John Alden Carpenter(1876-1951): a Catalogue of the Orchestral and Choral Music

[Dundonnell]

Carpenter was, as I suppose is now well-known, a businessman/composer, like Charles Ives What may be less well-known is that, as well as being a student of John Knowles Paine, Carpenter actually studied under Elgar for some time. Based in Chicago-like Sowerby- Carpenter was essentially an American romantic, nationalist composer who wrote a lot of attractive, colourful music.

He was also another composer whose habit of revising earlier compositions, often very radically, makes the cataloguer's work more taxing. Eric Gilder, for example, ascribes three symphonies to Carpenter. Whilst understandable this is not really true. Carpenter's Symphony No.1 "Sermons in Stone" of 1917 was radically revised in 1940 as a 'new' Symphony No.1. Similarly the Second Symphony of 1941-42 (itself, confusingly, a revision of his Piano Quintet) was subject to further revision in 1947.

JOHN ALDEN CARPENTER: A CATALOGUE OF THE ORCHESTRAL AND CHORAL MUSIC

1908:   Berceuse for chamber orchestra
1909:   Suite for orchestra
1913:   Song-cycle "Gitanjali" for medium voice and orchestra: 24 minutes
1914/41:"Adventures in a Perambulator" for orchestra: 26 minutes    +  (Mercury and Naxos cds)
1915/47:Piano Concertino: 26 minutes    +  (CRI cd)
1917/40: Symphony No.1 ""Sermons in Stone"): 19 minutes    +  (Naxos cd)
1918/40:Ballet "Birthday of the Infanta": 28 minutes
1921/40:Ballet "Krazy Kat"    +  (New World cd)
1925:   Ballet "Skyscrapers"   +  (EMI and Albany cds)
1931-31:"Patterns" for Piano and Orchestra: 18 minutes
1932:   "Song of Faith" for narrator, chorus and orchestra: 12 minutes   1933/44:Symphonic Poem "Sea Drift": 16 minutes    + (Bridge, Decca and New World cds)
1935:   "Danza" for orchestra: 5 minutes
1936:   Violin Concerto: 20 minutes
1938:   Serenade for orchestra: 10 minutes
1940:   "War Lullaby" for orchestra: 4 minutes
1941:   "A Song for Illinois" for orchestra(part of the collaborative "Variations on anAmerican Folk Song")
             "Song of Freedom" for orchestra and optional chorus
1941-42/
1947:   Symphony No.2: 19 minutes     +  (Naxos cd)
1942:   "The Anxious Bugler" for orchestra: 5 minutes
1943:   Dance Suite for orchestra (includes 1935 "Danza"): 15 minutes
             "Blue Gal" for mezzo-soprano and orchestra: 5 minutes
1945:   Symphonic Suite "The Seven Ages"
1948:   "Carmel Concerto" for orchestra

and          "Water Colors: Four Chinese Tone Poems" for mezzo-soprano and small orchestra: 10 minutes     +  (Bridge cd)