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             


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

REVIEW


Advertising on
Musicweb


Donate and keep us afloat

 

New Releases

Naxos Classical
All Naxos 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

 

 

Availability
CD & Download: Pristine Classical

American Piano Music from 78rpm Recordings
see end of review for listing
Rudolph Ganz (piano) (Marionettes);
Jeanne Behrend (piano) (Piano Music by American Composers)
rec. c.1941 (Behrend) and c.1944 (Marionettes)
Issued in 1947 as US Decca album A-576 (Ganz); Catalogue Nos. 24153-4 (Behrend); RCA Victor Musical Masterpiece Series M-764; 17910-17913
PRISTINE PAKM 044 [46:57]

Experience Classicsonline



 
For all that people kvetch about record companies at no time in history have we ever had so much music available. The present CD is part of the array of evidence that can be adduced to substantiate that statement.
 
These valuable retrievals from two rara avis albums of American 78s present music that is light on the ear. The Macdowell Marionettes suite (1888-1901) gathers eight pieces each with a Schumann-like fairytale - or even silent movie - title. These inventive little mood vignettes (Prologue; Clowns; Lover; Soubrette; Sweetheart; Villain; Witch; Epilogue) are typical of sub-Chopin salon though some do make a fleeting pass in the direction of Rachmaninov and transcend the genre. This suite seems not to have been included in James Barbagallo’s four Naxos CDs (vol 1 vol 2 vol 3 vol 4) of the Macdowell piano music or at least not under this title.
 
Ganz, Geneva-born, was a Busoni pupil in Berlin but arriving in Chicago in 1901. Chicago was to become his adopted home though he did have time for European tours between 1908 and 1912. He was music director of the St. Louis Symphony Orchestra (1921-27) and had made recordings with them for Victor. He married Mary Forrest, an American concert singer in 1900. In addition to an early Symphony his oeuvre included an orchestral suite of twenty Animal Pictures (1933). His Piano Concerto was introduced in 1941 with the composer as soloist. You can hear this extravagant four movement work on Cedille CDR 90000 029. It’s in a blend of styles. These span Rachmaninovian romance (second movement), Ravel’s mercurial fantasy (G minor concerto) and a Shostakovich-like abruptness in the first movement. A sort of nervy elegance suffuses the whole thing. A 1940s Chicago Symphony Orchestra/Frederick Stock radio broadcast of the Concerto by Ganz was issued on Dante HPC050. Ganz can be heard in more classical repertoire on Guild.
 
Philadelphia-born Jeanne Behrend (1911-1988) attended the Curtis Institute in the early 1930s where she was a piano pupil of Josef Hofmann. Her composition tutor was Rosario Scalero. Fellow Curtis student Barber wrote an Interlude I - an episode of cloudy introspection - which is dedicated to her. She championed Harl Macdonald’s (1899-1955) out-west Concerto for Two Pianos and Orchestra which was recorded with her by Stokowski (Cala CACD 0501). She championed Americana as we can see and her compositions included the piano suite A Child's Day, From Dawn to Dusk for orchestra (1939) and a Lamentation for viola and piano (1944). She edited Louis Moreau Gottschalk's Notes of a Pianist in 1964. By the bye: Philip Martin’s 8 CD Gottschalk set has just been issued on Hyperion CDS44451/8.
 
Chasins’ D minor prelude is rather grand and in hock to Rachmaninov while the F sharp minor is a scintillating little raindrop sprint. Gershwin’s three preludes are familiar enough and their jazzily smoochy and rapid-fire loucheness is well caught by Behrend. Daniel Gregory Mason’s The Whippoorwill is peaceful with fragrant echoes of Macdowell’s pastoralism. Speaking of Macdowell the Lisztian scramble that is March Wind is from his Op.46 Virtuoso Studies. Its celerity is such that it would work well on a pianola roll. I wonder if one was made. John Alden Carpenter’s Diversion is impressionistic and for English listeners is strongly redolent of John Ireland. With other hats on Carpenter could be jazzy asw e know from his ballets. David Guion’s Country Jig has an barn-dance style with a flock of wild banjos flying down hill out of control. The Guion can also be heard on Naxos 8.111120. Randall Thompson’s Song After Sundown is a touching little atmosphere piece closer in ecstatic style to the Carpenter. Freed’s March from his Five Pieces is a clunky muscle-powered piece like a brutal and stubborn carillon. Robert Nathaniel Dett wrote some superb choral-orchestral music such as Chariot Jubilee and The Ordering of Moses; why don’t we hear it. Clive Lithgow recorded his suite In The Bottoms in 1971 for Philips LP (9500 096) but this warm-hearted Adagio Cantabile is a contented piece. There’s a whole New World CD devoted to his piano music. In The Lonely FiddlemakerLeo Sowerby takes us to the same territory as Guion but with a splash of Bushmills. US-based pianist Harold Bauer who premiered Holbrooke’s first piano concerto was also a composer. His glimmeringly romantic White Birches from The New Hampshire Woods suite attests to this. Arthur Farwell’s music amounts to a sleeping giant with his Brucknerian massive Rudolph Gott Symphony and his tone poem The Gods of the Mountains. Here he appears on a smaller scale with the stern Navajo War Dance and the gawky light-hearted Grainger-reminiscent Sourwood Mountain. Farwell was an Indianist composer alongside Cadman and Converse. Beach’s very short Improvisation is a sort of waltz fragment.
 
Pristine extend their arm yet deeper into the most exotic corners of the repertoire. Next thing you know they will find that fabled set of 78s of the Holbrooke Fourth Symphony made by the Torquay Municipal Orchestra; I can dream.
 
Rob Barnett 

Track listing
Edward MACDOWELL
Marionettes Suite
, Op. 38 [10:41]
Abram CHASINS
Prelude in D minor, Op.13, No.5 [1:23]; Prelude in F sharp minor, Op.11, No.1 [0:37]
George GERSHWIN
Prelude in B flat major [1:35]; Prelude in C sharp major [3:07]; Prelude in E flat major [1:11]
Daniel Gregory MASON
The Whippoorwill
, Op.9, No.4 [from Country Pictures] [3:20]
Edward MACDOWELL
March Wind
, Op.46, No.10 [from Virtuoso Studies] [1:49]
John Alden CARPENTER
Diversion
[2:10]
David GUION
Country Jig
[2:31]
Randall THOMPSON
Song After Sundown
[2:54]
Isadore FREED
March
[from 5 Pieces for Piano] [1:56]
Robert DETT
Adagio Cantabile
[2:36]
Leo SOWERBY
The Lonely Fiddlemaker
[2:16]
Marion BAUER
White Birches
, Op.12, No.1 [from The New Hampshire Woods] [2:07]
Arthur FARWELL
Navajo War Dance
, Op.20, No.1 [2:25]; Sourwood Mountain, Op.78, No.3 [3:12]
Amy BEACH
Improvisation
[No. 2 from 5 Improvisations] [0:55]

 


EXPLORE MUSICWEB INTERNATIONAL

Making a Donation to MusicWeb

Writing CD reviews for MWI

About MWI
Who we are, where we have come from and how we do it.

Site Map

How to find a review

How to find articles on MusicWeb
Listed in date order

Review Indexes
   By Label
      Select a label and all reviews are listed in Catalogue order
   By Masterwork
            Links from composer names (eg Sibelius) are to resource pages with links to the review indexes for the individual works as well as other resources.

Themed Review pages

Jazz reviews

 

Discographies
   Composer
      Composer surveys
   National
      Unique to MusicWeb -
a comprehensive listing of all LP and CD recordings of given works
.
Prepared by Michael Herman

The Collector’s Guide to Gramophone Company Record Labels 1898 - 1925
Howard Friedman

Book Reviews

Complete Books
We have a number of out of print complete books on-line

Interviews
With Composers, Conductors, Singers, Instumentalists and others
Includes those on the Seen and Heard site

Nostalgia

Nostalgia CD reviews

Records Of The Year
Each reviewer is given the opportunity to select the best of the releases

Monthly Best Buys
Recordings of the Month and Bargains of the Month

Comment
Arthur Butterworth Writes

An occasional column

Phil Scowcroft's Garlands
British Light Music articles

Classical blogs
A listing of Classical Music Blogs external to MusicWeb International

Reviewers Logs
What they have been listening to for pleasure

Announcements

 

Community
Bulletin Board

Give your opinions or seek answers

Reviewers
Past and present

Helpers invited!

Resources
How Did I Miss That?

Currently suspended but there are a lot there with sound clips


Composer Resources

British Composers

British Light Music Composers

Other composers

Film Music (Archive)
Film Music on the Web (Closed in December 2006)

Programme Notes
For concert organizers

External sites
British Music Society
The BBC Proms
Orchestra Sites
Recording Companies & Retailers
Online Music
Agents & Marketing
Publishers
Other links
Newsgroups
Web News sites etc

PotPourri
A pot-pourri of articles

MW Listening Room
MW Office

Advice to Windows Vista users  
Questionnaire    
Site History  
What they say about us
What we say about us!
Where to get help on the Internet
CD orders By Special Request
Graphics archive
Currency Converter
Dictionary
Magazines
Newsfeed  
Web Ring
Translation Service

Rules for potential reviewers :-)
Do Not Go Here!
April Fools






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.