|
This fascinating disc features the lost generation of American
composers, who took their inspiration from the German and French music of their
continental teachers. Annotator Malcolm MacDonald writes that “their
reputations were made in the early years of the 20th century- and subsequently
were more or less discounted with the rise of a more aggressively ‘American’
school. Now that the brawling 20th century is over, it begins to be possible to
see that these earlier American masters contributed a rich body of music which
is possible to enjoy for its own sake, its skill and fine culture.” Of the
four composers on this disc, Louis Coerne (1870-1922) is now the most thoroughly
forgotten, though there was a time when he was among the most frequently
performed American composers on either side of the Atlantic. In common with many
others, Coerne found creative inspiration in the legends of King Arthur, of
which the principal result was the symphonic poem, Excalibur, completed a year
before his death. Edward Burlingame Hill (1872-1960) was an influential and
respected composer, critic and teacher. Among his pupils at Harvard were Leonard
Bernstein, Elliott Carter, Ross Lee Finney, Virgil Thomson and Randall Thompson.
Hill’s early music shows the influence of Edward MacDowell, but his openness
to French and other influences allowed him to forge a more distinctive idiom of
his own as he matured. Stevensoniana, written in 1916-17, is subtitled “Four
Pieces after poems of Robert Louis Stevenson’s A Child’s Garden of Verses”.
Fittingly, this charming work shows considerable delicacy of feeling and display’s
Hill’s talents as an orchestrator. Horatio Parker (1863-1919) is mainly
remembered today as the teacher of the great Charles Ives, though in his time
Parker was one of the most famous and highly esteemed composers in the
English-speaking world. Parker wrote two symphonic poems, A Northern Ballad and
Vathek. Parker was attracted to Nordic and Celtic subjects, and in A Northern
Ballad produced a sensitive and beautifully orchestrated work much in the folksy
modal manner of Delius or Grieg. John Alden Carpenter (1876-1951) is probably
the best known of the four composers on this disc. Carpenter’s Sea-Drift is
inspired by the sea poems from Walt Whitman’s Leaves of Grass, and is an
elegiac score with only occasional and brief climaxes. Annotator MacDonald
points to its “phosphorescent coloring wholly appropriate to its subject
matter.” Karl Krueger leads the Royal Philharmonic in this newly re-mastered
recording.
These Royal Philharmonic/Krueger recordings are also available
from BRIDGE:
Music of Hadley, Farwell, MacDowell, Herbert, Parker; 9124A/C
(3 CDs)
Edward MacDowell: The Symphonic Poems; BRIDGE
9089
Music of William Grant Still, Amy Beach; BRIDGE
9086
|
