American Music with Foldes and Winograd

Today's subject - as it often is around here - is mid-century American music. The sources are two albums that are not often seen. The first is an anthology of piano works by eight composers performed by an artist whom I did not associate with this repertoire - Andor Foldes. The second is the first recording of Aaron Copland's Music for Movies, coupled with a suite derived from three of Kurt Weill's American musicals, as conducted by Arthur Winograd on one of his many M-G-M LPs.

Andor Foldes Plays Contemporary American Music

I was surprised to discover this 1947 album of Andor Foldes (1913-92) playing American piano music. I associate his name with the music of his teacher Bartók and other stalwarts of the European canon. He was, however, a naturalized American citizen, having emigrated here in the 1930s, remaining until he returned to Europe in 1960 for professional reasons.

Foldes' 1941 debut in New York was devoted to Bach-Busoni, Beethoven, Schumann, Liszt, Bartók and Kodaly, but by the time of his 1947 Town Hall program, he had added works by the Roy Harris, Virgil Thomson and Paul Bowles to the mix, likely the items on this Vox album.

In addition to the three Americans, the Vox collection includes short works by Aaron Copland, Samuel Barber, Roger Sessions, Walter Piston and William Schuman. These were among the first recordings of these compositions.

The album was also among the first from the now-venerable American Vox label. (There had been a German Vox earlier in the century.) The US company started up in 1945, and made this recording the following year, per A Classical Discography. The resulting set apparently did not come out until 1947, when it was reviewed late in the year both in the New York Times and Saturday Review. Both brief notices are in the download, along with reviews of Foldes' 1941 and 1947 recitals.

Andor Foldes

The album reviews were good; the recital notices were mixed. Foldes was praised for his accuracy, but at least in 1941, the recital reviewer found his sound hard and his playing loud. By 1947, this had moderated into the notion that his secco tone was well suited to the contemporary repertoire, borne out by these recordings.

Copland - Music for Movies; Weill - Music for the Stage

Conductor Arthur Winograd (1920-2010), once the cellist of the Juilliard String Quartet, made any number of recordings for the M-G-M label in the 1950s, when it was active in the classical realm. Quite a good conductor, Winograd these days is remembered primarily for his long tenure as the head of the Hartford Symphony Orchestra.

This particular recording dates from 1956 and was made with the "M-G-M Chamber Orchestra," probably a New York studio group. The LP combines two appealing scores, one prepared by the composer, the second by other hands following the composer's death.

Aaron Copland's Music for Movies, which comes from 1942, assembles themes he wrote for The City, Of Mice and Men and Our Town. The best - and best known - are "New England Countryside" from The City and "Grovers Corners" from Our Town. I believe this was the first recording of this suite in orchestral form, although "Grovers Corners" had been recorded on piano twice - including by Andor Foldes in the album above, under the name "Story of Our Town." The other recording, by Leo Smit, is available on this blog in a remastered version. It is from a 1946-47 Concert Hall Society album Smit shared with Copland himself.

Arthur Winograd at work

Kurt Weill's Music for the Stage was arranged for this recording by M-G-M recording director Edward Cole and composer Marga Richter, whose own music has appeared here. The arrangers followed Weill's own procedure, utilized in Kleine Dreigroschenmusik, of employing the theater arrangements while substituting a solo instrument for any vocal lines. It works seamlessly for this suite assembled from lesser-known (to me, anyway) items from Johnny Johnson (three pieces), Lost in the Stars and Lady in the Dark (one each).

Contemporary reviewer Alfred Frankenstein pronounced the Copland suite to be effective and the Weill "trash," strange considering that the latter composer influenced the former. Reviewers were more to the point back then, and held (or at least expressed) stronger opinions.

Frankenstein also opined that the "recording and performance are of the best." I can agree with the latter judgment, but the recording is another matter. It was close and harsh, so I have added a small amount of reverberation to moderate those qualities. [Note (July 2023): these files have now been remastered in ambient stereo.]

By the way, Winograd had almost no conducting experience when he began recording for M-G-M. Edward Cole had turned up at a Juilliard concert that Winograd conducted, was impressed, and offered him a recording session. This anecdote is contained in an interview with the conductor included in the download. Also on this blog, Winograd can be heard conducting music by Paul Bowles.

Both these recordings were cleaned up from lossless needle drops found on Internet Archive.

LINK

Paul Bowles and Peggy Glanville-Hicks

Here is a second entry in a series devoted to M-G-M's classical recordings of the 1950s. This LP presents two works by composer-author Paul Bowles, and one by composer Peggy Glanville-Hicks, setting words by Bowles. The two were close friends.

Bowles's "The Wind Remains" is a 1943 setting of an excerpt from Federico García Lorca's 1931 play Así que pasen cinco años. The work was introduced in 1943; this recorded version is an adaptation that Glanville-Hicks commissioned for a 1957 concert series at the Metropolitan Museum. It was prepared with her assistance and that of conductor Carlos Surinach, per Edward Cole's detailed notes. The recording was made shortly after the concert.

Paul Bowles

The M-G-M record does not include the text nor a translation, but the synopsis provided in the notes may be helpful. (Here is a link to the text of Lorca's play.)

Also by Bowles is "Music for a Farce," composed in 1938, performed here by an ensemble led by Arthur Winograd, who was just beginning a career as conductor after leaving the Juilliard Quartet, where he was the founding cellist.

Arthur Winograd

The contribution by Glanville-Hicks is "Letters from Morocco," her 1953 setting of excerpts from correspondence to her from Bowles. He had left the U.S. in 1947 to take up residence in Tangier, intending to write the novel that became The Sheltering Sky, a major literary success in 1949. Bowles had always been both a composer and writer, but the balance shifted to literary endeavors after the novel was published. Bowles said he was tired of writing things "for other people" - principally incidental music for plays. (An example of that output can be found on this blog - music for Jose Ferrer's 1946 production of Cyrano de Bergerac.)

Peggy Glanville-Hicks

Glanville-Hicks, born in Australia, was a music critic for the New York Herald-Tribune when these recordings were made. She in fact succeeded Bowles in the post. Both were appointed by Virgil Thomson. A few years ago I transferred a promotional recording of her brief "Prelude and Presto for Ancient American Instruments," which can be found on my other blog.

Loren Driscoll

Tenor Loren Driscoll is featured in "The Wind Remains" and "Letter from Morocco." A specialist in contemporary music, he sang the lead role in the 1958 production of Glanville-Hicks's opera The Transposed Heads. Soprano Dorothy Renzi, heard in "The Wind Remains," also was noted for performances of new music. She sang on the M-G-M recording of works by Marga Richter.

The performances here are sturdy (although I do not care for Driscoll's voice), and the sound is good. [Note (July 2023): I've now remastered the recording in ambient stereo.]

Quick note: this transfer is from a 1960s reissue series. To save money, M-G-M reprinted some of its classical titles in simpler packaging. The color covers were jettisoned, and the original back covers became the front. The cover you see above was sourced from the web. There are high-res scans of the front and back in the download.