Comparative Review
http://www.musicweb-international.com/classrev/2004/Nov04/Hanson_conducts.htm
It’s good to welcome
back this assemblage of Hanson’s Eastman-Rochester
recordings made for Mercury. The collection
consists of five well-filled discs with
names great and small, though the album’s
title can be taken with a grain or two
of salt. Some of these might constitute
masterworks but not all by any means,
or even most. Hyperbole aside what is
more valuable even than the time-accredited
masterpieces here, is the collation
of lesser works by less well known composers
such as Bergsma, Kennan, McCauley, Rogers,
Phillips and Moore. This is propagandist
work to the great advantage of the listener
who will doubtless not need reminding
that the Mercury tapes sound splendid
to this day and no apology need be made
on their behalf.
The first disc is an
especially strong one. Barber’s
Capricorn Concerto was recorded
in 1959. Its occasional spiky brittleness
is offset by some neo-classical wind
frippery, not least in the Allegretto
second movement, and some crisp Stravinskyisms
ensure that the finale doesn’t dawdle.
Piston’s The Incredible Flutist
has received its fair share of recordings
over the years but this one with Joseph
Mariano has particular zest. Hanson
captures just the right kind of solemn
entry in the Vendors movement
and presents the orchestra’s chattering
high winds and sepulchral low brass
to fine effect in the Entrance of
the Customers. The Siciliano is
especially lovely in these hands and
adds lustre to the performance as a
whole, an entirely sympathetic one.
Griffes, one of the big What
Ifs of American music, is represented
by his Poem for Flute and
Orchestra, Mariano once more. Impressionist,
yes of course, but with sturdy bardic
calls and dancery, a male and female
opposition successfully resolved.
This disc also contains
those small pieces by Kennan, McCauley
and Bergsma. Kennan’s Three
Pieces for Orchestra certainly waste
no time in getting confident; this is
bold and colourful occasional music
but any more reflective moments saved
for the central Nocturne. McCauley
has his Five Miniatures for flute
and strings - Mariano again – which
is warm in its well-orchestrated fourth
movement and flirts with a fugato in
its finale, somewhat unnecessarily,
as he obviously had the compositional
heft to stick to his guns. Bergsma,
who died in 1994, was a Hanson pupil
and contributes a ballet suite, which
has its colour and pantomimic moments
very much on show, and with some heady
percussion in the Sinister Dance.
You won’t go far wrong
with Hanson’s Ives recordings,
a brace of which give us the heart of
the second disc. Three Places
is evocative and the Symphony recording
still registers with powerful immediacy
even after nearly fifty years. Detached
from this set it would make for a solid
recommendation even when racked up against
the competition. Schuman’s New
England Triptych is notable for
the clarity of the wind playing and
for the percussion, with the beneficent
wind choirs in When Jesus Wept
being of especial beauty. The hymnal
conclusion of the three is recorded
with magnetic immediacy – the percussion
really blaze. Mennin’s Fifth
Symphony is the most recently recorded
– May 1962 in, as always in this series
of discs, the Eastman Theatre in Rochester.
Compact and cogent the Fifth has a trenchant
evolutionary logic, not unlike Rubbra’s
– it even suggests a certain dourness
of scoring – that impresses more and
more. Mennin was a disciple of Hanson’s
and his teacher was better placed than
most to evaluate and present the symphony,
which he does with compelling clarity.
There are some Bliss-like string moments
in the Canto, rapt and evocative,
and a punchy, craggy finale full of
plausible Rubbra-esque blocks.
The third disc gives
us Morton Gould’s Spirituals
of which there are five. Gould manages
to blend gorgeous liquidity of string
lines with a pungent syntax which, for
all the searing and occasional brashness,
always roots these studies in seriousness.
Yes, there’s the easeful charm of the
Sermon and also the "pizz
and percussion" snap of A Little
Bit Of Sin but the Protest
reasserts deeper significance before
allowing the open air Jubilee
to run riot; just a touch too much cow-pokery,
perhaps. The full Fall River Legend
ballet music has recently been recorded
by Naxos but here we get the far more
familiar concert suite, cast in six
movements. The Church Social
remains a high point of Hanson’s conducting,
the Copland hues studded throughout
never thoughtlessly brought forward,
but rather adding their own layer of
influence to those of the hymnal and
the wistful abstraction Gould so richly
evokes. Barber’s Medea appropriately
carries on the ballet theme and fuses
rhythmic verve with the romantic impress
of The Young Princess, the crypto-cinematic
with the spare reflectiveness of Kantikos
Agonias.
The fourth disc is
a pleasing though undemanding one. Chadwick’s
Symphonic Sketches are
rich in late Romantic burnish, though
they do have a more than passing yen
for the salon. There’s plenty of natural
warmth in the second of four; the third,
called Hobgoblin, acts as a Scherzo.
MacDowell earns an honoured place
by virtue of his Suite, which sounds
for all the
world like sketches for an unwritten
Dvořák opera (at least the opening
movement does) – except when he sounds
like Schumann and his foresty winds.
There’s a pleasant bonus of Johann
Friedrich Peter’s little
Sinfonia in G, whose overlong presto
opening movement is fortunately capped
by some spirited and galant writing
later on.
The final disc brings
us some intriguing work from Douglas
Moore. His Pageant of P.T.
Barnum is ebullient and colourful
but also manages to encapsulate some
genuinely noble cantilever with a second
movement rich in a spiritual-like melody
akin to Sometimes I Feel Like A Motherless
Child. The warm winds and lazy string
melody of Jenny Lind is captivating
and the finale reverts to the rousing
Barnum frolics that opened the work.
This would make a grand concert piece,
were anyone inclined to bring dazzle
and vigorous warmth to their programmes.
Carpenter is represented by his
Adventures in a Perambulator, a
suitably up-to-the-minute title for
a forward-looking composer. In truth
it’s not his most striking work but
it’s admirably scored and has a waltz
really worth dancing to and also a touch
of Impressionist arabesques in the movement
called Dogs. Americana is reserved
for the finale, which is wistful and
certainly the only movement that proclaims
the nationality of the composer. To
follow we have Bernard Rogers’
Once Upon A Time, subtitled Five
Fairy Tales. These are most deftly done,
from musical box rhythmic japes, through
the stasis of The Song of Rapunzel,
taking in some puckish treble glimmers
to the final percussion driven movement,
which seems to leave us hanging in mid-air.
It’s no great surprise to learn that
he studied with Frank Bridge and Nadia
Boulanger because this is seriously
cleverly scored. And so finally we reach
Burrill Phillips, whose Selections
from McGuffey’s Reader ends the
set unpretentiously, with light-hearted
Americana and a deal of romantic warmth.
Nothing outstanding - but splendidly
performed.
The notes are rather
skimpy for a set of this size. Given
the relative obscurity of some of the
composers we should have had much more.
But the discs are well filled and the
set is available at a more than tempting
price. You can safely purchase this,
with performances as authoritative as
are Hanson’s and performed with such
relish and affection, and so well recorded
too.
Jonathan Woolf
see also review
by Rob Barnett
Eastman-Rochester Orchestra/Howard Hanson 
