American Music

[semloh]

I don't tell people they'll come around to something if they just give it more time - after all, I haven't. The lack of respect for differing taste in Tapiola's statement that others - me, for example- "pretend" to enjoy e.g. Roger Sessions' music - doesn't just bewilder me, it infuriates me.

Just saying.

Couldn't agree more, Eric! 

Musical taste is so diverse. My friends simply can't understand how I adore Elgar, Mahler, et al, but get equally passionate about Louis Armstrong's Hot Five, piano-accordions and Glenn Miller!  And, "how can you not like opera??" 

I think we'd all agree that it's OK to express one's dislike of certain types of music, but care has to be taken not to allow that to become, or be seen as, a judgement of those do like them. As I said in another posting, making aesthetic judgements may have some technical basis, but it so easily becomes a tool for dismissing or criticizing those with different tastes!

[chill319]

Sessions once said something to the effect (members who may know the exact quote, please correct) that he himself, unlike unsophisticated listeners, hears C Major and A Minor as being the same. This pretty much encapsulates what a lot of Sessions's music is like: plenty of trees, not much forest. Plenty of black-belt sudoku, not much poetry.

[eschiss1]

have seen several Sessions quotes but not that one (and not sure I remember one comparing himself disdainfully to the unsophisticated listener, either, but I could of course be mistaken about that. There is a book from around the middle of his life, The Musical Experience of Composer, Performer and Listener, that I found well worth reading; and a rather good biographical excerpt by Andrea Olmstead from an issue of Tempo magazine from 1978 putting together a collection of quotes and anecdotes to give a notion of the composer as a person.)

(This description seems to me to apply better to Milton Babbitt's music to me - much as I like it - not the sudoku part, but the local-eclipsing-the-global-part - than to Sessions, whose music requires just that focus on the "long line" he writes about - from the conductor (Badea gets this, Prausnitz gets this, Davies does not) especially. But if the listener can't hear this it doesn't speak poorly of the listener, either; nothing speaks to everyone. I still don't and don't expect to get a lot of composers. (Silvestrov and Gorecki- except for a few works- among them.)

[Dundonnell]

Three American uploads tonight:

Paul Creston's Symphonies No. 2(1944) and No. 3 "The Three Mysteries"(1950) both played by the National Symphony Orchestra of Washington under Howard Mitchell from long-deleted Westminster LPs and Ernst Bacon's "Ford's Theatre"(1943) played by the Vienna Symphony Orchestra under Max Schoenherr, again from a long-deleted LP.

[Dundonnell]

I have uploaded William Schuman's Symphony No.5 "Symphony for Strings" in a performance given by the Los Angeles Chamber Orchestra under Sir Neville Marriner recorded during their first overseas tour in 1974(?).

[Dundonnell]

The George Rochberg Violin Concerto just uploaded is played at a public concert by Isaac Stern, the dedicatee.

[BFerrell]

Caution here, Stern made some serious cuts to the score.

[Dundonnell]

You are, of course, quite correct. I had forgotten that the Naxos recording was of the complete, original composition before Stern excised 14 minute of music, much to Rochberg's own disgust.

I am perfectly happy to take the Stern version down if that is members' wish

[Mark Thomas]

I don't see why it should be culled, Colin, as long as there's a caveat emptor warning on it. It is a historical document of sorts.

[Latvian]

Thank you, shamokin88, for your dazzling contributions! I don't believe I've ever seen this much music by Robert Palmer in one place before!  Please, keep it coming!

[Dundonnell]

Bernard Rogers too

There's another American composer who has totally disappeared-five unrecorded symphonies, cantatas, operas-and now just a passing footnote

[eschiss1]

Re Rogers, ages ago I put together this very incomplete list...
here...

About Julia Smith, can't seem to find out anything about the conductor, even slightly changing the spelling of the name. Lee Schaend? ... Probably not looking in the right places though. Anyone know?

[semloh]

Colin, thank you for the two Previn concertos.    I recall that guitar concerto LP very well - I think I once had a copy, but I've never heard the cello concerto before.

I always find "Mr Preview" enigmatic - it's difficult to reconcile all his different facets (quite apart from that famous TV appearance! - which, for non-UK members, involved Previn in a TV comedy sketch in which he is called Mr Preview, and conducts a performance of a piano concerto - Grieg I think - which turns out to be a cacophony and never gets beyond the first few bars. When he challenges the pianist, reminding him that he claimed he could play the concerto, the pianist says that he can play all the notes "but not necessarily in the right order"!)   

Then there's his jazz piano and combo material - which I rather like, his wonderful performances as conductor - Prokofiev, VW, Walton, etc - and his performances as soloist in some of the great concertos. I still cherish his Gershwin concerto. Then there's his personal life!!  Marriages galore, including four years to Ms Mutter. And, of course, that tantalizing snippet that he is a distant relative of Mahler. 

I wonder if anyone has an uploadable version of his piano concerto - I'd love to hear that!

[Dundonnell]

I have removed the Previn Guitar Concerto which was, it seems, recently reissued on cd by RCA

Thanks for that information, Eric

[semloh]

I have removed the Previn Guitar Concerto which was, it seems, recently reissued on cd by RCA

Thanks for that information, Eric

Can you please give me details of the reissue on CD - Colin or Eric?

Thanks