This is the third volume
in Bridge's restoration of Karl Krueger's
SPAMH recordings. The Society's Herculean
efforts resulted in the recording of
much totally neglected American orchestral
music from the nineteenth century (and
earlier). In addition to recording substantial
orchestral scores by Louis Coerne (Excalibur),
Bristow and John Knowles Paine there
was room for chamber music by John Antes,
choral works by Billings and traditional
singing from the Appalachias. By the
time the Society had finished they had
produced over one hundred LPs. These
were distributed on a library basis
rather than being commercial issues.
When the SPAMH LPs were disgorged
onto the market this came about when
the Society was on its last legs and
was offering to give their remaining
stock of LPs away free.
My introduction to
its existence was a substantial two
part article on the SPAMH series. This
was by the great Richard D.C. Noble
and it appeared in the UK in late 1970s
issues of Cis Amaral's 'Records and
Recordings' magazine - a home of literate
and inspirationally knowledgeable writing
about classical music. I made contact
with Richard and he was kind enough
during the early 1980s to make a series
of cassettes from these so that I could
hear the music.
Krueger was born in
Atchison, Kansas in 1894. He studied
in Vienna with Robert Fuchs (whose works
are being recorded complete by Thorofon)
and Franz Schalk. After a spell as assistant
conductor of the Vienna Staatsoper he
held various music director positions:
Seattle (1925-32); Kansas City (1933-43)
and Detroit (1943-49). He founded the
Society for the Promotion of the American
Musical Heritage in 1958.
The Macdowell First
Suite (like the Second) was premiered
in Boston conducted by Emil Pauer. It
starts with an uncharacteristically
dramatic In a Haunted Forest.
There is a touch of Tchaikovsky's Hamlet
here. The other movements are ebullient
(Chabrier), cheeky (Dukas) and poetic
(Grieg and the cooler Tchaikovsky) in
the way of light music but by no means
demonstrating the bleached charm of
his piano miniatures. Krueger and the
RPO give what is the best performance
I have ever heard of the piece. It is
full of vigorous restlessness, sparkle
and poetry.
They are scarcely less
triumphant in the much more famous Second
Suite The Indian. Like the
First Suite this is in five titled movements.
Once again the territory is Lisztian;
indeed the Legend first movement
reminds me of moments from Liszt's Faust
Symphony and there are echoes of
Sibelius's Kullervo and First
Symphony. While there are some flavours
of native Indian music they are by no
means prominent. The auburn-toned balm
of the Love-Song second movement
is very effective. Macdowell cannot
muster real threat. In the In War-Time
movement the music is instead jauntily
cheerful rather than grippingly threatening
with similarities to the Abruzzi dances
in Berlioz's Harold in Italy.
The Dirge is a fresh piece of
affecting writing rather like the Love-Song.
It has something of the best of Grieg
about it - dark and reflective. The
finale Village Festival. If you
rate Glazunov's orchestral suites or
perhaps those of Ludolf Nielsen (Dacapo)
then this is cut from similar cloth.
This recording easily outstrips the
competition (Hanson on Mercury and Landau
on Vox).
Horatio Parker,
the teacher of Sessions, Porter and
Moore is best known for his oratorio
Hora Novissima (it even achieved
a Three Choirs performance) and his
opera Mona premiered at the Met
in 1912. Vathek was inspired
by the gothic fantasy novella
of the same name by William Beckford
(1759-1844). Vathek is the name of a
Caliph whose incredible wealth enabled
him to indulge every sensuous instinct.
He enters into a compact with Eblis
(the Devil figure) for forbidden knowledge
but Eblis betrays and abandons him to
writhe in eternal agony in the Palace
of Subterranean Fire. The reference
points here are Tchaikovsky's Francesca
da Rimini, Elgar's Second Symphony,
Franck's Psyché and the
early Miaskovsky symphonies (1-4). The
piece ends in golden harmonic light
as indeed does the Herbert poem that
follows it.
The Hero and
Leander symphonic poem is not
the only concert-piece by Herbert
in the catalogue. Marco Polo issued
a disc that included his Auditorium
Festival March, Irish Rhapsody
and Columbus Suite with
the Slovak Radio Symphony Orchestra
and Keith Brion (8.225109). Hero
and Leander is a full-on symphonic
poem - a substantial piece running to
almost half an hour.
The legend of Hero
and Leander has Hero as a prophetess
of Aphrodite living in a tower overlooking
the Bosphorus. Leander, her lover, swims
the straits each night until drowned
in a storm. Hero in despair jumps to
her death and Poseidon restores the
lovers to life as a pair of birds. The
Love-Scene second episode has
some eldritch writing reminiscent of
the macabre writing in The Nutcracker.
This is a gorgeous tone poem in the
tradition of Holbrooke (Ulalume,
Queen Mab and The Raven)
and Bantock (Witch of Atlas and
Dante and Beatrice) without quite
the exalted exotic flair of a Griffes
or a Parker.
Arthur Farwell's
suite of music for the Oriental-themed
play by Lord Dunsany is as richly imagined
and expressed as Griffes' Pleasure
Dome of Kubla Khan. Bracket the
style of this piece somewhere between
the exotic works of Adolphe Biarent
(Contes d'Orient on Cyprès),
Mily Balakirev (Tamara) and Rimsky-Korsakov
(Antar). The remorseless
bluntly ungainly thuds gaining in volume
and range as the finale The Stone
Gods Return progresses. This
suite follows a savage and exotic tale
with beggars outside the city of Kongros
impersonating the city's stone gods
and enjoying a brief heighday of sensual
indulgence before the real gods return
Golem-like and avenge the impiety by
turning the beggar impostors to stone.
The people take the petrification of
the beggars as verification of the pretenders'
status as Gods.
Henry Hadley who
conducted the New York premiere of The
Gods of the Mountains in 1931 was
born in Massachusetts and studied in
Vienna. He was the conductor of the
Seattle, San Francisco and New York
orchestras. He was a determined champion
of American music who included American
music in every programme. He was an
early supporter of music radio broadcasts
giving many studio concerts during the
early days of radio. He wrote four symphonies
of which the Second is The Four
Seasons (starting with Winter).
This is, in layout and achievement,
similar to the Raff, Huber and Rubinstein
symphonies. The idiom which never lacks
distinction veers from Tchaikovsky (suites
and ballets) to Grieg (Gynt and
the Symphonic Dances) to Smetana
(Ma Vlast) to Glazunov (The
Seasons), discursive and illustrative
rather than epic or tragic. As if to
confirm this the work ends with a modest
gesture from the violins. I detected
a little more wear on the original tapes
for this symphony than on the other
items in this munificent set.
Hadley's Salome
was inspired by seeing Oscar
Wilde's play. The plotline is related
to episodes in the story rather like
the annotated tone poem scores of Joseph
Holbrooke. The use of the orchestra
is sophisticated with exotic sinuous
flavouring from the woodwind. Parts
of it link with the contemporaneous
Sibelius tone poem Pohjola's Daughter
and with Liszt's Faust Symphony.
The by turns rapturous, restive and
troubled late-romanticism of this score
has about it less of Strauss and more
of what we now recognise as Bantock
and Holbrooke. If some of the tracks
have something of the music (e.g. tr.9)
for a dumbshow/mime about them, the
Dance of the Seven Veils and
the Death of Salome have weight
and emotional impact.
The very extensive
English only notes are by Malcolm Macdonald
and they provide us with extensive background
- a veritable encyclopaedic entry for
each piece. I lament only the absence
of a detailed account of the history
of the SPAMH project. There is a fascinating
story to be told, I am sure.
The playing of the
RPO is superlative and the close-up
rugged analogue sound does gripping
justice to everyone's commitment. Listen
to the dazzling pizzicato at the start
of the last movement of MacDowell's
second suite.
Rob Barnett
for
details 
Royal Philharmonic Orchestra/Karl Krueger