Schuman's Concerto on Old English Rounds

I had a request for this record, which is outside the blog's usual time frame. But I decided to post it anyway because it is such a exceptional product.

The LP contains the first, and I believe only, recording of William Schuman's Concerto on Old English Rounds. The young violist Donald McInnes commissioned the work under a Ford Foundation grant. Its premiere was in 1974 with the Boston Symphony and Michael Tilson Thomas. Leonard Bernstein heard the broadcast, through the intercession of the composer, and programmed the piece with the New York Philharmonic in April 1976. The recording was made a few days later.

Donald McInnes

McInnes recalled an after-concert conversation with Bernstein: "He said during the performance he had a dream of me playing Berlioz’s Harold en Italie, which he was conducting in New York and Paris in 1976." The violist did go on to record the Berlioz work with Bernstein and the Orchestre National de France. It too is a fine achievement.

The Bernstein-McInnes team is just right for this work, which is itself of considerable interest. McInnes is wonderfully secure soloist, and Bernstein is fully in command of the proceedings. In the liner notes, Schuman admits to being a disciple of Roy Harris in his early years, but I have always thought this work was influenced by Benjamin Britten. That may be because I purchased Andre Previn's recording of Britten's 1949 Spring Symphony at about the same time as acquiring this LP upon its release in 1978. Britten and Schuman both set archaic texts in a conservative modern idiom, although this work has a significant solo instrument, which is lacking in the Britten.

McInnes has pursued a career in academia and the West Coast film studios.

The sound from Columbia's 30th Street Studios is excellent, but the thin vinyl pressing was slightly warped, leading to some momentary image instability that shouldn't be noticeable unless you use headphones.