Abravanel Conducts Bloch's 'Sacred Service'

Today we're continuing a series of Maurice Abravanel's late-career recordings for the Angel label. The subject is Ernest Bloch's important, beautiful and moving Sacred Service (Avodath Hakodesh).

As always in this series, the performances by the Utah Symphony and Chorale are both splendid and well recorded.

Here is Abran Chipman of High Fidelity on the significance of this work: "Despite the substantial Jewish contribution, creative and re-creative, to Western music, a combination of socio-economic, theological, and aesthetic factors has limited to a handful the number of specifically liturgical Jewish works, among which Bloch’s Avodath Hakodesh (Sacred Service) of 1930-33 stands pre-eminent."

Ernest Bloch

When this work was written, Bloch was mid-career. Born in 1880 in Switzerland, he came to the US in 1916. The composer became the founding director of the Cleveland Institute of Music in 1920, and the head of the San Francisco Conservatory five years later. He returned to Switzerland in 1930, where he composed Avodath Hakodesh, moving back to the US in 1939.

Bloch was a superb composer, whose works I should feature more often. Previously he has been represented only by his Piano Quintet, which is newly remastered and available here along with other 20th century works.

Maurice Abravanel

Douglas Lawrence

Here is what Chipman had to say about the performance on this LP: "Angel's Douglas Lawrence is close to ideal, bringing special ecstasy and sadness to his fervent singing (cf. the closing pages of the first movement). The brief solo soprano and alto parts, angelically sung on [Bloch's own recording on] London, are not quite as distinguished on either Columbia [the Bernstein performance] or Angel, but none of the choral groups has a significant edge over the others. 

"I have already praised Angel's skill in handling overall balances; that applies to smaller details as well (an overly spotlighted celesta excepted). The pressing is good, and a text is provided - though only in English. That, however, is the only jarring note in this intelligently conceived and executed production of a landmark work."

The recording, in the Mormon Tabernacle, dates from May 1977. As with several of Abravanel's Angel recordings, it is SQ-encoded if there are any die-hard quadrophonic listeners out there.

LINK

Abravanel Conducts Music by Randall Thompson

A year ago I transferred Howard Hanson's classic recording of Randall Thompson's The Testament of Freedom. Today we have a fine stereo recording of that 1943 work, coupled with the composer's Symphony No. 1 (1930).

These come to us from Maurice Abravanel and the Utah Symphony in a 1978 recording. It was among the last that the conductor would make before his retirement the following year.

Maurice Abravanel

Like the other late Utah-Abravanel discs that have been presented here, this is a fine achievement, well recorded and rewarding to hear.

As I wrote a year ago, The Testament of Freedom was not without its detractors among critics. But David Hall of Stereo Review was a proponent, even if he had his doubts about the Utah performance: "The deeply moving texts for men's chorus from the writings of Thomas Jefferson can stir American souls in much the same way that the patriotic texts for Prokofiev's Alexander Nevsky can affect a contemporary Russian. Regrettably, however, Maurice Abravanel simply fails to give the music the rhythmic vitality it needs."

My own view is different: I found the Hanson to be overdone, and the Abravanel to be more effective because it is less bombastic. A year ago I quoted a review from The New Records that summarizes my feeling about the piece: "Mr. Thompson's work manages to be impressive without being melodramatically sensational and, from a technical standpoint, is quite well-wrought."

Randall Thompson

Hall of Stereo Review explains the genesis of the other work on the Angel LP: "Thompson's First Symphony seems an odd piece on first hearing because it is 'unsymphonic' - for instance, it makes no use of sonata form. The jacket notes fail to explain the reasons for this, but in his article 'The Music of Randall Thompson' (Musical Quarterly, January 1949), Elliott Forbes tells us that this symphony was an outgrowth of the composer's setting of two odes of Horace for soloist, chorus, and orchestra (they were planned as a sequel to his Five Odes of Horace completed in 1924). Thompson evidently despaired of the new odes ever coming to performance and therefore in 1929 rescored them for orchestra alone as the First Symphony."

Hall finds the first symphony to be inferior to Thompson's second (which has appeared on this blog in a reading led by Dean Dixon). To me, comparisons like this are curiously pointless. The first symphony, here in what appears to be its first recording, is a fine, ingratiating work in its own right, although much different from the second.

The composer's own view of the work, as conveyed in the liner notes to the Angel recording: "My First Symphony was written during the years 1925-29. This was an age of exuberance and high spirits between the two World Wars. This period represents an emergence of a feeling that American music must sound American. The Symphony is sometimes reflective and sometimes tinged with sentiment and tenderness, but it is not problematic and is not a contest between comedy and tragedy. It is what is known as 'pure' music, having no story to tell, only a series of musical sections, displaying reflection, serenity, vitality and intensity."

Born in 1899, Thompson would live for another six years following this recording. He is most associated with Harvard, although he also taught at Wellesley, Virginia, and the Curtis Institute, where he was president for a term.

LINK

Two Superb Milhaud Scores from Abravanel

The recent post of Maurice Abravanel conducing the Utah Symphony in music of Roy Harris was a popular one, not least because it brought some worthy although unfamiliar music to light.

Today's item amounts to a repeat of that formula - although with very different music from a French rather than American composer.

Darius Milhaud (1892-1974) is the author of the two works on the program. The first - a remarkable work - is his Suite symphonique No. 2 drawn from the incidental music for Paul Claudel's play Protée. The second, only a bit less impressive, is Les Songes, the score from a 1933 ballet by George Balanchine.

That two such fascinating compositions could be almost unknown is a testament to changing tastes in music and to Milhaud's prolificacy as a writer.

Paul Claudel and Darius Milhaud

Critic Richard Freed wrote that Protée "is one of the most substantial and appealing of the composer’s early works for orchestra. It was produced in 1919, when he was twenty-seven - the same year as the more familiar (and slighter) Le Boeuf sur le Toit and some four years before La Création du Monde." The first performance was reportedly the scene of a Sacre-style riot of the aesthetes, with the audience divided into those who thought Milhaud a genius and those who thought he was a dangerous radical.

More than 100 years later, the work seems to teem with invention, starting with the composer's use of Latin rhythms in Protée. Milhaud had been transfixed by the music of Brazil when he was stationed there as an aide to Claudel, who was diplomat as well as poet. The music is enchanting, and beautifully played and recorded by the Utah forces. There are many fascinating aspects to the music. One that struck me was how Milhaud uses both the Latin rhythm and the orchestration to evoke water, in way unlike Debussy's La Mer, although there are influences by the Impressionists and Stravinsky in the music.

From Les Songes

Freed wrote that Les Songes "is of lighter texture, more intimately scored, and a bit less adventurous than the lustily extrovert Protée, but again highly attractive in its melodic abundance, rhythmic contrasts, and intriguing colors." 

Balanchine had prepared Les Songes for the new Parisian company he had formed with Boris Kochno, Les Ballets 1933. Les Songes had book, scenery and costumes by the artist André Derain. The Balanchine Foundation's description: "Exhausted after a triumphant performance, the ballerina [Tamara Toumanova in the premiere] falls asleep and is assailed by nightmares and visions. The fragrance of flowers brings an intimation of loveliness; she awakens reassured to find herself in her own room."

On the same program as Les Songes was the premiere of the Brecht-Weill The Seven Deadly Sins with Lotte Lenya and Tilly Losch. Quite a night.

Maurice Abravanel

Abravanel had unique authority in this music, having conducted the first performance. Freed went further, saying, "There is probably no conductor alive who brings more authority and affection to the music of Milhaud than Maurice Abravanel."

To my knowledge, this 1978 recording has not been reissued, nor has the score of Protée been re-recorded. It is currently available only in Pierre Monteux's San Francisco version from the 1940s. The Abravanel appears to be the only recording of Les Songes in its orchestral form.

A final word from Freed: "For most listeners, both works are likely to be 'discoveries' and both are very happy ones indeed, especially as presented on this beautifully recorded disc." Still true, 47 years later.

LINK

Darius Milhaud in 1924

Roy Harris' Folk-Song Symphony

This interesting LP was transferred as the result of a request. It is a 1975 recording of Roy Harris' Folk-Song Symphony (Symphony No. 4), in a very good performance by the Utah Symphony and Utah Chorale under Maurice Abravanel. 

The symphony - really more of a choral suite - consists of settings from American songs collected by John and Alan Lomax's Cowhoy Songs and Other Frontier Ballads and Carl Sandburg’s American Songbag. It is a very enjoyable, and little known, example of Americana, dating from 1940. The release was timed for the U.S. Bicentennial in 1976.

Roy Harris

The work had been recorded once previously, by Vladimir Golschmann and Viennese forces in 1960 - but has not been revived for recording purposes, to my knowledge. I have the Golschmann LP if anyone is interested.

Like the Schubert one-act operas I have uploaded and a few other items, the Abravanel album is apparently SQ-encoded, but I haven't had quad equipment for a long time, so I can't confirm that.

Maurice Abravanel

Maurice Abravanel (1903-93), who led a fascinating life, was conductor of the Utah Symphony for 32 years, until 1979, when he retired. He made many recordings with the ensemble, whose profile he raised immeasurably.

Here's what Robert C. Marsh had to say about the Harris LP in High Fidelity: "British composers can write extended works for chorus and orchestra, call them symphonies, and get away with it, but I sense that this Roy Harris score has been needlessly put down over the years because of the presence of 'symphony' in its title. In the classical sense it is not a symphony at all. Folksongs do not invite thematic development and variation, and Harris is more interested in preserving the identity of his material than in treating it the way Beethoven treated that waltz by Diabelli. The idiom is the American nationalist style of the '30s and '40s. and you might mistake this for a Copland score of that period, since both men were working in this spirit.

"The songs are all familiar, and the settings are craftsmanlike, sensitive to the texts, tasteful, and well-scored ... This is not great music, but it is thoroughly respectable music in terms of its limited artistic goals, and in a performance and recording of this quality it should see you through '76 and beyond with some pleasant moments." Nearly 50 years hence - approaching the 250th anniversary of the nation's founding - this disc and the music hold up well.

If you are interested in such Americana, I recently posted an LP of music by Alec Wilder - his Names from the War and Carl Sandburg Suite, the latter also inspired by the poet's American Songbag. 

LINK to Roy Harris' Folk-Song Symphony

New Remasters of Roy Harris' Music

I've newly remastered three significant LPs of Harris' music, as follows:

Harris - Symphony No. 3, Hanson - Symphony No. 4

This 1953 LP features Howard Hanson and the Eastman-Rochester orchestra in convincing performances of Harris' third symphony - generally considered his best - and Hanson's own Symphony No. 4.

LINK

Harris - Symphony 1933 and Symphony No. 7

Classic performances of the Symphony 1933, in the 1934 recording from Boston and Serge Koussevitzky, coupled with the Symphony No. 7 from Philadelphia and Eugene Ormandy, in a 1955 recording.

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Harris - Piano Fantasy, Abe Lincoln Walks at Midnight

Recordings from 1955 with Johana Harris in the Fantasy for Piano and Orchestra, conducted by Izler Solomon, and Nell Tangeman in a setting of Abraham Lincoln Walks at Midnight.

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