Comparison Recordings:
Copland works only: Lane, Atlanta SO
Telarc CD 80078
Fanfare: Mitchell, Washington D.C. National
SO. Westminster monophonic LP XWN 18284
Symphonic Metamorphosis, Hindemith,
BPO. DG [ADD] 427 407-2
Symphonic Metamorphosis, Kubelik, CSO.
[1953 mono ADD] Mercury Living Presence
289 434 397-2
Symphonic Metamorphosis, Ormandy, Philadelphia
SO. Sony [ADD] CDM 65175
Recently I commented
on the difference in quality* between
Copland’s orchestral music and his chamber
music. Such a range is not unusual in
composers’ overall catalogues as works
written for different purposes, for
different audiences, call for different
approaches and different degrees of
creative involvement. There is likewise
a noticeable gulf in quality between
the orchestral Grieg and the chamber
Grieg. Hardly anybody remembers that
Wagner wrote a symphony and a piano
sonata.
In the 1950s Copland’s
brief Fanfare for the Common Man
was the hi-fi demonstration piece extraordinaire,
especially in the Westminster recording
with Mitchell and the Washington DC
National Symphony Orchestra. The expansion
of the fanfare into the final movement
of the Third Symphony is surprisingly
successful, although currently available
recordings of the work do not do it
justice. We languish in want of a reissue
of the Dorati/Minneapolis SO Mercury
Living Presence monophonic recording,
MG 50018.
The annotator remarks
on Copland’s "1930’s...leftist"
sympathies for ordinary people, sympathies
which obviously find no resonance in
the twenty-first century corporate-ethic
USA. Maybe again some day.
Rodeo [Ro-DAY-o] in
Latin American Spanish means roughly
"fooling around" and has been
Americanised [ROAD-ee-oh] to refer to
a small town festival where young men
compete for prizes as they demonstrate
their skills in horsemanship and the
practical arts of managing herds of
grazing range cattle. Collateral celebrations
include lots of drinking, dancing, and
brawling. I’ve been to real rodeos**
whereas Copland, city born and bred,
was writing to the popular image of
the rodeo and never actually saw one.
But perhaps for that very reason he
captured the legendary spirit very closely.
Appalachian Spring
won the Pulitzer Prize for music in
1945 and is widely regarded as a masterpiece.
These recordings by Louis Lane are everything
one could want in terms of brilliant
sound and energetic, yet thoughtful
performance. The intriguing cross-rhythms
of Rodeo are especially well
delineated, as are the moments of atmospheric
repose and nostalgia in both works.
I confess I actually enjoyed them.
In the case of Hindemith,
his works for various combinations of
instruments are of remarkably even quality.
The recent recording of the once excoriated
opera Die Harmonie der Welt shows
us that it is in fact the crowning masterpiece
of his career. The work on this disk,
his most popular orchestral work, was
written for the purpose of being a popular
orchestral work and in it he succeeded
brilliantly. It also serves as an entertaining
demonstration of his musical aesthetic
and helps a new listener come to appreciate
his other works as well. In the outer
movements there is very little actual
composition, just re-orchestration of
the originals — or perhaps re-conception
for the orchestra is a better term.
But the second movement is a thoroughly
original tone poem based on Weber’s
music for Turandot, probably
an allegory of World War II where the
Nazis, represented by the Turandot theme,
gradually grow in awesome power to be
blown away by the American Army, symbolised
by the fugal jazz trumpets following
a big cymbal crash. In August of 1943,
this hadn’t actually happened yet, but
there seemed little doubt, and a great
deal of hope, that it would soon. Whether
the bell cadence is really a satire
on the one in Parsifal remains
conjectural, but only goes to show the
delightful humour and complexity of
the work (there may even be a whiff
of Shostakovich’s Leningrad Symphony),
a sterling demonstration of orchestral
virtuosity and recording. All concerned
here perform brilliantly, even in comparison
with classic recordings by the CSO and
Philadelphia SO. Here there is nothing
of the preacher in Shaw’s manner, in
this work he is shaking his butt and
having a great time.
Hindemith’s own recording,
in dated but very clear sound, is also
excellent and well worth hearing.
The sound on the CD
tracks is very good, even compared to
the SACD tracks; if you have the earlier
CD release of these Copland recordings,
you will notice a significant improvement
with this disk in your CD player. The
Hindemith recording is new to CD.
*And committed an embarrassing
gaffe. It’s all in print.
**The rodeo in Riggins,
Idaho, is the season opener, always
the first weekend in May. Make your
motel reservations at least one year
in advance.
Paul Shoemaker
Atlanta Symphony Orchestra/Robert Shaw 
TELARC
SACD 60648 [64.38] 
