Digression No. 23

It was quite a thrill to receive a note from Sue Raney and her husband Carmen Falzone following my posting of her uncollected singles recently. This was through the intercession of Bill Reed, who knows Sue and had taken Sue a CD of the singles. She responded:

"I can’t begin to express my gratitude for the compilation of the singles I made so long ago. It was such fun to listen to them again. We sure tried to get a hit record in those days (ha). 'Biology' was the only one that made it to the Billboard chart at about 50 something (I think). [Note from Buster - that's the only Capitol single I don't have, ironically.] What a special person you are to have taken the time to do all that. You made me so happy, and I thank you so very much for your love and support – the notes you wrote are also quite a keepsake for me."

Speaking of Bill (maestro of the People vs. Dr. Chilledair), he reminds me that in my recent Carole Simpson post, I really should have mentioned that Carole has a 2008 release called "Live" and Otherwise, available here.

Finally - and completely unrelated to the previous discussion - I came across a most interesting radio show on the web this weekend, and thought I would share my refurbishment of the sound. This comes from the Sunday Gramophone feature of a site called Crooks and Liars, which apparently does not refer to the musicians or proprietors but to the site's main preoccupation, politicians. Sunday Gramophone has exceptionally interesting material, unfortunately presented in exceptionally low bit-rate mp3s. Yesterday's offering was from an NBC program of July 1, 1943 by the NBC Orchestra, conducted by Joseph Stopak. This was in a late-night sustaining series called Music of the New World, devoted to all types of music from the Americas - a wartime effort designed to promote inter-American harmony.

This particular program was devoted to US composers, and included less-often heard works by Sowerby (Comes Autumn Time) and Creston (Fantasy for Piano and Orchestra, with Artur Balsam), along with pieces by Griffes and Carpenter.

I have rebalanced the sound, but the compression artifacts from the low bit-rate file are of course still audible (but not too distracting, I hope). It is presented in FLAC format to avoid additional compression effects. The program also is now tracked. The link is below.

LINK

Leo Sowerby Orchestral Works

These days American composer Leo Sowerby is remembered best for his church music, but he also composed in other genres.

The works on this American Recording Society disk from the early 1950s were from relatively early in his career. Their titles - Prairie and From the Northland - may suggest that they come from the heyday of Copland-style populism in the 1940s, but they actually were written in the 1920s and stylistically are of that time. Burnet Tuthill (whose own music was featured in this blog's first post) says in the liner notes that Sowerby's style looks back to Brahms, but there is surely as much impressionism in these works. You also may hear similarities to the music of Howard Hanson, who conducted the professional premieres of both compositions.

The performances here - by an anonymous orchestra under Dean Dixon - are enthusiastic and as refined as you might expect considering the circumstances. The recording is vivid.

I'll probably offer more of Sowerby's music down the road apiece.