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Reviews for
GHCD 2347 Leopold Stokowski
(1882-1977) Alan Hovhaness (1911-2000) Symphony No.1 op.17,2 - "Exile
Symphony" (US
Premiere, First Version)
live 6 December 1942,
Darius Milhaud
(1892-1974) Symphony No.1 op.210 New York live 21 March 1943
(First Performance in New York) Aaron Copland (1900-1990) Symphony No.2 -
"Short Symphony"(U.S.
Premiere)
NBC Symphony Orchestra 9 January 1944 – (Studio 8-H, New York City)
José Serebrier (b.1938)
(World Premiere)
Symphony No.1, Houston Symphony Orchestra . live 4 November 1957
Houston Music
Hall-72:51
Gramophone,
January 2010
Recent months have witnessed a positive
deluge of CDs devoted to the art of Leopold Stokowski, especially significant
give the unfortunate demise of the Stokowski Society ... Remarkably characterful
is a programme put out by Guild where Stokowski - ever the maverick explorer -
conducts 20th-century symphonies. The least successful here is a rather
tentative performance of Copland's Second, or Short, Symphony, whereas
the First Symphonies of Alan Hovhaness (1936) and Darius Milhaud (1939), both of
them strong pieces that Stokowski and his wartime NBC Symphony respond well to,
fare far better.
Perhaps the programme's most remarkable
item is the 18-minute, single-movement First Symphony by the teenage Jose
Serebrier - a Stokowski protege - which, although cast rather in the shadow of
Shostakovich (or so it seems to these ears) leaves a powerful impression. On
that occasion Stokowski conducted the Houston Symphony Orchestra. Rob Cowan
BBC Music Magazine December 2009
Hovhaness: Symphony No.1;
Milhaud: Symphony No.1; Copland: Symphony No. 2; Serebrier: Symphony No.1 NBC
50; Houston SO / Stokowski Guild GHCD 2347 Live (1942-57) 72:51 mins
BBC Music Direct £11.74
Stokowski makes strong Gases
for each of these symphonies, heard here in New York, US, or world Premiere
Performances. Sound in the Hovhaness (1942) is particularly bright and clear.
PERFORMANCE * * * *
RECORDING * * *
American Record Review October 2009
(medium price, 1 hour 13
minutes, ADD, mono). Website www.guildmusic.com Remastering Engineer
Peter Reynolds. Dates Live performances at NBC Studios, New York an December
6th, 1942, March 21 st, 1943, January 9th, 1944; Music Hall, Houston an November
4th, 1957.
Comparisons:
Copland: San Francisco SO/Tilson Thomas (RCA) 09026 68541-2 (1996) Hovhaness:
Seattle SO/Schwarz (Delos) DE3168 (1995)
This disc presents Leopold
Stokowski in live performances of four, mostly unfamiliar, modern symphonies:
three recorded during the Second World War with the NBC Symphony, the other with
the Houston Symphony in 1957. All the performances were premières of one kind or
another. They have been remastered from secondgeneration transcriptions, so
purchasers will not expect the Sound to be of the Best, even for the period, but
on the whole they sound well and give a vivid idea of the performances
themselves, the main drawback being that the result is rather shallow and dry.
Alan Hovhaness's official
First Symphony, Exile, composed in 1936, remained one of the most powerful of
the eventually 67 symphonies he was to compose. Inspired by the Armenian
massacres in Turkey during the First World War, it. is highly atmospheric and
has a more dynamic character than many of his later, more contemplative works.
It also, incidentally, vividly testifies to the strong influence of Sibelius an
the young Hovhaness - an influence clearly to be heard here that became more
sublimated and personalized as his music matured. This 1942 broadcast was the
work's US Premiere (the frst Performance had been by the BBC Symphony Orchestra
under Leslie Heward in 1939). It should be noted that the recording here is of
the Symphony's original form, with a violent central Scherzo entitled `Conflict':
Hovhaness later replaced this with a quieter Grazioso movement, which is the one
that is heard in more modern recordings, such as Gerard Schwarz's with the
Seattle Symphony an Delos. As might be expected, Stokowski makes the most of
this thrusting, angry movement and invests the finale, with its triumphant and
aspirational brass Chorales, with full splendour.
Darius Milhaud's First Symphony had been commissioned by
the Chicago Symphony Orchestra and completed in late 1939 after the outbreak of
the war, which with the fall of France forced Milhaud to leave his aged parents
(who later perished) and seek refuge in the LISA. This work is rarely heard
nowadays but is very much an expression of its time and perhaps one of Milhaud's
most deeply felt symphonies, contrasting the lyric pastoral feelings of the
opening movement with a deepening martial strain, which in the march-like finale
expresses clear defiance and hope in final victory. Stokowski's 1943 performance,
the work's New York premiere, has a tremendous sense of conviction that clearly
arises from the fact of its taking place at a difficult juncture in the war, and
sympathy for the composer's situation. The performance of Copland's Short
Symphony comes from the following year and surprisingly, perhaps (given that
it's the bestknown work on this programme), this was its US première, 11 years
after it was composed. The world première had been given in Mexico City under
Carlos Chávez in 1934, but previously advertised North American performances had
been cancelled owing to the work's extreme rhythmic difficulties, as they then
seemed. We now regard this score as one of the supreme classics of US
neo-Classicism, and one of Copland's most impressive works as a sheer feat of
composition. The dry acoustic of this recording makes it seem even more abstract
than more recent renditions, such as Michael Tilson Thomas's excellent 1996
recording with the San Francisco Symphony, but Stokowski can show even Tilson
Thomas a thing or two in the sheer verve of his rhythmic pointing and
dovetailing of instrumental entries in a score for which rhythm and a tensile,
sinewy Klnagfarbenmelodie are the vital necessities of life.
José Serebrier, better known,
of course, as a conductor, has composed five symphonies to date - his Symphony
No. 1 was written at the age of 16 shortly after he had arrived in the USA from
his native Uruguay to study at the Curtis Institute in Philadelphia. By a stroke
of luck Stokowski took it up at short notice, having had to abandon a hoped-for
premiere of Ives's Fourth Symphony, and gave the first performance with the
Houston Symphony, as heard on this disc. Despite coming from a decade later than
the other recordings the sound, though a bit brasher, is not much of an
improvement, but it's quite good enough to allow us to judge the work. It's a
gaunt, rather angry piece, cast in a single movement, extending the passacaglia
principle to the continuous development of its material through three sections:
a very impressive symphonic début for such a young composer, who was very lucky
to secure such a wellperformed premiere.
As noted above, all four
performances come from live concerts, and are followed by warm audience applause,
but it's only in the Serebrier that there is much in the way of audible audience
noise. There are highly informative booklet notes from our own Robert
Matthew-Walker; altogether the disc must surely be a mandatory purchase for
Stokowski enthusiasts.
Calum MacDonald
CRC- CLASSICAL RECORD COLLECTOR
AUTUMN 2009
Leopold Stokowski. Copland Symphony
No. 2, Short 5ymphonya Hovhaness Symphony No. 1, Op. 17 No.. 2, Exile Symphony
Milihaud Symphony No.1, Op. 210' Serebrier Symphony No. ld Houston Symphony
Orchestra)abc:NBC Symphony Orchestra Leopold Stokowski.
Guild mono GHCD2347 (73mins; ADD); rec NBC Studio 8H. New York, b6/12 1942, C
21/3/43, a9/1.44; d Holiston Music Hall 4/11/57
This very well-planned disc, which
contains four brief symphonies, adds to our, knowledge of Stokowski as
superlative and sympathetic exponent of orchestral scores written during his
long lifetime. He was a notable champion of contemporary music. Even in old age
and he had extraordinary and unerring mastery of diverse composing styles, from
Vaughan Williams to 12·note Schonberg.
Copland. Hovhaness and Milhaud all
left extensive recordings of their own works. to provide posterity with clear
indications in :sound of how they wanted their creations to be played. While,
José Serebrier (b.1938) is currently engaged in a similar exercise. To have a
great interpreter's imprint on these composers’' scores is not to provide
competition, but a different: kind of insight. Robert Matthew-Walker’s long and.
informative, insert note tells us;, for example, that Milhaud found the
performance of his First Symphony on this disc to be very powerful.
All the recordings are live: the
three NBC ones show Stokowski managed somehow to find more life in the sound of
the notorious Studio 8H than did Toscanini - each has a slightly different
characteristic, but all are very good For their day.The 1957 Houston recording,
though satisfactory, is not a great deal superior.
The music of Alan Hovhaness has its
fervent admirers; and Matthew-Walker tells us that when Leslie Hewrd conducted
the first UK performance of the three-year-old First Symphony in 1939 he found
it a “, Powerful virile score” powerful. In its urgent, insistent style., with
jagged rhythm and highly individual orchestration it makes a great effect in the
hands. of Stokowski and the magnificently virtuosic NBC SO. Milhaud’s First
Symphony has four contrasting movements; the second and fourth strong and
vigorous. are set off by a typically piquant first movement, and a beautiful
(and sensitively played) Third. Stokowski’s very tough approach to Copland's
Second Symphony is totally appropriate for this highly concentrated and
technically difficult score: but here the NBC SO’s usually immaculate ensemble
is occasionally slightly ragged.
Stokowski took over Serebrier’s
symphony at short notice when the Houston orchestra found Ives’s Fourth Symphony
impossible to play. But the replacement, an astonishingly mature work for
a.17-year·old, must itself have been demanding in its complex pithy quality and
its varied instrumental textures. Stokowski’s total commitment to the work is
evident in a strikingly vivid first performance. Alan Sanders
An
easy by José Serebrier in which he discusses his symphony, its background and
stokowski’s premiere performance, is now on CRC; website
www.classicrecordcollector.com
The story behind my First Symphony
José Serebrier
The story behind my First Symphony goes
back to the last years in my home town of Montevideo, Uruguay, before I went to
the United States to study at Tanglewood and at the Curtis Institute of Music. I
was aged 16 when I read an announcement in the press about a composition contest
for an orchestral work. The winning piece would be played by the national
symphony orchestra, known as OSSODRE. I thought that if I won, perhaps they
would let me conduct it, which was then my main interest. For some reason the
announcement was made at the very last moment, with only a couple of weeks’
notice. I worked day and night on this, my first full orchestral work. Inspired
by Thomas Mann’s Doctor Faustus, which fascinated me at the time, The
Legend of Faust
was to be an overture-fantasy in the
mould of Tchaikovsky’s works of the same genre. To my amazement, I won the
competition, but the task of conducting this 24-minute overture was given to a
famous guest conductor, Eleazar de Carvalho, who had been Koussevitzky’s pupil
alongside Leonard Bernstein. It was a wonderful coincidence because I had
already been accepted as his conducting pupil at Tanglewood for later that
summer, while at the same time I would be studying composition with Aaron
Copland.
That first summer at Tanglewood was
idyllic. Copland’s interest in my music, sparked by Virgil Thomson whom I had
met briefly in Montevideo, gave me much needed encouragement in composing.
Copland was a great teacher, especially in matters of orchestration. We also
often discussed his own compositions, especially his latest works, and I
conducted a few of them at the time, including his second and third symphonies,
in his presence.
At the end of the six-week summer
experience I went to New York for a month, to await the start of my first year
at the Curtis Institute in Philadelphia. During those four weeks I wrote my
first symphony. It was my second orchestral work. The symphony, together with my
earlier saxophone quartet, went on to win the BMI (Broadcast Music Incorporated)
Award in 1956. After discussing it with Copland, I had decided to write a
one-movement symphony, with connected multiple sections in different speeds,
since I felt that the idea of a multiple-movement symphony of largely unrelated
sections no longer applied in the middle of the twentieth century.
Anyway, that was the way I felt at the
time. I had had very little exposure to new music, except for the festival of
American music I had organised in Montevideo the year before, in which I
included everything from Varèse to Cage. They both fascinated me. Curiously, I
hadn’t discovered Ives just yet.
Winning the BMI competition meant I got
to know some of their composers, especially Alan Hovhaness. Oliver Daniel (who
wrote a book about Stokowski) was in charge of classical music at BMI, and he
never stopped talking about Hovhaness, and was constantly promoting his music.
The three of us often had lunch together in New York, and I got to know many of
Alan’s works. I admired the fact that he had had the audacity to destroying all
of his earlier compositions, apparently hundreds of them, when he decided to
change styles, and refused to discuss his earlier works.
Starting again, he was writing music
non-stop. He and Milhaud, along with Villa-Lobos, may have been the most
prolific composers of the twentieth century.
In the following year, 1957, while
walking towards the Curtis Institute of Music, I bumped into a cellist, and my
score fell to the floor. Harvey Wolf was on his way to the airport to join the
Houston Symphony. He instinctively asked if he could carry the score along to
show to Leopold Stokowski, who had just hired him as the last cellist in the
orchestra. I had another copy, so I agreed, not expecting anything from this
gesture. Few conductors would take such an idea seriously. Leopold Stokowski
called a few days later. There was this highly accented voice telling me: “We
tried doing the premiere of the Charles Ives Fourth Symphony but it proved
impossible. Orchestra can’t get past first bars. Need a premiere. Press invited:
Time magazine, Life, UP, AP.
We do your symphony premiere instead.
Please bring music. Rehearsals start in two days.
The premiere of my first symphony took
place in Houston on 4 November 1957. But another, more momentous event took
place that evening: news from Soviet Russia revealed that USSR had launched the
first man-made object in space, the Sputnik.
Music and art therefore disappeared from
the news for some weeks – although the symphony was a big success with the
public and the critics. The interviews with Time and Life
magazines never came out.
In 1962 Stokowski gave the New York
premiere of my Elegy for Strings and in 1963 the world premiere of my Poema
elegiaco to open the Carnegie Hall season. The
Guild recording of symphonies premiered
by Stokowski has many coincidences.
While I never studied with Darius
Milhaud, I met him several times in the United States. He seemed charmed by the
fact that I was born in Uruguay, and in our long chats he often became nostalgic
about his time in Brazil. He noticed that in two of my works, the Piano Sonata
and my Symphony No. 2, Partita, I used Brazilian rhythms, and seemed to
enjoy the idea. I was very surprised he knew them. The Partita had been recently
recorded by the Louisville Orchestra, and he already had the recording.
It was with great surprise and joy that I
learned of the release on CD of the Stokowski premiere of my First Symphony,
taken from the original broadcast so long ago.
Incredibly, it coincided with my own
first actual studio recording of this early work for Naxos, to be released in
August 2010. This is the central piece in a CD that includes the first recording
of Nueve, a concerto for double-bass and orchestra featuring the
incomparable Gary Karr, for whom I wrote it a long time ago when I was the
composer-in-residence of the Cleveland Orchestra in George Szell’s time.
This rather unusual concerto includes
reciting of poems, an integral part of the score, performed with amazing
artistry by Simon Callow, an off-stage chorus, jazz drummers, musicians in the
audience, etc. The CD also includes one of my most recent works, Music for an
Imaginary Film, which could not be more different from
Nueve.
ResMusica.com quotitien de la Musique Classique Sunday August 30th
2009
 Alan
Hovhaness
(1911-2000) : Symphonie n°1 « Exile Symphony ».
Darius Milhaud
(1892-1974) : Symphonie n°1 op. 210.
Aaron Copland
(1900-1990) : Symphonie n°2 « Short Symphony ». José Serebrier (né
en 1938) : Symphonie n°1. NBC Symphony Orchestra, Houston
Symphony Orchestra, direction : Leopold Stokowski. 1 CD Guild
Historical GHCD2347. Code barre : 795754234725. Enregistré entre décembre 1942
et janvier 1944 au NBC Studio 8-H, New York City, et le 4 novembre 1957 au Music
Hall, Houston. ADD [mono]. Notices unilingues (anglais) excellentes. Durée :
72’51.
À peine avions-nous commenté une excellente production Music & Arts mettant
en valeur Stokowski dans trois symphonies de Chostakovitch, que nous recevions
ce CD Guild où le légendaire maestro s’illustre dans quatre symphonies qui lui
sont contemporaines et, parce qu’elles sont des raretés, rendent ce disque
particulièrement attrayant, et en tout cas, l’un des plus importants du
catalogue Guild Historical. Ces symphonies sont suffisamment courtes pour tenir
toutes les quatre sur un seul CD, ce qui signifie qu’elles expriment ce qu’elles
ont à dire de manière concise – celle d’Aaron Copland s’intitulant d’ailleurs
Short Symphony n’étant pas la moins complexe.
Leopold Stokowski (1882-1977) est réputé avoir dirigé plus de deux mille
créations mondiales ou premières en Amérique tout au long de sa carrière, et
pourtant il est rare de disposer sur CD commercial de quatre de ses créations
publiques d’œuvres peu représentées en concert. Ce disque est donc pratiquement
unique en son genre. Ces quatre partitions ont un rapport plus ou moins direct
avec l’Amérique : Alan Hovhaness et Aaron Copland sont Américains ; José
Serebrier est Uruguayen naturalisé Américain et écrivit sa Symphonie n°1
à New York ; Darius Milhaud est Français, mais sa Symphonie n°1 fut
commandée par Frederick Stock pour son Orchestre Symphonique de Chicago.
Alan Hovhaness (1911-2000), d’origine arménienne et écossaise, composa sa
Symphonie n°1 « Exile Symphony » en 1936, première d’une longue série de
67, en mémoire de l’extermination d’Arméniens par les Turcs vingt ans auparavant
durant la Grande Guerre ; les titres des mouvements sont suffisamment éloquents
: Lament, Conflict, Triumph. L’œuvre, d’intonation souvent
orientale, est d’un langage direct ; créée en Angleterre en 1939, elle reçoit
ici sa première américaine le 6 décembre 1942 à New York, exécution d’autant
plus précieuse qu’elle présente la version originale de l’œuvre : la deuxième
partie, Conflict, sera complètement réécrite par après. L’hommage d’Alan
Hovhaness envers le chef d’orchestre est suffisamment éloquent : « Leopold
Stokowski a été un miracle dans ma vie. Il fut le premier chef à exécuter une de
mes œuvres majeures aux États-Unis … il n’y a pas de mots pour exprimer ma
gratitude envers ce grand musicien et ce grand homme. »
La Symphonie n°1 op. 210 de Darius Milhaud (1892-1974), première
d’une série de douze dont on peut trouver une excellente intégrale chez CPO, fut
composée en 1939 pour honorer une commande de Frederick Stock et son Orchestre
Symphonique de Chicago dont on fêtait le 50e anniversaire. Cette partition
poignante qui permit à Milhaud de se réfugier aux USA, est l’une de ses plus
belles réussites ; Stokowski en donna la première exécution new yorkaise qui
nous est offerte ici, le 21 mars 1943.
La musique d’Aaron Copland (1900-1990), souvent associée aux vastes espaces
américains en une expression plutôt directement accessible, ne craint pas d’être
parfois d’une complexité redoutable : c’est le cas de cette Short Symphony
(1933), la deuxième de trois dans le catalogue du compositeur, qui malgré sa
brièveté (15 minutes), donna du fil à retordre non seulement à Copland qui mit
deux années à l’élaborer, mais aussi à des chefs tels que Koussevitzky et
Stokowski qui durent à plusieurs reprises en annuler l’exécution faute de
répétitions suffisantes. L’œuvre qui flirte avec le sérialisme fut finalement
créée à… Mexico en décembre 1934 sous la baguette de Carlos Chávez ; toutefois
Stokowski, persévérant, finit par en donner la première aux USA le 9 janvier
1944, exécution proposée ici.
José Serebrier (né en 1938) ne nous est certes pas inconnu, puisqu’il fut
l’assistant chef d’orchestre de Stokowski, notamment dans les premiers
enregistrements légendaires d’œuvres symphoniques de Charles Ives chez CBS. Et
c’est précisément suite à l’impossibilité de créer, le 4 novembre 1957 à
Houston, la Symphonie n°4 de Ives, que Stokowski choisit en lieu et place
la Symphonie n°1 en un mouvement (1956) de Serebrier, écrite à l’âge de
17 ans par un compositeur encore inconnu à l’époque… Si la partition, sorte de
vaste passacaille, ne peut être comparée aux trois œuvres matures précédentes,
elle est toutefois digne d’intérêt, et en tout cas elle est le témoignage d’un
Stokowski toujours soucieux à 75 ans de découvrir de jeunes talents musicaux.
Michel Tibbaut
Automated Free English Translation.
Alan
Hovhaness
(1911-2000): Symphony n°1 “Exiles Symphony”. Darius Milhaud
(1892-1974): Symphony n°1 COp 210. Aaron Copland (1900-1990):
Symphony n°2 “Symphony Shorts”. Jose Serebrier (born in 1938):
Symphony n°1. NBC Symphony Orchestrated, Houston Symphony
Orchestra, direction: Leopold Stokowski. 1 CD Guild Historical
GHCD2347. Code bar: 795754234725. Recorded between December 1942 and January
1944 in NBC Studio 8-H, New York City, and on November 4, 1957 in Music Hall,
Houston. ADD [mono]. Unilingual notes (English) excellent. Duration: 72 ' 51.
Hardly we had commented on an excellent production Music & Arts emphasizing
Stokowski in three symphonies of Chostakovitch, which we receive this CD Guild
where legendary maestro illustrates itself in four symphonies which are
contemporary for him and, because they are scarcities, make this disc
particularly attractive, and in any case, one of most important of the catalogue
Guild Historical. These symphonies are sufficiently short to hold all the four
on only one CD, which means that they express what they have to say in a concise
way - that of Aaron Copland being entitled Short Symphony besides not
being the least complex.
Leopold Stokowski (1882-1977) is famous to have directed more than two
thousand world creations or first to America throughout its career, and yet it
is rare to have on commercial CD of four of its public creations works little
represented in concert. This disc is thus practically single in its kind. These
four partitions have a more or less direct relationship with America: Alan
Hovhaness and Aaron Copland are American; Jose Serebrier Uruguyan is naturalized
American and wrote her Symphony n°1 in New York; Darius Milhaud is
French, but its Symphony n°1 was ordered by Frederick Stock for its
Symphony orchestra of Chicago.
Alan Hovhaness (1911-2000), of Armenian and Scottish origin, composed its
Symphony n°1 “Exile Symphony” in 1936, first of long series of 67, in
memory of the extermination of Armenians by the Turks twenty years before during
the Great War; the titles of the movements are sufficiently eloquent: Spangle,
Conflict, Triumph. Work, of often Eastern intonation, is of a
direct language; created in England in 1939, it receives here its first American
on December 6, 1942 in New York, execution all the more invaluable as it
presents the original version of work: the second part, Conflict, will be
completely rewritten by afterwards. The homage of Alan Hovhaness towards the
leader is sufficiently eloquent: “Leopold Stokowski was a miracle in my life.
There was the first chief to carry out one of my major works in the United
States… it are no words to express my gratitude towards this large musician and
this great man.”
The Symphony n°1 COp 210 of Darius Milhaud (1892-1974), first of a
series of twelve which one can find an excellent integral at CPO, was made up in
1939 to deliver an order with Frederick Stock and its Symphony orchestra of
Chicago which one celebrated the 50e birthday. This poignant partition which
made it possible Milhaud to take refuge in the USA, is one of its more great
successes; Stokowski gave of it the first execution new yorkaise which is
offered to us here, on March 21, 1943.
The music of Aaron Copland (1900-1990), often associated with vast American
spaces in an expression rather directly accessible, does not fear to be
sometimes of a frightening complexity: it is the case of these Shorts
Symphony (1933), the second of three in the catalogue of the type-setter,
which in spite of his brevity (15 minutes), gave wire to retordre not only with
Copland which spent two years to work out it, but also with chiefs such as
Koussevitzky and Stokowski which had on several occasions to cancel of it the
execution for lack of sufficient repetitions. The work which flirte with the
serialism was finally created with… Mexico City in December 1934 pennies the rod
of Carlos Chávez; however Stokowski, persevering, ends up giving the first of it
to the USA on January 9, 1944, execution suggested here.
Jose Serebrier (born in 1938) is certainly not unknown for us, since he was
the assistant leader of Stokowski, in particular in the first legendary
recordings of symphonic works of Charles Ives at CBS. And it is precisely
following impossibility of creating, on November 4, 1957 in Houston, the
Symphony n°4 of Ives, that Stokowski chooses in place and place the
Symphony n°1 in a movement (1956) of Serebrier, written at the 17 years age
by a still unknown type-setter at the time… If the partition, left vast
passacaille, cannot be compared with three preceding mature works, it is however
worthy of interest, and in any case it is the testimony of Stokowski always
concerned at 75 years to discover musical young talents.
MusicWeb International Tuesday June 30 2009
In-depth
musical enjoyment ... Rob Barnett
Stokowski
Alan HOVHANESS
(1911-2000)
Symphony No.1 op.17,2 "Exile Symphony" (1936) [18:16]
rec. live 6 December 1942, (US Premiere, First Version)
Darius MILHAUD
(1892-1974)
Symphony No.1 op.210 (1939) [21:09]
rec. New York live 21 March 1943 (First Performance in New York)
Aaron COPLAND
(1900-1990)
Symphony No.2 - "Short Symphony" (1933) [15:07]
rec. 9 January 1944 – (Studio 8-H, New York City) (U.S. Premiere)
 NBC
Symphony Orchestra/Leopold Stokowski
José SEREBRIER
(b.1938)
Symphony No.1 – symphony in one movement (1956) [17:48]
Houston Symphony Orchestra/Leopold Stokowski
rec. live 4 November 1957 Houston Music Hall - (World Premiere)
GUILD
GHCD2347
[72:51]
Guild's Historical label
raises expectations of the esoteric. Their rarities encompass broadcast live
recording sources and, less frequently, arcane repertoire. This disc combines
the two facets. Leopold Stokowski (1882-1977) is the unifying factor. His
adventurous mind ranged far and wide over revivals of the then unfashionable
(Mahler symphonies) to introducing the works of young or recherché composers.
He was a staunch and
practical friend to Hovhaness whose fully fledged Exile Symphony is
featured here in its 1942 US premiere. The BBC had given its world premiere with
the ill-fated Leslie Heward in 1939. The recording is clear and clean allowing
for some coughs and shuffles. The brass are pretty much present and full-on.
This original version can be compared with the revision which appears on a long
deleted Delos CD under Gerard Schwarz. I was taken with the original which while
including many Hovhaness hallmarks also sports a stronger narrative continuum
than we may be accustomed to from this composer. Futile, I know, but I do wonder
what we lost in his much-recounted 1940s bonfire of a barrow-load of his
youthful Sibelian effusions. The movements are: Lament, Conflict, Triumph. The
barking brass recall the RVW music for Apollyon in Pilgrim's Progress but
the Triumph is crowned with a weighty paean suggestive of the grand
operas of the Russian people. The work arose from the Scottish-Armenian-American
composer's reflections on an event which continues to resonate internationally -
the massacre of Armenians in Turkey in 1916. It's a fine statuesque work and
truly vivid in this superbly committed performance.
Milhaud's little First
Symphony carries in its first movement an innocent and intricate charm, pastoral
beauty and buoyancy. The rest of the work is unafraid of dissonance and darting
conflict. It is sometimes touched - as in the finale - by a neo-classical
flightiness. Copland's Short Symphony is his first of more than three in that
genre - so maintains Robert Matthew-Walker in his provocative liner-note. He
counts the three numbered symphonies of 1924, 1933 and 1946 and interleaves the
Dance Symphony (1930) and Symphonic Ode (1929) with the Short
Symphony and Connotations (1962) and Inscape (1967). Its spiky
angularity cannot conceal the many incidences of ripe Copland DNA. There are
also some moments of Roy Harris-like heroism as at 3:38 onwards in I. The
relationship of those stabbing brass note-cells to the fate motif from
Beethoven's Fifth is also to be noted. The filtered and refracted premonitions
of El Salon Mexico can be heard in the final Fast movement.
We know of Jose
Serebrier as assistant to Stokowski, as a composer and a very individual
conductor. Various CDs attest to his baton-mastery: his Rimsky Scheherazade on
Reference, his wonderful Janacek and Chadwick and a truly radiant and
miraculously paced Glazunov Fourth Symphony for all time from Warner. While the
other three works have the NBC Symphony Orchestra, the single movement Serebrier
First Symphony, written at the astonishing age of sixteen, is with the Houston
Symphony - the orchestra which Stokowski was to conduct in the premiere of
Hovhaness's Symphony No. 2 Magic Mountain. The Serebrier is raucously
uproarious, explosive and dissonant and then chastened and scorched - smoking
back into an inert state. The symphony is troubled beyond the composer's years
but discovers a remarkable plateau of singing radiance from 15:32 onwards to the
close. In 1962 Stokowski conducted the New York premiere of Serebrier's Elegy
for Strings and the year after that the world premiere of his Poema
Elegiaco.
More than history. More than time-travelling. In-depth vivid musical enjoyment
in unhackneyed repertoire. A glimpse of Stokowski the champion of the perceived
peripheral.
Rob Barnett
Audiophile Audition Wednesday June 24, 2009
Every performance of “first” symphonies here (excepting the Copland) marks a
World, United States, or New York premier.
 Stokowski
Conducts HOVHANESS: Symphony No. 1, Op. 1, No. 2 “Exile Symphony”; MILHAUD:
Symphony No. 1, Op. 210; COPLAND: Symphony No. 2 “Short Symphony”; SEREBRIER:
Symphony No. 1 - NBC Symphony Orchestra/ Houston Symphony Orchestra
This album should have borne the rubric “Stokowski Firsts,” since every
performance of “first” symphonies (excepting the Copland) marks a World, United
States, or New York premier. The old joke used to be that Stokowski “led more
first performances and fewer second performances” than any other conductor. The
music embraces the years 1932-1957, their commonality in Stokowski, who took
“foreign” nationals’ works and gave them their first realizations in the
“melting pot” of the U.S.
The exotic sounds of Armenian-American Alan Hovhaness are well familiar to
lovers of his Mysterious Mountain or his several “whale” pieces. His 1936
Symphony No. 1 (6 December 1942) had been premiered in England in 1939 under
Leslie Heward, who called the work “a powerful, virile score.” In three
“programmatic” movements entitled Lament, Conflict, and Triumph, perhaps
reflective of the troubled times of its origin. Bass clarinet and harp dominate
the languorous first movement, which occasionally breaks out in violent spasms.
Four brass chords mark the Conflict movement, the tympani rushing at us
in powerful rolls. A kind of animal, jungle energy chugs along, with twittering
flute and more, ominous tympani rolls. The so-called Triumph endures
several trials to achieve its glorious moment. What does emerge is the Hovhaness
gift for diaphanously contrapuntal textures and hymnal, chorale themes that
connect Eastern and Western modes and doxologies. The brass and battery sections
of the NBC have their field day, and all concerned have enjoyed this American
premier with a brio and sonic panache we call the “Stokowski sound.”
Darius Milhaud’s 1939 First Symphony came from a commission from the Chicago
Symphony and Desiree Defauw, and Milhaud’s journey to the U.S. saved his life
from Nazi aggression. The music opens (21 March 1943) with an airy Pastoral
that does move to dark places as the evolving spirit loses its innocence. Moving
with a kind of idee fixe--in the manner of Berlioz--the dominant motif refuses
to succumb totally to the disturbing forces around it. Having ended on an uneasy
F Major, the shattering metrics of the ensuing Tres vif A-flat Minor
second movement hardly come as a surprise. Fierce, demonic energies vie for
dominance, the various choirs of the orchestra in concert or antagonistic to
each other, a sort of Parisian Le Sacre du Printemps with the gloves off.
The Tres modere slow movement breathes a darkly hued chorale, a long
melismatic affair dominated by the clarinet. The sheer number of colors would
have immediately appealed to Stokowski: harp, gong, cellos in four parts,
tympani, pizzicato double-basses--it often sounds like a Villa-Lobos lament for
the Amazon. Chorale and savage dance merge for the Final: Anime,
almost a Dies Irae cross fertilized by an eccentric, English jig in 12/8.
The rugged dance eventually wins the tug of war, much to the bemused delight of
the Studio 8-H audience.
Copland’s “official” 1933 Second Symphony makes considerable demands on the
technical proficiency of its executants. Here (9 January 1944, a broadcast
performance), its semi-serial procedures find the requisite bravura and
enthusiasm in Stokowski and the NBC players, who handle the intricate rhythmic
shifts with smooth but tense efficiency. The stark, often “wasteland”
sensibility of the music makes it a perfect counterpart for a bleak poem by T.S.
Eliot. A clarinet takes us to the last movement: Fast: a driven, manic music
that, in spite of the fractious, Stravinsky influence, still alludes to El
Salon Mexico.
The scene switches to Houston, 4 November 1957, and Stokowski gives the world
premier of the first symphony by the seventeen-year-old, Uraguayan composer Jose
Sere brier (b. 1938), now famous himself as a conductor directly in the
Stokowski stamp. A through-composed, one-movement work, the Symphony establishes
a moody, gloomy bass line that serves as a passacaglia or ricercare,
while a motif in ¾ acts as a dance-like countermelody. Given its similarity to a
Rondo, the work might be a distant cousin of Debussy’s Jeux. Serebrier
excels in polyrhythmic writing for the woodwinds, and his battery section bursts
out flamboyantly, like a monstrous South American macaw. A decidedly lyric
element, rather melancholy, persists, so the work “belongs” to the Villa-Lobos
“school” as well, despite the sojourns into Webern and serialism. Given the
precocity of the piece, we must liken Serebrier to the Mendelssohn example of a
fully formed mastery at seventeen. That Stokowski provides every form of musical
and artistic stimulus is now ancient history.
Gary
Lemco
Alan Hovhaness
Web Site
Guild
has released an important historical CD, comprising significant recordings from
the voluminous Leopold Stokowski archive: four mid-20th century symphonies, all
taken from live radio broadcasts and each of them a premiere of some kind. Both
the Hovhaness Exile Symphony and Copland Short Symphony are US
premieres, the Milhaud Symphony No.1 is a New York premiere, and the José
Serebrier Symphony No.1, composed when Serebrier was just 17 years old, is a
world premiere. The latter work went on to win the precocious Uruguayan a BMI
award in 1957 (although Serebrier has since become more famous as a conductor).
The biggest eye-catcher here will likely be the US premiere of
Copland’s 2nd Symphony (given on 23 March 1943), but perhaps the Hovhaness
Exile Symphony is more of a unique historical document. The original
designations for the three movements were Lament, Conflict and Triumph,
reflecting the plight of exiled Armenians during the 1930s. In 1970 the
composer replaced the central Conflict with a new Grazioso movement, and
re-titled the outer ones with non-programmtic tempo markings, somewhat watering
down the symphony’s original political connotations. Thus, this is likely to be
the only available testimony of the work’s original 1936 conception, and
consequently an unexpected boon for Hovhanophiles.
As Robert Matthew-Walker’s well-researched booklet notes point out,
Stokowski gave more than 2,000 premieres of one kind or another. His enthusiasm
for young, up-and-coming composers seemed almost boundless. Many composers’
careers gained huge momentum from Stokowski’s championing and they were generous
in their gratitude to him. In a 90th birthday tribute, Hovhaness later wrote
“Leopold Stokowski has been a miracle in my life and there are no words to
express my thankfulness to this great man”. A much earlier (and privately
written) Hovhaness tribute relating to the maestro can be read on our website
here. Of course Hovhaness’ biggest early success was his 1955 Mysterious
Mountain symphony, premiered by Stokowski when making his debut with the
Houston Symphony, and also heard over the national radio. It was subsequently
recorded by Fritz Reiner and the Chicago Symphony.
This disc clocks in at a generous 72:51 and the standard of
remastering is high. Of course no amount of present-day digital audio wizardry
can purge all the limitations of 1940s recording technology, but we are, in
fact, hearing these live recordings with more clarity than the thousands of
radio listeners across the USA who tuned in all those years ago. Guild
Historical are to be congratulated on such a superb release. The unearthing of
these forgotten performances after more than half a century represents an
important addition not just to the Stokowski recorded legacy on CD but also that
of American symphonic playing and broadcasting in the ’40s and ’50s.
Audiophile completists of the four composers featured will be
ordering this disc as a matter of course, but at just GBP 4.60 and USD 6.81,
this CD is remarkable value for the curious
too.
Marco Shirodkar
Page revised Wednesday December 30 2009
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