The Greatest Unsung American Symphony?

[Pengelli]

With respect to your granny,vandermolen. I remember what my grandad said when I asked him whether there was an afterlife,(I was only a child). His answer did nothing to cheer me up.....something about maggots and boxes. As it turned out he was wrong. He got cremated!

[albion]

With respect to your granny,vandermolen. I remember what my grandad said when I asked him whether there was an afterlife,(I was only a child). His answer did nothing to cheer me up.....something about maggots and boxes. As it turned out he was wrong. He got cremated!

Indeed, one of the most important aspects of life is the gaining (and giving) of as much experience, knowledge and pleasure (including acquainting oneself with the output of unsung composers by whatever means presents itself) as one can before the great launch into the abyss/ next world (choose option according to taste).

[Pengelli]

I'm pretty open minded myself.........I think might live long enough to receive a boxed cd set of the complete 'Cauldron of Annwn' cycle,through my letterbox and a professionally staged performance of 'The Tigers'.
Seriously,I never expected to see/hear this much! (The 'Gothic' at the Proms?!!!).

[Pengelli]

Rochberg's First is another one I keep meaning to buy. With trepidation!
Also,the Albany cd of Creston's Fourth & Violin Concerto.
  Another American composer I find very interesting is George Antheil. His symphonies are fascinating collage like assimilations of all kinds of styles and influences. Somehow they work.
I find his take on jazz far more interesting than Gershwin,who wrote marvellous tunes,but whose music I find strangely superficial (Porgy and Bess excepted).
I would particularly recommend the cpo cd of Antheil's First & Sixth symphonies. Wierd and wonderful!
I wish someone would get round to his opera's. Now,what are THEY like?

[Pengelli]

And the cpo cd of his Piano Concerto's. By the way,does anyone know what happened to his Second symphony. The cpo cycle didn't include it & neither has Naxos. The cpo notes are minute and written in gobble-de-gook,but according to Wikipedia & a comment on another message board it DOES exist.......!!!???

[petershott@btinternet.com]

I'm not an expert on Antheil (or for that matter on anything else!), but I believe the composer himself withdrew the second symphony (composed between 1931-38) and there is no published score available.

What I believe remains of this work is its third movement which becomes resurrected as a short orchestral piece called 'Archipelago', dating from 1933. (I heard it many years ago, and remember it as one of the noisiest bits of music ever I have heard - and thus aren't especially keen to hear it again!)

He was not only 'the bad boy' of music (his own words), but also threw those who compile catalogues into perplexity. There are, for example, two Symphony No. 5's. The first, subtitled 'Tragic' he wrote in 1945-46. But then reconsidered the matter and wrote a second (sometimes referred to as No. 5A) Symphony No. 5 subtitled 'Joyous'. And No. 5 hasn't got much in common with No. 5A.

To complicate things still further there are some works he called 'Symphony', but which by no stretch of the imagination are what you and I would call symphonies. There is, for example, a 'Symphony for Five Instruments' (a bizarre combination of flute, bassoon, trombone, trumpet, viola). And then there are two versions of a 'Jazz Symphony' - 1925 and 1955.

Lost? Not so much as I. Nothing in Antheil is quite what it seems, and I suspect that's one of the reasons (apart from wishing to preserve the ears) I rather gave up on him.

Peter

[Pengelli]

Thank you for your response. It seemed a bit odd that cpo and Naxos had missed that one out. By the way,any more Antheil haters here? Come on,have you're say,it's a free country!
   For those who prefer a more relaxing muse,the Koch 2cd set of Randall Thompson's Symphonies 1-3 is well worth seeking out. If you like Hanson or Creston, Thompson shares the same lush,romantic palette. Bernstein recorded the Second many years ago. (The Hyperion cd of his choral music got allot of praise,recently).
 

[petershott@btinternet.com]

Most naughty of you, Pengelli - I certainly didn't say Antheil is deserving of hate!! On the contrary, there are quite a number of his works I like (especially some of the piano sonatas and the CPO symphonies). But I just can't imagine myself packing his stuff into a crate to take to that desert island.

Someone who hasn't (I think) had a mention here is Benjamin Lees. Have you tried his symphonies? What do you make of them? I consider them real crackers, and the other music of his I've heard (various piano works, the second piano concerto) suggests the hand of a very distinguished composer. He died just a short time ago, and I hope that sad event might trigger some retrospective reminder of his work and that he won't be allowed to fade into obscurity.

Peter

[Pengelli]

Sorry,that was just tongue in cheek. I was just thinking of some of the bile you used to get on the old R3 Message Board. Robert Simpson in particular used to get some posters positively frothing with venom.
  I haven't heard Benjamin Lees,although I know of him. I shall check out some samples.
Thank you for that.
  The Antheil Piano Concerto's cd is actually one of the best places to start,for anyone who wants to try him out at his most approachable.
  I played him once to my mum and had to turn him off!

[Pengelli]

I was looking at the thread on Ries Overtures,just now,clicked on the link and lo and behold Cpo are releasing a cd of a George Antheil opera! A bit of a coincidence after my post. Release date,(not in uk), 25/1/11. It's called 'The Brother's', (1959),and it's in one act. Nothing to do with that terrible BBC2 series,incidentally!
Well I DID wonder!

[Pengelli]

Quote from above post regarding Antheil:

'I wish someone would get round to his opera's. I wonder what THEY'RE like?'

And cpo are releasing one this month!!!!
Let's have another go at this:

'I wish someone would get round to recording Havergal Brian's 'The Tiger's. (Although of course,I do know what it's like!).

[chill319]

Taking inspiration from another thread, I listened again to Korngold's Symphony. Considering all Korngold's years in Hollywood, I should think it might qualify as one of the great _American_ symphonies, as Weill's Street Scene qualifies as one of the great American operas.

[eschiss1]

If I may diverge from the thread a little, which I feel mildly constraining - if not, I apologize. I don't know if I can think of the greatest unsung American symphony, offhand. I can think of some very, very good ones that may be great, though- most of which are recorded (some only on LP - but still, a contrast with the situation with 'the greatest unsung German, French, British,...') - partially because of the Louisville Orchestra recording enterprise - for which many classical fans of a few generations before me, and mine too, are really grateful - and for other reasons... - though some are yet unrecorded too.

There's the two by Bloch's student (and Roger Sessions' friend, though mostly a tonal composer) Quincy Porter (1934, 1962, I think. No. 1 recorded in 1957, no.2 in 1964, both newly - not a reissue - together on CD in 2003 with Ian Hobson and the Sinfonia Varsovia on Albany.) (Unsung but not exactly Romantic in the sense we talk about here, though. Then again- neither are several other composers in this thread, so I shall not take that as too much of a barrier.)

There's an almost completely unknown symphony by Swiss-American composer Ludwig Bonvin (G minor, opus 67). Can't tell you if it's even good- because while it's been published (Breitkopf & Härtel, 1902) the only work of his I've even seen in score is another (op.71, at IMSLP). Canisius College, where he taught, has a lot of his manuscripts, though.  I'm intrigued, but...

John Powell (... America's third-rate Wagner? well, no, not as musically interesting, though not lacking interest. but...) wrote a symphony in A 'Virginia' that I have not yet heard but which has been recorded (hopefully, unlike the Sonata Teutonica that so interested Sorabji, uncut.)

I've heard talk in this thread of an American equivalent to Malcolm Arnold. Who would be a British equivalent to our Robert Ward (especially re his 6 symphonies)?
There's a few contributions to the thread, anyway...

-Eric, admirer of the symphonies and other music of Howard Hanson, Walter Piston, Roger Sessions, and Milton Babbitt (among others).

[jerfilm]

The Powell Symphony is available in the colonies at Amazon; also as an MP3 download for US$8.99. 
Jerry

[chill319]

Very interesting ruminations, Eric. Putting the four words "greatest," "unsung," "American," and "symphony" together in a single sentence is definitely throwing down the glove. Of course, the challenge is all in good fun.

I enjoy the sheer variety of American classical music. Historical circumstance has favored eclecticism here. Consider Colin McPhee's two symphonies, always pleasing to the ears (yes, he's Canadian, but that's "American" in my book). Follow them with Wallingford Riegger's second, a personal favorite. Creston's third, Cowell's 11th, Gail Kubik's Symphony Concertante, Bernstein's first, and for dessert the slow movement from Still's fifth. We all have our lists, often long ones.

With this in mind, turning the question sideways, as it were, let me ask, which American composer's *sequence* of symphonies seems a high achievement that also maintains the sort of internal coherence we find in sequences of symphonies by European masters?
I might agree with Alan on the achievement found in Copland's third, and I like three of Copland's four symphonies, but the four are _very_ different children. On the other end of the spectrum, the 13 symphonies of Roy Harris (of which I know only 9) seem, even with oddities like the Folksong Symphony, almost Brucknerian in the tenacity with which the composer has sought (and in my opinion found) artistic growth within well-defined limits.

So how do Hanson, Sessions, Piston, and others fare in the sequence-of-symphonies department? I'd enjoy hearing others' opinions.