John Knowles Paine: 2 CDs from Naxos

[semloh]

Look here for the recording.
http://www.gmrecordings.com/gm2027.htm
There is a score available at IMSLP.

Thanks for that. Gosh, there's a lot of unusual music in the GM catalogue. I need to win the lottery! 

[Alan Howe]

Symphony No.2 has now been announced:
http://www.mdt.co.uk/paine-orchestral-works-vol-2-joann-falletta-naxos-american-classics.html

[Mark Thomas]

For me the stand out pieces on the latest CD are the two shorter orchestral works: the Prelude to Oedipus Tyrannus and Poseidon & Amphitrite. For all that the Symphony, familiar from Mehta's old recording for New World Records, is very well crafted and receives an excellent performance from Falletta and the Ulster Orchestra, it remains a peculiarly anonymous, earth-bound work with more than a whiff of academic exercise about it. The two other works, on the contrary, have plenty of fire and passion and that's particularly true of Poseidon & Amphitrite, which is new to me. It's Paine's last orchestral work and in it he seems to have found his own individual voice: vibrant, varied and colourful orchestral textures clothing memorable melodic material, all making for a very enjoyable 12 minutes, and amply compensating for the occasional tedium of the 48 minute long Symphony.

[Alan Howe]

Symphony No.2 certainly reveals a more original composer than did Symphony No.1, with Paine definitely moving in a more Lisztian direction and away from the obviously Beethoven-inspired idiom of the earlier work. I like the nicely resonant recording (a great improvement on the very dead acoustic afforded to Mehta) and Falletta seems to keep the whole thing going, which is a good thing with this rather discursive music. Not a great work, but an uncommonly interesting one.

[sdtom]

I got mine from Naxos but there is only one CD or is the title of the thread referring to both volumes? Haven't had a chance to listen to it yet.
Tom

[Alan Howe]

The thread refers to both CDs because vol.2 was announced when vol.1 came out.

[sdtom]

thanks for confirming my suspicions
Tom

[minacciosa]

I just have not been able to produce any enthusiasm for Paine, despite my having played a chunk of it. For me, Paine was just the warm-up for much more interesting composers such as Hadley, Chadwick, Macdowell, Griffes, pretty much anyone who came later. I won''t be spending any money on these.

[Alan Howe]

No, I can't say anything by Paine really enthuses me either. But he is interesting.

[thalbergmad]

I find the two sets of variations for organ Op.3 to be completely irrisistable, especially the ones on the Austrian Hymn. The recording on the Hyperion Organ Fireworks Series was breathtaking.

Not listened to any symphonies yet.

Thal

[edurban]

The Mass in D and St. Peter are, imo, both remarkable pieces.  Gunther Schuller's rush through St. Peter, preserved on CD, hardly does justice to this devout and deeply-felt piece.  The aching chromaticism of numbers like "O God forsake me not" go for nothing.

I'm also a fan of the Spring Symphony, especially the last movement.  Victor Fell Yellin used to say that Paine had taken the old triumphant chorale ending beloved of European composers and made it a real New England hymn tune...

And don't forget the delightful little piano fugue on the baseball song "Over the fence is out, boys."

David