MusicWeb International One of the most grown-up review sites around 2024
60,000 reviews
... and still writing ...

Search MusicWeb Here Acte Prealable Polish CDs
 

Presto Music CD retailer
 
Founder: Len Mullenger                                    Editor in Chief:John Quinn             

CD REVIEW



Some items
to consider

new MWI
Current reviews

old MWI
pre-2023 reviews

paid for
advertisements

Acte Prealable Polish recordings

Forgotten Recordings
Forgotten Recordings
All Forgotten Records Reviews

TROUBADISC
Troubadisc Weinberg- TROCD01450

All Troubadisc reviews


FOGHORN Classics

Alexandra-Quartet
Brahms String Quartets

All Foghorn Reviews


All HDTT reviews


Songs to Harp from
the Old and New World


all Nimbus reviews



all tudor reviews


Follow us on Twitter


Editorial Board
MusicWeb International
Founding Editor
   
Rob Barnett
Editor in Chief
John Quinn
Contributing Editor
Ralph Moore
Webmaster
   David Barker
Postmaster
Jonathan Woolf
MusicWeb Founder
   Len Mullenger


Buy through MusicWeb from £15.80/16.60/17.10 postage paid.
You may prefer to pay by Sterling cheque or Euro notes to avoid PayPal. Contact for details

Musicweb Purchase button

Aaron COPLAND (1900-1990)
Fanfare for the Common Man (1942) [3:18]
Rodeo (1942) [18:16]
Appalachian Spring (Suite) (1945) [22:19]
Paul HINDEMITH (1895-1963)

Symphonic Metamorphosis on Themes by Carl Maria von Weber (1940-43) [20:13]*
Atlanta Symphony Orchestra/Louis Lane, *Robert Shaw
rec. Symphony Hall, Woodruff Arts Center, Atlanta, March 1981 and *November 1980
TELARC SACD-60648 [64:38]



These Copland performances impressed me mightily on vinyl, not least because of Telarc’s remarkably clean engineering. Revisiting them now, my enthusiasm persists, but in more muted form.

The opening percussion shots of the Fanfare for the Common Man have the sort of tremendous depth and presence at which Telarc used particularly to excel. But they're way out of proportion to the main group of instruments, which doesn’t register with the same impact. The opening trumpets suggest a distant call across vast open spaces – an effect missed in more conventionally in-your-face performances such as Ormandy’s (Sony or RCA) – but never get "closer"; even the tympani whacks sound subdued alongside the recurrent punctuations. Perhaps unfolding the SACD's surround information would help – I listened in straight frontal stereo – but that seems unlikely. It's still impressive, but I’d have preferred a more realistic equalization.

The four dance episodes from Rodeo – does anyone ever play the complete original ballet? – go nicely. Louis Lane projects the irregular, syncopated rhythms with assurance and a nice "swing" – if without Bernstein's crispness and point (Sony) – and gently nudges the metrical ambiguities of the Saturday Night Waltz. As in other Atlanta recordings from this period, the string desks sound slightly understaffed, but this helps keep the textures light, especially in the outer movements.

Appalachian Spring offers beautiful pages alongside others imperfectly realized. After a flowing but aimless slow introduction, the first tutti picks up a nice airborne buoyancy, only to grow tentative and lose steam as it winds down. Vibrant string tone sustains interest in some of the quiet passages; others simply go static. From the Shaker tune through to the coda’s wistful fadeout, however, is all first-rate, with the pellucid woodwind reproduction making no small assist.

Hindemith’s Symphonic Metamorphosis, which fills out the program, is drawn from an earlier Telarc LP. The composer's accessible astringencies prove an unexpectedly effective foil for Copland's Americana mode. Robert Shaw never achieved the same technical expertise as an orchestral conductor that he had as a choral trainer, a shortcoming that shows here in generalized orchestral textures and some diffuse string attacks. But he delivers this extroverted score with a healthy musicality, eliciting plenty of vivid, pungent orchestral color.

The choice and sequence of works is pleasing, then, and the program is mostly well recorded, but this isn't really a top choice for any of the works included. The booklet, by the way, places the Copland sessions, implausibly and erroneously, at Powell Hall in St. Louis; Telarc's American representative confirms that all these pieces were in fact recorded in Atlanta, as the headnote indicates.

Stephen Francis Vasta

 


Advertising on
Musicweb


Donate and keep us afloat

 

New Releases

Naxos Classical
All Naxos reviews

Chandos recordings
All Chandos reviews

Hyperion recordings
All Hyperion reviews

Foghorn recordings
All Foghorn reviews

Troubadisc recordings
All Troubadisc reviews



all Bridge reviews


all cpo reviews

Divine Art recordings
Click to see New Releases
Get 10% off using code musicweb10
All Divine Art reviews


All Eloquence reviews

Lyrita recordings
All Lyrita Reviews

 

Wyastone New Releases
Obtain 10% discount

Subscribe to our free weekly review listing

 

 

Return to Review Index

Untitled Document


Reviews from previous months
Join the mailing list and receive a hyperlinked weekly update on the discs reviewed. details
We welcome feedback on our reviews. Please use the Bulletin Board
Please paste in the first line of your comments the URL of the review to which you refer.