumed. Meanwhile his original music appeared regularly as well. The 2
orchestral works on this CD are an excellent introduction to the original music
of Robert Russell Bennett.
David Stybr, Chicago, Illinois, USA
Recording in my collection:
Robert Russell Bennett (1894-1981), United States:
Abraham Lincoln: A Likeness in Symphony Form; Sights and Sounds: An Orchestral
Entertainment. Moscow Symphony Orchestra / William T. Stromberg. Naxos
8.559004 [Highly recommended]
MaestroDJS
Peter Mennin's _Symphony No. 7_ coupled with his _Piano Concerto_. This
symphony swept me away, and 25 years later I still consider it one of the
finest American symphonies ever written.
Mennin's _Symphony No. 7_, "Variation-Symphony" is in one movement of about
one-half hour, subdivided into 5 interlinked sections:
I. Adagio; expository in nature, then declamatory in style.
II. Allegro; elements of a scherzo, but dramatic in quality.
III. Andante; basically a slow movement with contrasting sections, emphasizing
duality of opening material.
IV. Moderato; cumulative variations.
V. Allegro vivace; new use of musical ideas, and final summing up.
The first bars inhabit the same world as _Concerto for Orchestra_ by Béla
Bartók, but Mennin soon moves in different directions. This is a symphony
which maintains a strong forward momentum throughout, even during sections of
apparent repose. Somewhat paradoxically, it also has a strong sense of
inevitability, but never fails to surprise with unexpected details. This
powerfully integrated score is unquestionably one of my very favorite
symphonies.
Peter Mennin was born in Erie, Pennsylvania in 1923. He studied briefly at
Oberlin Conservatory, served in the armed forces, and completed his studies at
the Eastman School of Music in 1947. Mennin was appointed Director of the
Peabody Conservatory of Music in Baltimore, Maryland in 1958. He became
President of Juilliard School of Music in New York City in 1962. In February
1983 I wrote to the composer to tell him just how much his music moved me. He
kindly sent me his autograph. The following June I was astonished to read that
he had just died at age 60. It amazes me to think that one of the last things
he read was my letter of appreciation.
Today while my wife visits friends, Mennin's _Symphony No. 7_ is on my stereo
at high volume. I don't usually close all the windows and turn up the speakers
all the way to eleven, but this is music that really deserves to be heard good
and loud, particularly in a performance as outstanding as Jean Martinon and the
Chicago Symphony Orchestra gave it on 29 November 1967.
David Stybr, Chicago, Illinois, USA
Recordings in my collection:
Peter Mennin (1923-1983), United States:
Symphony No. 5. Eastman-Rochester Orchestra / Howard Hanson. Mercury SRI
75020 (United States). + Griffes: Poem for Flute and Orchestra / Schuman:
New England Triptych.
Symphony No. 7, "Variation-Symphony". Chicago Symphony Orchestra / Jean
Martinon. Piano Concerto. John Ogdon / Royal Philharmonic Orchestra / Igor
Buketoff. Composers Recordings, Inc. CRI SD 299 (United States).
Symphony No. 7, "Variation-Symphony". Chicago Symphony Orchestra / Jean
Martinon. RCA LSC-3043 (United States). + Martinon: Symphonie No. 4,
"Altitudes".
MaestroDJS
Among the notable composers are a number who died at an early age. Franz
Schubert, Wolfgang Mozart, Felix Mendelssohn and Frédéric Chopin all died in
their 30s, leaving tantalizing hints of what they might yet have written had
they lived normal lifespans. In the United States, Charles Tomlinson Griffes
was just reaching full creative maturity when he died at age 35, but in his
short creative career he produced numerous works of lasting worth.
Griffes began modestly. Born September 17, 1884 he did not show true interest
in music until he was about 10 years old. He began to study with Mary Selena
Broughton, a colorful professor of piano at Elmira College who was originally
from New Zealand and had studied in Berlin. Griffes made such progress that in
1903 she arranged for him also to study in Germany to become a concert pianist.
He enrolled at Stern Conservatory at in Berlin, but soon became more
interested in composition than in performance. He left the conservatory in
1905 and began private lessons in compositions with Engelbert Humperdinck.
In 1907 Griffes returned to the United States as an instructor of music at the
Hackley School in Tarrytown, New York. His duties were drudgery and the pay
was small but dependable. Fortunately, he was only an hour by train from New
York City, and would go there as often as he could to try to interest
publishers and performers in his works. However, he could not interest
publishers in much of his music until Ferruccio Busoni personally intervened in
1915. Edgard Varèse supported his work and turned pages for him at a piano
run-through of a dance drama score. Serge Prokofiev appeared with him on a
program in which both composers accompanied their own songs.
Griffes's first distinctive works were heavily influenced by German
Romanticism, but he became more and more interested in French Impressionism and
Oriental music. In 1916 he achieved some measure of success with his _Roman
Sketches_ for piano, a series of 4 pieces entitled "The White Peacock",
"Nightfall", "The Fountain of the Acqua Paola", and "Clouds". These
descriptive pieces show his fine melodic and harmonic gifts and his exquisite
workmanship. His songs were noted for their sensitivity and effective
accompaniments, and he broke new harmonic ground in his _Piano Sonata_ of 1918.
His orchestral music also began to attract attention. His _Poem for Flute and
Orchestra_ and _The Pleasure Dome of Kubla Khan_ were enthusiastically received
and led to a number of commissions. However, he expended his last energies
copying the orchestral parts himself for lack of money. He collapsed within a
few months of his first successes and died of empyema on April 8, 1920.
Despite his short career, his importance in the development of American music
cannot be overstressed. Virgil Thomson wrote: "Griffes's music is first-class
all through and can be played anywhere. His death at 35 seems somehow unfair."
Personal notes:
Every so often I hear a new work of music which makes me sit up and take
notice. One of these was _The Pleasure Dome of Kubla Khan_ by Griffes, which I
first heard on the radio performed by Seiji Ozawa and the Boston Symphony
Orchestra. Its exotic harmonies and tone colors immediately caught my
attention, and the work has an underlying logic and momentum which are
exquisite. It still sounds as fresh as the first time I heard it 20 years ago.
In September 1984 while we lived in Maryland, the Library of Congress presented
a concert of songs and piano works to mark the 100th anniversary of Griffes'
birth. Pianist James Tocco and soprano Phyllis Bryn-Julson presented a
splendid program. Luckily for me, the concert was later broadcast and I
audiotaped it too, so I still have a permanent record of that memorable
evening.
During a business trip to White Plains, New York, I visited the Hackley School
in Tarrytown. Atop a hill overlooking the Hudson River, I personally visited
the majestic stone buildings where Griffes taught by day and composed by night.
David Stybr, Chicago, Illinois, USA
Recordings in my collection:
Charles Tomlinson Griffes (1884-1920), United States:
Collected Piano Music. 4 Roman Sketches; 3 Préludes; Fantasy Pieces; De
Profundis; Sonata; 3 Tone-Pictures. Denver Oldham. New World Records NW
310/311 (2 LPs) (United States).
Collected Songs. 3 Poems of Fiona Macleod; Five Poems of Ancient China and
Japan; Four Impressions; etc. Faith Esham, Soprano; Irene Gubrud, Soprano;
Jan Opalach, Baritone; Lucy Shelton, Soprano; Margo Garrett, Jeffrey Goldberg,
Thomas Muraco, Piano. Musical Heritage Society MHS 824678M (2 LPs) (United
States).
The Pleasure Dome of Kubla Khan; The White Peacock; Clouds; Bacchanale.
Eastman-Rochester Orchestra / Howard Hanson. Mercury SRI 75090 (United
States). + Loeffler: Memories of my Childhood; Poem for Orchestra.
Poem for Flute and Orchestra. Joseph Mariano, Flute; Eastman-Rochester
Orchestra / Howard Hanson. Mercury SRI 75020 (United States). + Mennin:
Symphony No. 5; Schuman: New England Triptych.
3 Poems of Fiona MacLeod; 4 German Songs; 4 Impressions; Song of the Dagger;
The Pleasure Dome of Kubla Khan; 3 Tone Pictures. Phyllis Bryn-Julson,
Soprano; Sherrill Milnes, Baritone; Olivia Stapp, Mezzo-Soprano; Boston
Symphony Orchestra / Seiji Ozawa. New World Records NW 273 (United States).
Lawrence Chalmers
the NY Phil.
It's on CRI 741 w/ the 7th and Piano Concerto
on cd. The3rd is a 'must' for Mennin 'fans.'
Sonarrat Citalis
news:20020421142735...@mb-mf.aol.com...
> Charles Tomlinson Griffes
<snip of an excellent expose>
There is an inexpensive Dover edition of his piano music, which includes the Op.
5, 6, and 7 suites, as well as the Sonata in D minor. My personal favorite is
the Scherzo from the Op. 6, which was orchestrated as Bacchanale.
--
-Sonarrat Citalis.
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When I play Rachmaninoff on a 1919 piano, does that qualify as a historical
performance?
St. Aloysius Gonzaga
What is Mennin's work like?