New Recordings Of American Music

Press, Volume CIX, Issue 32048, 24 July 1969, Page 11

New Recordings Of American Music

Three releases by R.C.A. present American musicians—composers, a singer, an instrumentalist, conductors, and orchestras—in a largely favourable light. The Philadelphia Orchestra under Eugene Ormandy presents fine renderings of Ives’s Symphony No. 3 and William Schumann’s New England Triptych on LSC 3060.

Ives’s third symphony, “The Camp Meeting,” is probably his most popular work but it is the one most untypical of Ives, showing him in an introspective mood. There is no montage of tunes, no col-lage-Uke textures, and none of the usual blend of the serious with fun and games. Other performers of this work have tried to add something of the usual Ives, but Ormandy sticks strictly to the reticence and subtlety Ives intended and the recording is all the better for it

The subtle use of a small orchestra to explore a limited range of sound is in direct contrast to the other work on the record. Schumann’s forte is orchestration and he demonstrates it here. There is a good deal of block orchestration one colour mass opposed to another. There is a slightly enlarged chamber music scoring in the central part of the work. But while the Triptych is a magnificent example of orchestral skill, it has little else to offer, well played though it is. The musical ideas are not worth the effort Schumann devotes to them.

Leontyne Price sings two scenes from “Antony and Cleopatra” and “Knoxville: Summer of 1915” (both by Samuel Barber) with the New Philharmonia Orchestra under Thomas Schipperis (LSC 3062). Miss Price’s singing is magnificent, but unfortunately the* same cannot be said about all her material. “Knoxville: Summer of 1915” is a setting of a prose fagment by James Agee, from his Pulitzer Prize novel, “A Death In The Family," and while it is fine prose it presents great difficulties to the composer setting It to music, and Barber does not overcome these. But “Knoxville” is a much earlier work than “Antony and Cleopatra,” which had its premiere in 1966, and in the later work it is easily seen why Barber is the foremost American composer of vocal music. There are no inconsistencies between music and text in this work, and it gives Miss Price a fitting vehicle for her wonderful voice.

The third R.C.A. release is of the two little-heard clarinet concertl by Weber. They are played by Benny Goodman with the Chicago Symphony Orchestra under Jean Martfnon (LSC 3052). Both concert! are good examples of Weber’s gay, vivacious music. The second uses the clarinet better, but the first is adequate in this respect Goodman's playing is an eye-opener. He does not have the same agility as in some of his early jazz recordings, but his tonal control is superb. It is easy to forgive him taking the “presto” passages a little slowly when he plays as expressively as he does in these concert!. Two recent releases by Kiwi feature the Garde Republicaine on the French Pathe label (CPTPM 130 572) and Michael Head playing and singing his own songs (Kiwi JLP 141). The Pathe record is a sharp reminder that band music should not be too lightly damned. The Garde Republicaine presents Bach’s Toccata

and Fugue In D minor, Liszt's Hungarian Rhapsody No. 2, and two overtures, the “Poet and Peasant” by van Suppe and the “Thieving Magpie" by Rossini. The arrangements are imaginative and if the works were not so well known it would be easy to see them as having been created for this band. The Michael Head recording is disappointing. The singing is competent but uninspired—which is not surprising, considering the rubbish he has written for himself. A professor at the Royal Academy of Music should know better.