From the Back Room: Music by Cowell and Ward

The 20th century American composers Henry Cowell and Robert Ward have both appeared here before; in this post we have the Symphony No. 7 from the former and two short orchestral works from the latter.

This is the first post in the second tranche of music from Buster's Back Room: projects rescued by popular acclaim from my own procrastination.

Cowell and Ward were one of the clear winners in the plebiscite; I had no idea folks were still interested in these unfashionable but rewarding composers.

Henry Cowell

For Cowell (1897-1965), the seventh symphony is one of the finest works of his "mature" period, where he put his piano-busting tone clusters aside for more euphonious material.

In his High Fidelity review, Alfred Frankenstein put Cowell's evolution into context: "As Sidney Cowell observes in her jacket notes, the work 'marks the absorption into Cowell's modal style (conspicuous since 1941) of the dissonant polyphonic and harmonic techniques that first established his reputation.' Translated into more general terms, this means that the symphony exhibits a bolder, more monumental, and more personal exploration of folkloric material than was common in Cowell's earlier music; it carries on where the Third Symphony of Ives leaves off and continues the Ives tradition in the noblest vein."

Robert Ward

From Robert Ward (1917-2013), we have his Jubilation Overture and an Adagio and Allegro for Orchestra. Alfred Frankenstein commented, "The solid, horn-colored, somewhat Harris-like sonorities of Robert Ward on the other side of the record are reproduced more successfully than Cowell's open polyphony. Both pieces are very big and broad in style; they convey the epic note without pose or forcing, and they should go far toward increasing interest in the work of this extremely able composer."

Both works were written during World War II, while Ward was in the Army. The Adagio and Allegro are from 1944, and Jubilation - presumably titled in celebration of war's end - was written the following year.

William Strickland

The reviewers were not particularly happy with the performances of the Vienna Symphony under conductor William Strickland (1914-91). Alfred Frankenstein had this to say: "The thinness and lack of clarity in the sound may be due as much to the performance as to the registration; at times one feels as if Strickland were struggling with a half-rehearsed ensemble containing not more than a dozen strings."

Actually, to a degree the skinny sound is an artifact of the recording, although the Vienna Symphony does not have the tonal allure of the same city's Philharmonic. This quality of performance and recording was the norm from the continental ensembles who recorded for such labels as the American Recording Society at the time. This particular release was on the M-G-M label, which also was committed to contemporary American music. The recording was subsidized by the American Composers Alliance.

Strickland, too, was devoted to promoting American music. He was one of the founders of the Nashville Symphony, and was its conductor until 1951.

I believe these are the only recordings of the Cowell symphony and Ward's Adagio and Allegro. There is a later recording of the latter's Jubilation.

For anyone interested in these composers, Cowell's Symphony No. 4 can be found here; Ward's Symphony No. 1 is here and his Symphony No. 3 is here.

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