Sony Masterworks, drawing on their deep reserves of recorded American
music, have moved to celebrate America’s Independence Day
(4 July 2010). The Day has been marked with five compactly presented
three-disc sets that make up their
The Music of America
series.
The composers favoured are Samuel Barber,
Leonard
Bernstein,
Aaron Copland,
Charles Ives and
John
Williams (see separate reviews). No room it seems for Crumb
or Ruggles or Carter or Hovhaness or Piston or Hanson or Schuman
or Paine or Farwell or Coerne or Macdowell … oddly enough,
Gershwin or Joplin. There are quite a few old friends and memories
among these discs and just one surprise - in the Barber set.
While the selections are very good - if pretty familiar to established
collectors and music-lovers - the presentation has its irritations.
The playing time is not candidly stated on the sleeve for each
disc by disc or even as a total. Why? It’s also a bit of
a faff getting discs out of the four-way cardboard fold. The sleeve
is not the most practical or durable of designs and tends to result
in getting finger-marks over the outer edge of the playing surface.
That said, these sets are not at all expensive (if you order them
from the US) and are a good way of gaining an introduction to
a major slice of the repertoire of each composer. The performances
have a settled authority about them and in general sound very
good indeed.
Samuel Barber
CD 1
This set has a very varied range of provenance with recordings
from 1935 to 1992.
Schippers’ superbly calculated and mercurial
School for
Scandal overture has so much more light and air about it than
on previous issues. In fact Schippers emerges from this set as
a Barber exponent
par excellence.
We then hear the first authorised issue on CD of Barber the baritone
- he came from a family of singers. It’s in his own
Dover
Beach and is replete with seventy years of frying-pan sizzle.
Barber serves up a wonderfully mournful and rounded version with
the Curtis Quartet but it is almost inevitably for Barber specialists.
Slatkin delivers a finely Symphony No. 1 in all its Sibelian ochre-rich
glory. Great 1990 recording. Do not miss out however on David
Measham's LSO version on Regis. The Tokyo Quartet's recording
of the String Quartet is very closely recorded. It is movingly
performed with sustained attention to mood even if dynamic contrast
is compromised. After hearing the
Adagio in its original
string quartet garb we get the chance to hear it in familiar orchestral
form with Bernstein drawing a touching charge from this music
which has become a symbol of a serene yet searing melancholy.
CD 2
This disc holds an old friend in the shape of the Violin Concerto
from Stern and Bernstein. I heard another historic version recently
- the one on Pristine from Koussevitsky and Ruth Posselt. It lacked
heart and let many of Barber's most poignant ideas go for little
or for far less than they are worth. Typical is the way the jagged
trumpet fanfares in the Andante pass by without due emphasis by
Koussevitsky. They have a real tragic jolt in the Stern version.
Schippers’ 1965 Essay No. 1 sounds really handsome. In fact
throughout this series the often flawed LP sound some of us may
remember from CBS and SBRG days has been largely transformed into
something more agreeable, fuller and natural.
Medea's Dance
of Vengeance from
The Cave of the Heart is superb.
This is classic being symphonically and emotionally weighty. It's
one of the highlights of a very fine collection. Schippers superbly
shapes the extravagant brass climax at 3:48 and 7:56 onwards.
Hearing this I lament that Schippers was not set loose on the
Souvenirs ballet suite which has a similarly tense and
saturated climax in the
Tango.
Horowitz's possessed recording of the Piano Sonata has never sounded
as good. The hiss has been tamed without palpable damage to the
treble.
CD 3
Knoxville is one of the greatest musical works to emerge
from the USA. It really hit home for me when I heard the then
rare Eleanor Steber recording broadcast which was by the BBC circa
1981. This is now much more easily attainable but the strings
sound more shrill than ever. I still rate highly the Australian
Molly McGurk on Regis - originally on Unicorn licensed from the
ABC. The most affecting of all is that from Dawn Upshaw on Nonesuch.
Leontyne Price and that doughty Barber champion Schippers also
make a superb fist of it with reserves of meaning found by Price
in the words. She handles the great moving apex of the child's
musing in the backyard with a rare power to touch. Her breath
control when fining away to pianissimo is glorious, glorious,
glorious. The notes are produced with miraculous steadiness. Price's
challenge is to keep that blowsy operatic flamboyance and heaviness
at bay. This she does wonderfully well. Schippers keeps the vulnerable
orchestral score under control. This was made in 1968. Fifteen
years before that Price and Barber were recorded - with a high
level of hiss - at the Library of Congress in the moving
Hermit
Songs op. 29. The most instantly affecting and witty of these
is
The Monk and His Cat. Let's leave the hiss behind with
Horne and Katz's galloping and brusque
I hear an army to
words by James Joyce. Back to Price - this time with David Garvey
- for
Nocturne. There’s something of Dover Beach
here. Horne sings
Sure On This Shining Night to words by
James Agee, the same poet who graced Barber's
Knoxville.
Back to full orchestra with Frederica Von Stade's slow melancholy
Must the winter come so soon from the opera
Vanessa
to words by Menotti. The whole work is now well served by recordings
from RCA, Naxos and Chandos. It’s from a concert performance
and comes complete with applause.
From the same Leontyne Price LP we get two extracts from the opera
Antony and Cleopatra. It really should be recorded afresh.
I am aware of the New World set but it seems to have limited
retail circulation. The two extracts given by Price and Schippers
give us an exciting insight into what this derided opera could
do if only it were allowed its wingspan and space. The nonsense
surrounding the premiere can now be relegated to irrelevance and
collateral interest. The music explodes with all the composer's
old orgasmic powers. He proves an eloquent Prospero shaken by
passions once ancient and now having youthful life.
Give Me
some music and
Give me my robe. If Walton's similar
Troilus and Cressida was similarly out of its time and
can now be received and recorded then why not this opera also.
Chandos, are you listening? Nearly 20 minutes of music in these
two extracts is full of instrumental detailing and eruptive accelerant.
It was audacious of Barber to bring out such a work in the late
1960s. Price is in spectacular yet humane voice throughout and
Schippers knows how to drawn the finest dynamic gradations from
the NPO.
We end with what is the third version of the
Adagio on
this set. There's the String Quartet from the Tokyo, Bernstein's
NYPO and finally the so-called
Agnus Dei with Richard Marlow
directing the Choir of Trinity College Cambridge. From them he
draws a white purity and altitude similar to the Allegri
Misere.
If I have the same misgivings as John Quinn over it being done
a cappella this is the finest version I have heard.
Rob Barnett
TRACKLISTING
CD 1
The School for Scandal, overture for orchestra, Op. 5 7:36
New York Philharmonic Orchestra/Thomas Schippers
Dover Beach, for baritone and string quartet, Op. 3 7:52
Samuel Barber (Baritone) Curtis String Quartet
Symphony No. 1, Op. 9 21:39
Saint Louis Symphony Orchestra/Leonard Slatkin
String Quartet in B major, Op. 11 18:31
Tokyo String Quartet
Adagio for strings (or string quartet; arr. from 2nd mvt. of String
Quartet), Op. 11 9:54
New York Philharmonic/Leonard Bernstein
CD 2
Violin Concerto, Op. 14 22:36
Isaac Stern (Violin), New York Philharmonic/Leonard Bernstein
Second Essay, for orchestra, Op. 17 10:45
New York Philharmonic/Thomas Schippers
Medea's Meditation and Dance of Vengeance (from "Medea"), Op.
23a 12:36
New York Philharmonic/Thomas Schippers
Sonata for piano, Op. 26 18:33
Vladimir Horowitz (Piano)
CD 3
Knoxville: Summer of 1915, for high voice and orchestra Op. 24
16:23
Leontyne Price (Soprano), New Philharmonia Orchestra Thomas Schippers
Hermit Songs, for voice & piano, Op. 29 16:22
Leontyne Price (Soprano), Samuel Barber (Piano)
I Hear an Army, song for voice & piano, Op. 10/3 2:28
Marilyn Horne (Mezzo), Martin Katz (Piano)
Nocturne, song for voice & piano Op. 13/4 3:28
David Garvey (Piano), Leontyne Price (Soprano))
Sure on this shining night, song for voice & piano Op. 13/3
2:38
Marilyn Horne (Mezzo), Martin Katz (Piano)
Vanessa, opera, Op. 32 - (Must the Winter Come So Soon?) 3:06
Frederica Von Stade (Mezzo), Members of the Metropolitan Opera
Orchestra Steven Blier (Piano)
Antony and Cleopatra, opera, Op. 40 - (Give Me Some Music) 8:59
(Give Me My Robe) 9:22
Performers: Leontyne Price (Soprano), New Philharmonia Orchestra
(Orchestra)Thomas Schippers
Agnus Dei, for chorus (arr. from 2nd mvt. of String Quartet),
Op. 11
Length: 9:33
Trinity College Choir, Cambridge (Choir, Chorus)
SONY 88697 702782 [202:55] 
