Americana for Solo Winds and Strings

This Mercury LP celebrates the conservative but highly attractive music of the composers associated with Howard Hanson at the Eastman School - with the notable addition of Aaron Copland, in what may be the only recording of Copland's music led by Hanson.

The delightful and striking cover seems to pay homage to Copland's "Quiet City," and perhaps Kent Kennan's "Night Soliloquy." An alternative cover used for an EP issue (at the end of the post) switches to a rural motif more in keeping with the conductor's "Pastorale."

Howard Hanson

A few words about the lesser known composers:

Kent Kennan and Homer Keller

Kent Kennan, an Eastman School graduate, spent most of his life teaching, but he was an active composer earlier in his career and near the end of his life. He wrote a few widely used instructional books.

Homer Keller was another product of the Eastman School. He wrote three symphonies and spent much time teaching.

Bernard Rogers and Wayne Barlow

Bernard Rogers was head of Eastman's composition department for several decades.

Wayne Barlow earned undergraduate, master's and doctoral degrees from Eastman, then taught there for many years. "The Winter's Past" is also known as "The Winter's Passed" - either makes sense, as would "The Winters Past," for that matter.

The recordings were made in October 1952 and May 1953. The sound has been remastered in ambient stereo and is very good. The download includes several reviews.

Music by Bernard Rogers, Burnet Tuthill, Robert Sanders - New Transfer

The first-ever post on the blog, several years ago, was of the American Recording Society LP of music by Bernard Rogers, Burnet Tuthill and Robert Sanders. Back then, I had exactly zero readers, so I didn't bother to archive my transfer. 

Well, someone asked me to reupload the LP, and I had nothing to reup. So I found the record and retransferred it for this post. 

What of the music? Let me quote from my original post:

"The American Recording Society issued quite a few records of conservative composers back in the 1950s. This music has a populist bent, but I don’t know that it was ever really popular. It was popular enough, however, to get recorded by ARS, which had a grant for the purpose.

Bernard Rogers, Robert Sanders, Burnet Tuthill

"Bernard Rogers was perhaps the best known of the three composers on this 10-inch LP; his music was also recorded in the Howard Hanson series from the Eastman School, where Rogers taught such better known composers as Peter Mennin and David Diamond. Burnet Tuthill taught in Memphis; his best known pupil was Moondog (not the Gidget boyfriend, the eccentric musician). Tuthill’s father, by the way, designed Carnegie Hall. Robert Sanders taught at Brooklyn College. The Rogers and Sanders items come from the early 1930s; not sure about the other." [Addendum: I've learned Tuthill's Come Seven is from 1935.]

Max Schönherr

The Sanders piece, a piece of barn dance Americana, is probably the weakest item here. Despite what I wrote years ago, it's the only work on this record that could be termed populist. Tuthill's composition bears the marks of Stravinsky, and the Rogers score is essentially a storybook.

Good sound and good performances by the so-called American Recording Society Orchestra - actually the Vienna Symphony - led by the Austrian composer-conductor Max Schönherr. I'm sure my transfer is much improved, and this version includes complete, restored cover scans. For this 2023 revision, I've reworked the files and rendered them in ambient stereo, which materially adds to their impact.

Compositions by Robert Sanders, Burnet Tuthill, Bernard Rogers

The American Recording Society issued quite a few records of conservative composers back in the 1950s. This music has a populist bent, but I don’t know that it was ever really popular. It was popular enough, however, to get recorded by ARS, which had a grant for the purpose.

Bernard Rogers was perhaps the best known of the three composers on this 10-inch LP; his music was also recorded in the Howard Hanson series from the Eastman School, where Rogers taught such better known composers as Peter Mennin and David Diamond. Burnet Tuthill taught in Memphis; his best known pupil was Moondog (not the Gidget boyfriend, the eccentric musician). Tuthill’s father, by the way, designed Carnegie Hall. Robert Sanders taught at Brooklyn College. The Rogers and Sanders items come from the early 1930s; not sure about the other.

I hope to make some other examples of this series and some similar items available here under the title above. Frankly most of the items that will appear here are forgotten. That’s too bad.

LINK