What you are seeing above is actually not the cover of the 10-inch LP that contained Elie Siegmeister's Ozark Set. It is the cover of the original 78 rpm album that came out in 1945, and is a much better example of cover artist Alex Steinweiss' work than the LP. It also is more evocative of the somewhat idealized version of rural
Like Aaron Copland, who was eight years older, Siegmeister was born in Brooklyn and studied in Paris Americana pieces, even though the performances by Dimitri Mitropoulos and his Minneapolis
Also included on the 10-inch LP is the overture to Lalo’s opera Le Roi d'Ys, which sounds less like Ys and more like Liszt in this performance.
NEW LINK
10 comments:
Interesting post. I've never heard Siegmeister's music. hE founded a group in NYC in the early 1930's , YOUNG COMPOSER'S GROUP which counted among its member: Aaron Copland, Bernard Herrmann, Jerome Moross, Vivian Fine, Oscar Levant, john Green, and Arthur Berger among others.
That's quite a group, indeed. Some wonderful music was being produced at that time!
This Ozark set is wonderful...what a shame that Siegmeister is largely forgotten today. This music is as good as Copland and Harris' best material and should be herd more often. Mitropoulos clearly enjoys himself here!
Thanks for these Buster. I adore Mitropoulos and will downloading ASAP. The sad thing about this great conductor is that he was very often badly recorded by Columbia at the same time other bands and leaders were getting top notch treatment. Too bad; he is certainly one of the greats. I don't have the Siegmeister in any form and look forward to discovering it. Thanks again.
Please, please. Could you fix the LINK?
Thank You
Buster, I was so pleased with this Siegmeister transfer, miles better than one that appeared on the old, long forgotten, minor lable "Nickson" (which did really crappy transfers from nearly trashed records--don't waste your precious collector's dollars on them, if you see them!) that I wanted to present you with another VERY fine performance of an extremely engaging bit of Americana by Elie Siegmeister: the "Western Suite". It's 'Copland-lite' as it were, and is replete with every conceivable cowboy-cliche that one could want! It is the last short work (under 15') in an interesting (and quite unusually programmed) Toscanini/NBC broadcast from 25 November 1945 over NBC radio. The transcription disks have high frequencies that are twice the bandwidth of network lines, so my suspicion is that they were (occasionally rather badly worn) copies derived from actual in-house RCA sources. The program shows that Toscanini was not exactly the standard-rep troglodyte that some critics have averred:
CASTELNUOVO-TEDESCO
Fairy Tale Overture
VITTORIO RIETI
Symphony No.4 "Sinfonia Tripartita"
PAUL CRESTON
Frontiers
ELIE SIEGMEISTER
Western Suite
I have included announcer Ben Grauer's interviews with Creston and Siegmeister, taken from the Don Gillis archives of the "Toscanini-The Man Behind the Legend" broadcasts of the 1960s, produced by Gillis (as had been most of the NBC Symphony broadcasts from the 1940s to 1954.)
https://www24.zippyshare.com/v/vbhXA8WU/file.html
65 MB zipped mp3s - available only for 30 days after the upload date of 8/30/18
A few comments about the program and music: the first three works demonstrate Toscanini's solidarity with the people of his Italian heritage (especially those who were enemies of Mussolini and the Italian fascists.) Creston, an American composer, had the original family name "Crestone" and his music often seems, to me, to be somewhat derivative of the post-romantic style of Busoni and Casella. The Rieti symphony at first opens with a mildly harsh series of harmonic dissonances (which must have made a hugely powerful impact in the hall, which is sadly vitiated by the sound quality and audio compression of the broadcast), but modulates quickly into a purely charming Stravinskyan neoclassicism. I find this to be a very arresting and interesting piece!
The Creston work is arch-dramatic in a manner that I personally find a bit pretentious and empty; it's not as 'deep' as his more familiar symphonies 2 and 3 (old time collectors will know these from the Westminster LP by Howard Mitchell; younger CD fanciers from the Schwarz issue on Delos.)
Finally, the Siegmeister is positively joyous and hair-raising, a raucous, rustic celebration. This section of the broadcast does have the most vivid sound, befitting the colorful orchestration and profusion of percussion. Think 'Grand Canyon meets Hopalong Cassidy'. This was definitely 'music of its time' and today seems quaint, almost embarrassing in its naivete (while authentic Copland Americana still resonates with a sophisticated audience.)
Surprisingly, none other than Maurice Abravanel (not especially noted for any sort of vulgarity or show-bizzy extroversion) has turned out a modern stereo performance that darned-near matches Toscanini's, originally on a Vox LP that has gone thru numerous digital incarnations: I recommend that if you'd like to avoid 1945 sonic impairments.
It would seem to me that Siegmeister's rubust treatment of the gestalt of the self-reliant American cowboy was seriously at conflict with what I might call his "garment district Gramscian politics"; how he reconciled the two diametric poles is a question I can't answer.
8H Haggis
8H - How interesting. It seems to me that I have an Abravanel recording of the Siegmeister piece. Looking forward to hearing the Toscanini version.
8H - I missed your comment about the Abravanel - I agree it is a good performance. Also, I have that Creston LP. I remember distinctly finding it in a very hot antique shop in the 70s. I was very pleased to get it, but the pressing was so noisy that it was hard to listen to. I am sure I could freshen it up today, but it may not be worth the time, frankly.
I tried to download this and was instead transferred from zippyshare to another site that Firefox immediately blocked.
There may be a problem with the link.
When you first click on the Download Now button, Zippyshare will usually load a nuisance tab or window offering some questionable product. Just close that tab or window and try the download button again.
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