The 'As You Like It' overture and Symphony no.1 replicate the programme of
one
of the New York Philharmonic's lesser-known recordings, released twenty
years
ago by New World Records (NW80374). That disc is still widely available over
the
internet - from the label itself too - and with Zubin Mehta as conductor,
the
commercial wisdom of this new Naxos release might be thought suspect.
Naxos, however, do have one or two aces up their sleeve. Firstly,
JoAnn Falletta is enthusiastic about the Symphony, whereas Mehta was
pompously dismissive. Though it would be fair to say that the Ulster
Orchestra does not quite come up to the elevated standards of the New
Yorkers, and Falletta clearly does not yet have Mehta's experience,
listeners are surely better off hearing music performed with committed
affection, rather than by musicians merely going through the motions. There
is some irony for sure in the fact that Falletta had to travel to Northern
Ireland to record music by a compatriot, but the Ulster men and women are
certainly as good as many an American orchestra.
Secondly, there is the substantial bonus of John Knowles Paine's
Symphonic Poem after Shakespeare's 'The Tempest', in only its second
recording. The Naxos blurb rather fancifully describes this as an
"adventurous and powerful Lisztian tone poem". Whilst it is a marvellously
evocative work - more upbeat than Tchaikovsky's famous interpretation, with
which it is almost contemporaneous, but just as tuneful - it is more Edward
MacDowell - or at a push, Berlioz - than Liszt. A taste of what Paine was
capable of on the darker side of things - his
Oedipus Tyrannus
Prelude - can be had on a recent EMI Classics reissue, a disc enhanced
further by MacDowell's own turbulent symphonic poem,
Lamia (see
review). These recordings were important in the
benighted 1980s, before Naxos's American Classics opened up a new world of
music.
Paine's First Symphony is lighter in character than his magnificent
Second, which, apart from being even longer, is more resolutely Germanic -
similar to the soundworld of Joachim Raff. The First is, nevertheless, an
attractive, semi-Beethovenian work - not, as is sometimes held, the first
American symphony, but arguably the first to stake a claim for American
symphonists to be taken seriously on the international stage. Paine was
without doubt a trailblazer for the likes of Howard Hanson, Walter Piston
and Paul Creston.
The final Naxos ace, at least relatively speaking, is audio quality, which
should
satisfy almost all ears. In contrast, the NWR dates from the early days of
digital,
and has some of its typical thinness. Shortly before it, Mehta and the NYP
had
recorded Paine's Second Symphony, also released on NWR (NW80350). That will,
presumably,
be the next port of call for Naxos as far as Paine is concerned - Falletta
herself
has indicated that a follow-up can be expected soon. As an American pioneer,
Paine
certainly merits the attention - his work has lain relatively neglected for
much
too long. Though he is not among the greatest composers, nor is he a merely
mediocre
one, and at least his symphonies deserve to be regularly heard. For
music-lovers
it may be a case of "no Paine, no gain".
Byzantion
Contact at artmusicreviews.co.uk
