Igor STRAVINSKY (1882-1971)
Symphony in C (1958) [38:58]
Howard HANSON (1896-1981)
Symphony No. 4 Requiem [29:50]
Roy HARRIS (1898-1979)
Symphony No. 7 [15:08]
Paul HINDEMITH (1895-1963)
Symphony in E flat (1940) [20:20]
Karl Amadeus HARTMANN (1905-1963)
Symphony No. 2 Adagio [20:08]
Alan HOVHANESS (1911-2000)
Symphony No. 3 Op. 148 (1955) [18:49]
NBC Symphony Orchestra; Symphony of the Air; WDR Sinfonieorchester
Köln; Saint Louis Symphony Orchestra/Leopold Stokowski
rec. NBC, Carnegie Hall. St Louis, 1943-56. mono ADD
GUILD GHCD 2379/80 [2CDs: 68:48 + 74:35]
This collection of radio transcriptions is for Stokowskians or fans of the
music of these composers. The mono sound is very respectable, clean and by
no means primitive but it cannot hope to match modern commercial recordings
and there is some distortion at times.
The pulsating acidic Stravinsky symphony suffers some roughness but
is in miraculous sound for 1943. The grunt at the start of the Allegretto
is startlingly strong and secure. The Hanson dates from 1944 and has
the slow-swelling stubborn romanticism typical of this fine composer. That
said it is without the overwhelmingly fresh invention of the first two symphonies
and the Sixth. This is however a most atmospheric interpretation and although
again suffering some sound fragility is very impressive. Stokowski's Dies
Irae is driven on with a flaming sjambok - picking up on the Stravinskian
echoes. The Harris Seventh Symphony is well worth your attention and
study time. Stokowski paces it with slow blooming evolution. This is a splendid
performance and can be placed alongside the CBS mono of Ormandy conducting
the Philadelphia (now on Albany). For me this symphony, heard in its single
movement first version, stands above even the Sibelian First (1933) and the
ubiquitous Third. Glorious! The second disc launches with Hindemith's
Symphony in E flat written while he was a refugee from Nazi Germany in 1939.
He had been a professor at Yale for two years at the time he wrote this and
had wholeheartedly adopted his new homeland. This NBC recording is from
1943. The recording is in very good stead indeed whether in exhausting rhetoric
or in rolling grand tragedy.
The Hartmann Adagio Symphony (No. 2) is in a single impressive
and anxiety-disseminating arch of 20 minutes. Here is one of Henze's exemplars.
This is an avant-garde work yet one concerned with the long line rather than
a dazzle of mosaic shards and incidents.
Stokowski championed Hovhaness's music for much of his active concert
life. Although it was Reiner and the Chicagoans who made the premiere recording
of Symphony No. 2 Mysterious Mountain it was Stokowski and the Houston
Orchestra who commissioned and premiered it in 1955. Previously he had premiered
Hovhaness's First Symphony The Exile with the NBC SO in 1942 - to be
heard on GHCD2347
with firsts by Serebrier and Milhaud. The Third Symphony has not otherwise
been recorded. Its style, across three movements and almost 26 minutes, is
rhythmically incisive, Armenian national, groaningly majestic and mysterious.
Sample this work in the Andante. It then flares with muscularity in
the Allegro Molto finale. Flames and seismic impacts alternate with
delicate dances and finely limned unison writing for the violin benches. To
think that even now we lack recordings of many of his sixty-seven symphonies!
This is very attractive music.
Some of these performances are preceded by radio announcements and followed
by applause from studio or hall audiences and radio commentator 'tailing'.
Each of these live historic recordings brims with ardent power and fantasy.
Rob Barnett
Live historic recordings brimming with ardent power and fantasy.