Creston (1906-85), who was almost entirely self-taught and did not become a full-time composer until 1932, somehow was able to gain notice in a relatively short time. An early advocate was fellow composer Henry Cowell. Soon his music was being programmed by the biggest batons of the day - Toscanini, Ormandy, Stokowski - as well as the lesser known Howard Mitchell, music director of Washington, D.C.'s National Symphony Orchestra.
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| Paul Creston |
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| Howard Mitchell |
Creston's Symphony No. 2 dates from 1944 and the third symphony from 1950. Both are strong, characteristic works that alternate lyrical passages that may bring to mind Howard Hanson's Symphony No. 2, with more forceful music which betrays a love for the early Stravinsky. The third symphony bears the title Three Mysteries, with the movements named "The Nativity," "The Crucifixion" and "The Resurrection." The music is not programmatic, however. For whatever reason, the title is mentioned nowhere on the record.
The recordings, made in the Holton-Arms School Auditorium in Washington, date from several days in December 1953, when the orchestra also recorded music by Copland, Shostakovich and Brahms (the violin concerto with Julian Olevsky). Westminster did not engage Mitchell again, but he was able to tape two albums for RCA Victor in 1957 - more Shostakovich and works by Morton Gould. In 1960 he backed Jaime Laredo in two concertos and embarked on a series of educational records, also for RCA.
I have had this particular record for at least 40 years. I remember buying it in an extremely hot antique store, and being excited to get it. Back then, very few records of 20th century American music were available. My excitement turned to disappointment, however, when I played the disc. It was riddled with pops and thumps that neither Creston nor Mitchell intended. These days most of the superfluous noise can be eradicated via software, with the remainder done by hand. As a result, Westminster's very good sonics now come through unimpaired.
The download includes a PDF of the August 1956 edition of High Fidelity magazine, which contains an article on LP recordings of American music, including Creston.
Link (Apple lossless):
ReplyDeletehttps://mega.nz/#!edlF1bLD!OeBA3QVqHVB7HnycKjDSurK9QP526TB2QQhW0lIfIAo
Hmm, for the first time I've followed a link to mega.nz, Malwarebytes gave me a dire warning.
ReplyDeleteSo I decided to wait awhile and now mega.nz has a "Invalid Decryption Key" screen.
Probably best to let this situation resolve, much as I would like to hear the Creston scores right now.
mega.nz is full of screen redirects that apparently are not stoppable by popup blockers or other tools that I can find. Sometimes the links that appear are very scary in content (pseudo machine lockup messages) that can only be gotten rid of by emptying browsing history and cookies
Delete.
Thanks for the info. (I am not among the most technologically knowledgeable, to put it mildly.)
DeleteCharlot - The link seems OK from this end, but let me upload it to Mediafire for you.
ReplyDeleteAlternative link:
ReplyDeletehttps://www.mediafire.com/file/m2yojh6zxzngdqs/Creston_-_Symphonies_2%2C_3_%28Mitchell%29.zip/file
Thanks. That will satisfy my Creston jones.
DeleteIncidentally, just as an experiment, I tried downloading a file via another website from mega.nz and got a similar warning.
It may or may not be an actual problem but I tend to err on the side of caution, not to say of outright paranoia.
The form of the symphony has been developed by many American composers during XX° century and in various styles (Ives, Diamond, W.Schuman, Harris, Piston, Hanson, Copland, Sessions...to name a few). This Creston LP is quite revealing of that period. Many thanks Buster for this rare LP !
ReplyDeleteBuster, can't thank you enough for this rare recording!
ReplyDeleteHad to listen right away. Beautiful music and playing. I never have run across this Westminster recording before and I am a fan of their issues.
ReplyDeleteSo exciting to have it now so expertly transferred.
Thanks again.
You are very welcome, folks!
ReplyDeleteThanks so much for the compliment, Joe - glad you are enjoying it.
I too found a copy of this LP and held onto it as it was the only recording of these pieces I had ever seen. Nice to finally be able to retire the LP back to the used bins somewhere.
ReplyDeleteHaving now heard this recording, I have to say that Mitchell was a better conductor, at least on this occasion, than his general reputation suggests and the orchestra plays very well.
ReplyDeleteThe sound certainly was not a hi-fi spectacular, even in its day, but it was enough to get a good idea of these neglected symphonies of Creston (born Giuseppe Guttoveggio, I see from Wikipedia.)
There is a modern recording on Naxos with the National Symphony Orchestra... of Ukraine!
Comments - post 1 of 2:
ReplyDeleteSo much for all the dire warnings and moralizing posted here when I uploaded the Toscanini Bruckner 7th; I was taken to the woodshed for using Zippyshare, with Mega being the #1 recommendation (since then, the most vigorous 8H Haggis denouncer has HIMSELF resumed using Zippyshare, which he said earlier was a horrible contaminant.) Let me state that ALL such monetized file sharing outfits are to be suspected, as a matter of course, of occasionally succumbing to unscrupulous ads. Modern OS's will not automatically DL anything to your machine that you DO NOT AUTHORIZE EXPLICITLY. So all you get is a ridiculous ad aimed at total novices who know NOTHING about using computers properly and safely. These ads cannot wreck your machine without YOU AUTHORIZING THEM TO DO SO by ignoring the OS's warning messages. In the old days, they could embed commands into images, PDFs, and put in links that instead of giving you the file, would automatically start a program to ruin your machine. Basically after Win 7, this has been eradicated. So all they can do is scare you into DOING SOMETHING PROACTIVELY to install their malware. If you just immediately close the webpage, all will be well. The worst that can happen will be that you'll get a tracking cookie; you can excise it by installing a cookie manager in your browser (some are now so equipped anyway.) Ad-Block Plus will eliminate nearly all these ads, as they're being rapidly blacklisted. The worst of them also start an audio file that plays a verbal "warning that you are infected" which is a LIE and is crafted to get ignorant, uninformed people to click links to their malware site. Ignore, ignore, ignore!
The Brave browser for Windows admirably builds in a heavy duty blocker and you can also subscribe to various blacklists that are kept up to date on a daily basis.
Now, according to most interpretations of copyright law and Fair Use (USA, anyway) if you utilized ORIGINAL sourced old release materials and in this case, a Westminster LP that was pressed and sold in the early to mid 50s, you are PROBABLY not violating copyrights unless the publishers press a claim. But, the copyright on THAT exact physical artifact must be expired. By this means, the great restoring artists like Ward Marston, Mark Obert-Thorn, Seth Winner, Andrew Rose, etc., can take original ancient documents (i. e., 78 disks) and transfer them to digital and then provide the "value added" transfers to a republisher. Depending on their country of origin, they MAY have to pay some publishers' licensing fees but if the musical scores are pre-1924, with the exception of the Grand Rights of some operas, probably NOT. Thus the plethora of legal reissued third-party transfers of OLD recordings of Mozart, Handel, etc., from ORIGINAL commercially sold document ARTIFACTS. But, it's still a violation to use a modern reissued CD that has been legally sold after its publisher paid for all originators' rights. That is also rather morally questionable if you're extremely fussy and "righteous" in nature. [Continued in post 2]
Post 2 of 2:
ReplyDeleteBroadcasts are in a gray area. Usually the copyright is automatically granted to a "fixed" form, i. e., a physical RECORD in any number of mechanical media; broadcasts were given once, live, and not released subsequently as phonograph records. So, if they are sufficiently OLD, they MAY be considered public domain. However, musician's unions have jumped into the fray claiming that a re-release MUST be accompanied by union fees; the heirs and assigns of artists make their claims; the music publishers do, on and on ad infinitum.
On top of this is the nefarious fetid layer of parasites, the malware proprietors, who want to scare you into being fooled into doing SOMETHING to bypass the modern OS's prevention mechanisms. So, the venue of sharing old music is EXTRAORDINARILY COMPLICATED by these, and other, constraints. We are pretty much being driven into an intellectual ghetto in which we are "dissidents" like the old Soviet citizens with their "samizdat" underground methods; so if you WANT to do this, you will HAVE to understand something of the playing field! We do not FEEL that we're being in the slightest bit "criminal" or "immoral"; indeed, all we desire is to keep the culture from DYING COMPLETELY in the modern world. The "keepers" would rather have all of this material either in landfill, or locked permanently in a building somewhere, if they cannot get their CUT. But since they rarely bother to refurbish many of these cherished cultural artifacts, it's up to the 'dissidents'; and you must understand that to do this, you must be prepared to take some (small) risks.
8H Haggis
P. S.: You must also AVOID ever granting a file sharing site the permission to supply messages via your browser. They will ask you to authorize this; DO NOT DO SO. Chances are they will add redirection commands in the browser to change your search provider, and even alter the DNS server. Again: DO NOT DO WHAT THEY ASK OR TELL YOU TO DO. Just get the file you want and ignore every other blandishment, suggestion, request, or link.
ReplyDelete8H Haggis
There is a certain plangency to Creston that is also a characteristic of Roy Harris, William Schuman and sometimes Walter Piston. I love American music from the pre-, during and post-war periods but am ashamed to admit I missed Creston entirely. Thanks for filling in this gap in my appreciation. Neeme Jarvi recorded Creston's Second in 1995. I know Ormandy performed some of his symphonies, but I don't know if he recorded any. I can't thank you enough for helping me to discover this music.
ReplyDeleteI don't know these works Buster and am looking forward to hearing them. Thanks so much.
ReplyDeleteMany thanks, Buster - another gem! (And the Mega link was fine)
ReplyDeleteBest wishes
P
I studied composition with Paul Creston for a year. We did not have the most friendly relationship, but I have taken away several principles in notation that have served me well. He was a fan of conductors who played his music, and felt that Mitchell was an excellent conductor. If memory serves me correctly, it was Mitchell who complemented Creston by telling him that he had "smooth dissonances". I once played, as a bassoonist, a reading of the 2nd Symphony at Columbia University with Creston conducting. Jazz great Donald Byrd was playing trumpet behind me.
ReplyDeleteEric - As I mentioned above, Mitchell doesn't have a sterling reputation, but this record is nicely done. Creston being a fan of conductors who played his music makes him not unlike every other composer I have encountered. Thanks for your note!
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