Slatkin Conducts Schwantner and Schuman

This imposing recording of two leading American composers came out on LP in 1984 and has not been reissued, to my knowledge.

The record didn't receive much coverage at the time - I couldn't find a review in my usual sources - despite being beautifully performed and recorded.

I actually did not know of its existence until a reader alerted me to it a month or so ago. I then acquired it for the blog.

Leonard Slatkin

The record presents two works commissioned by the St. Louis Symphony Orchestra and conducted by Leonard Slatkin, its music director from 1979 to 1996.

Happily, almost all of the principals involved here are still alive - Slatkin (b. 1944), composer Joseph Schwantner (b. 1943), poet Águeda Pizarro (b. 1941) and soprano Lucy Shelton (b. 1944). Composer William Schuman, from an earlier generation, died in 1992.

Joseph Schwantner

Schwantner, who won the Pulitzer Prize for music in 1979, has been associated with Yale for many years. He is, however, at pains to distance himself from so-called "academic" music. He described his journey as composer to Bruce Duffie as follows: "In my early work ... I was interested in serial music and the most kind of demanding musical rhetoric played by highly specialized chamber ensembles, and there was a very limited audience for that kind of music, obviously. I’m part of a generation of composers, who, in the mid-seventies really began to look around and realize that a way to move forward was not only to abandon the past, but to embrace it ... Academia gives you skills and techniques and procedures, and a body of work that is important, but at some point in time you have to find out who you are as an artist, and move beyond your academic training."

Águeda Pizarro

His work Magabunda is a setting of four magical realist poems by the Colombian-American writer Águeda Pizarro. She is director of the Rayo Museum dedicated to Latin American drawing and engraving, in recognition of the painter Ómar Rayo, located in Roldanillo, Colombia.

The music (and poetry) is highly colorful and evocative, featuring a huge orchestra and a virtuosic singer in Lucy Shelton who specializes in contemporary music. True to his credo above, Schwantner makes use of an enormous fund of techniques, with some vocal passages harking back to Schoenberg's Pierrot lunaire of 1912. There is nothing simple about this music, although some critics like to complain because it is more immediately communicative than Elliott Carter's intricate compositions.

Here is Andrew Porter in his book Musical Events: "The later works of his [Schwantner's] I've heard have struck me as pretty empty - conventional responses to poetic texts, carried out, admittedly, with confidence, technical skill, and an able command of color." In the same passage he took Slatkin to task for preferring such composers as Rouse, Adams and Reich to Carter's formidable works. "The 'new romanticism' draws close to old commercialism and old laziness," he insisted.

Lucy Shelton

To me, these are preferences, not matters of being "commercial" or "lazy." Goodness knows, this record was not "commercial." It is, however, communicative. Here is Shelton describing an audience member's reaction to one of Schwantner's settings of Pizarro's poems: "One time I did a new piece by Schwantner that had a very, very beautiful poem about a mother and a daughter.  After, this woman came up to me in tears and said, 'I’ve been having so much trouble with the relationship with my daughter, and that piece just hit me. Thank you so much.' If you strike feelings that way, you know that it’s worth doing."

William Schuman

William Schuman was one of the most distinguished composers of the 20th century. His American Hymn (Orchestral Variations on an Original Melody) is quite a contrast to Schwantner's work. Annotator Philip Ramey thought that American Hymn "is one of the highpoints of his [Schuman's] output - fresh, eloquent, continually inventive, impressive in architecture and in detail (among which might be mentioned the striking use of the cornet [in this recording, trumpet], both in the initial statement of the hymnlike theme and in the third section's amusingly bizarre waltz episode)."

Schuman himself wrote, "The development is a continuum - a huge arc, encompassing six discernible sections - that goes from the first note to the last without interruption." Ramey explains further: "A natural orchestrator, he produces symphonic works whose most notable features are long breathed melody, a bustling, often quirky rhythmic life, and arresting brass writing - music which, like that of his teacher Roy Harris, is imbued with a kind of no-nonsense masculinity that seems especially American in character. Schuman's instrumentation is seldom coloristic; rather, it is structural, best thought of as a part of the ongoing compositional process."

The works are handled remarkably well by the St. Louis Symphony in a glowing early digital recording by the team of Marc Aubort and Johanna Nickrenz, who had few peers.

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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.

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Hans Kindler, Conductor and Cellist

Detail from 1944 Life ad

I've been interested for some time in the recordings of conductor Hans Kindler, who founded the National Symphony Orchestra of Washington, D.C., in 1931 and led it until 1949. I posted his reading of Tchaikovsky's Symphony No. 3 (Polish) several years ago, and have just remastered it for those interested.

Today I've brought together quite a number of Kindler's other recordings, working from an LP issued in the 1970s by Washington radio station WGMS and a parcel of 78 needle-drops found on Internet Archive. I've also added a V-Disc and two of Kindler's cello recordings from 1916.

These give a very good account of the music that Kindler was conducting and recording, along with a sense for his skill as a cellist.

Kindler in action

The main item in the collection is Brahms' Symphony No. 3, in a most interesting rendition from 1941. The orchestra - then only a decade old - gives a good account of itself.

Also in the collection are a variety of short items: from 1940 we have William Schuman's "American Festival Overture." This was written for Serge Koussevitzky and the Boston Symphony and premiered in 1939. But Koussevitzky did not record it; Kindler's was the first on record.

The second work from the 1940 sessions has an interesting back story. It is a Toccata supposedly by the 17th century composer Girolamo Frescobaldi. At least that is what Kindler thought when he made an arrangement for orchestra. He was working from a cello arrangement purportedly of a Frescobaldi work by fellow instrumentalist Gaspar Cassadó.

It came out much later that Cassadó, somewhat in the vein of Fritz Kreisler and his inventions, was the real author of the piece. Regardless, it's a tuneful work.

At about the same time, Kindler, born in Rotterdam, recorded two 16th century Dutch tunes in his own arrangements. These compositions had appeared on the first official concert ever given by the orchestra, in 1931.

From 1941 comes a recording of "Stars" by the American composer Mary Howe, who was the patron of the orchestra. It's a very good composition that has been recorded a few times.

Moving ahead to early 1945, we have Armas Järnefelt's Praeludium and Berceuse along with the "Dream Pantomine" from Humperdinck's opera Hansel und Gretel. The latter comes from a somewhat noisy V-Disc. The work also was issued on Victor, but I didn't have access to that pressing.

Finally, I thought you might like to hear a few of Kindler's early cello recordings. These were made in 1916, when he was the principal cello of the Philadelphia Orchestra. They are J.C. Bartlett's "A Dream" with by an orchestra conducted by Josef Pasternack, and a transcription of Schumann's "Traumerei," accompanied by pianist Rosario Bourdon.

The young cellist

Kindler died not long after ceding the conductorship of the orchestra to his protégé, another cellist, Howard Mitchell, who recently appeared here leading the music of Paul Creston.

The download includes scans of the WGMS LP, the 78 labels, and a variety of promotional photos and ads. The latter includes a spectacular two-page Victor ad from a 1944 Life Magazine. It features the Kindler portrait at top along with similar images of Vladimir Golschmann, Artur Schnabel and Arthur Fiedler.

Schuman's Concerto on Old English Rounds

I had a request for this record, which is outside the blog's usual time frame. But I decided to post it anyway because it is such a exceptional product.

The LP contains the first, and I believe only, recording of William Schuman's Concerto on Old English Rounds. The young violist Donald McInnes commissioned the work under a Ford Foundation grant. Its premiere was in 1974 with the Boston Symphony and Michael Tilson Thomas. Leonard Bernstein heard the broadcast, through the intercession of the composer, and programmed the piece with the New York Philharmonic in April 1976. The recording was made a few days later.

Donald McInnes

McInnes recalled an after-concert conversation with Bernstein: "He said during the performance he had a dream of me playing Berlioz’s Harold en Italie, which he was conducting in New York and Paris in 1976." The violist did go on to record the Berlioz work with Bernstein and the Orchestre National de France. It too is a fine achievement.

The Bernstein-McInnes team is just right for this work, which is itself of considerable interest. McInnes is wonderfully secure soloist, and Bernstein is fully in command of the proceedings. In the liner notes, Schuman admits to being a disciple of Roy Harris in his early years, but I have always thought this work was influenced by Benjamin Britten. That may be because I purchased Andre Previn's recording of Britten's 1949 Spring Symphony at about the same time as acquiring this LP upon its release in 1978. Britten and Schuman both set archaic texts in a conservative modern idiom, although this work has a significant solo instrument, which is lacking in the Britten.

McInnes has pursued a career in academia and the West Coast film studios.

The sound from Columbia's 30th Street Studios is excellent, but the thin vinyl pressing was slightly warped, leading to some momentary image instability that shouldn't be noticeable unless you use headphones.

Schuman and Kirchner

Here by fervent request from David is Schuman's Credendum, together with Leon Kirchner's piano concerto - all courtesy of our friend Rich, a most knowledgeable collector. And because Rich is so informed, I think I'll let him provide the commentary, along with the transfer and scan:

"Here is the long awaited Credendum. I must say it's been a while since I got the record out and listened closely to it. While I admire the recent recording by the Albany Symphony under David Alan Miller, the Ormandy really does harken back to a time when music was played to the hilt, for all the intensity it was worth, and with all due regard to the current generation of highly accomplished musicians, this is the Philadelphia Orchestra, with very special characteristics and qualities.

"I've also included the Kirchner Piano Concerto on the other side. Not because people have been clamoring for it, but because it was part of the release, and if it weren't included, some people might be disappointed. To be perfectly, honest, I never much cared for it, sounds like Schoenberg wannabe to me. Actually, the concise and succinct Music for Cello, recorded by Yo-Yo Ma, strikes me as a much better piece. It is after all, a lifetime away in maturity.

"Here are the details. Separate folders in MediaFire for the Schuman and the Kirchner. The Schuman contains three mp3 files for each of the movements, and a jpeg for the album cover. The Kirchner contains three mp3 files for each of the movements.

William Schuman: Credendum
I. Declaration
II. Chorale
III. Finale
Eugene Ormandy, The Philadelphia Orchestra

Leon Kirchner: Piano Concerto
I. Allegro
II. Adagio
III. Rondo
Leon Kirchner, Piano
Dimitri Mitropoulos,
Philharmonic-Symphony Orchestra of New York

Source: Columbia ML 5185 mono

Thanks Rich! The only thing I have to add is that the Kirchner was recorded in February 1956 in Columbia's 30th Street studio, and the Schuman was taped the next month in the Academy of Music.

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