Was it really almost
thirty years ago that I first heard
the music of Howard Hanson? A friend
had taped a miscellaneous Radio 3 programme
of American music. It was broadcast
one Sunday in 1973. Apart from including
Griffes’ Pleasure Dome there
was also the middle movement of Hanson's
Romantic. It was the first time
I had heard any Hanson. In due course
I got the Charles Gerhardt LP of the
whole Romantic Symphony. Then
having started my first qualified job
I threw caution to the winds and ordered
via the then Crotchet Records mail order
a batch of USA LPs selected from a Schwann
catalogue I had picked up in a jazz
specialist shop in Plymouth. That bulky
parcel came by surface mail from the
USA (I seem to recall the name ‘Harlequin
Records’ as Crotchet’s suppliers). It
included some fascinating Hanson, Piston,
Schuman, Hovhaness, Harris and Randall
Thompson. The Hanson was the Mercury
LP of the first two symphonies - the
same two tapes as appear here. I played
that LP to death and came to know the
Nordic complete with one or two
clicks and groove skips as if those
blemishes were integral parts of the
music. I was, and remain, a resolute
Sibelian; the music of Hanson has some
Sibelian resonance with a Tchaikovskian
pungency. It is highly emotional and
emotive music. If you know the history
of favourite works by Sibelius, Nielsen,
Peterson-Berger and others it should
come as no surprise that the Nordic
was actually written in Rome where he
was studying with Respighi. It was premiered
by the Augusteo Orchestra with the composer
conducting on 30 May 1923. The recording
here was made 35 years later. It positively
throbs with soulful Scandinavian feeling.
Hanson is no dawdler and keeps the pressure
on his players who respond with the
alacrity of an orchestra that has grown
up under Hanson's shaping hands. The
precision of the final 'crump' of the
Nordic is deeply impressive.
The Second Symphony
is in the grand romantic manner with
melodic material to match. Just listen
to the horn 'fall' at 4:31 and the easy-does-it
solo that follows. This is Hollywood
before the grand Rózsa, Herrmann
and Korngold scores were written. Here
the accent is even more Sibelian. This
is particularly heard in the woodwind
writing. Hanson wrote a gift of a tune
in the first movement and matched it
in the tender balm of the andante
con tenerezza even if it does remind
most people of a passage from the song
Born Free. The strings glow with
a Hollywood sheen - ample in tone with
only a feint suggestion of ‘dated-ness’.
The plungingly bright allegro con
brio is well named with darting
winds, commanding brass (00.49) all
grippingly exciting (3.20). The reprise
of the great theme from the first movement
appears at 5:20 and is a spectacularly
moving moment.
Only Charles Gerhardt
(now on Chesky) has excelled the composer
in the Romantic although Montgomery
(Arte Nova) is I think very fine even
when taken at the almost parodied distended
pace he adopts. Schwarz and Slatkin
each have their own strengths but lack
the belligerent passion the composer
brings to this music-making.
As for Hanson, even
after his retirement from the Eastman
in 1964, he remained faithful to his
star, writing music that remained lyrically
accessible, intricately crafted and
with a dramatic sense of structure.
The Sixth Symphony in 'six panels',
from 1968, is for me his other great
symphony alongside these two.
The notes on the symphonies
are by James Lyons and Arthur Loesser.
The composer provides his own note for
the Song of Democracy and the
Whitman text is printed in full. The
piece sidles modestly in. The singing
is well coached and marvellously clear.
The wild dance of 3.23 must have been
in Hanson’s mind for the scherzo elements
of the Sixth Symphony. There are some
Waltonian triumphalisms (3:52). Memorable
moments include the opulent and increasingly
urgent chiming obbligato at 10.03. If
we flinch and wince in the face of the
sincere sentiments then let us also
recall works such as Ireland's These
Things Shall Be and wonder if we
have become too knowing ... too cynical.
Rob Barnett
Eastman School of Music Chorus/Dr Herman H Genhart
MERCURY LIVING PRESENCE
475 6181 [66:40] 