The March 2015 issue of The Absolute Sound has an article by Mark Lehman called "The Great American Symphony" in which he nominates 9 symphonies for that title:
In his order, which is chronological and not by order of merit:
Ives Symphony 4
Hanson Symphony 2 "Romantic"
Barber Symphony 1
Harris Symphony 3
Schuman Symphony 5
Piston Symphony 2
Rochberg Symphony 2
Sessions Symphony 3
Fine Symphony
Lehman suggests recordings of these, all available on CD, but since normally I prefer to listen to vinyl I acquired LPs of all of these (pictured), and while not always his preferred recordings, all mentioned in the article. I had the Stokowski Ives already, and the others were easy to find.
I love this kind of curated approach - there is so much music out there, and time is limited, and while one doesn't always have to agree, a list like this is a great way to explore. I very much doubt if I would have gotten around to some- maybe even most - of these on my own and I'm very glad to have heard all of them.
Lehman does not offer his reasoning for his choices, per se, and it is interesting to see that the most recent composition, that of Irving Fine, was in 1962. Tragic story about Fine - he himself conducted this performance and then died a few weeks later of heart disease, just 47 years old. Also there are a couple of major names excluded - no Copland, no Diamond, no Bernstein, although Lenny looms large as performer of some of these works.
I have listened to all of them now at least once, and plan to listen again. Some very early thoughts:
Howard Hanson's Romantic Symphony (which I have known in the Slatkin recording for years) is the most accessible of these symphonies, and probably would have considered to be of greater stature if it had been composed at the turn of the century (the 20th, of course) rather than 1930....very tuneful, and really fun, and at this stage we shouldn't pay heed to the Hanson's reputation as a neo-romantic. I am planning to seek out his Symphony 3 as well.
I was surprised how lively and colorful Roger Sessions symphony 3 actually is. I look forward to further acquaintance with his work - probably next up will be the Concerto for Orchestra - I am unfortunately old enough to remember when that recording was first released.
Walter Piston's Second Symphony shows a real gift for melody, and I plan to seek out the 6th symphony for further hearing. Rochberg's symphony 2 is quite powerful - interesting that he later abandoned serial technique. His work in general seems to deserve to be better known. I would also use the term powerful to describe Barber's symphony 1. Barber is closer to being mainstream than these others, but we still don't hear enough of him.
Fine's symphony is almost cinematic - what a shame it is his only one. It is not perfect, but shows a tremendous amount of promise.
It is hard to know exactly what to think of Ives 4th symphony after a single hearing, but it is an amazing work for 1916....having said that, I cannot imagine anyone who responds to Holst's Planets to not have a positive response to the 3rd movement of the Ives work.
So of all of these works, I found myself responding the least to the Schuman 3rd - well constructed, but "academic" in nature - Schuman did not show any lyrical gift in this work. I actually enjoyed its disc mate more, the 5th symphony, but even so, I am not really tempted to explore a lot more. And my view of Roy Harris' 3rd, based on this hearing and a few others, is that it just might be overrated - it certainly ranked on the lower end of my reactions to these works after a single hearing -but note the qualification. At this stage, I don't feel a need to seek out further works of Harris, either.
The sound quality of the Columbia recordings is unfortunately not as good as that of the other labels, all of which were able to produce juicier sound. There is a grey dullness to the Columbia recordings that distracts from the music.
This has been an extremely interesting process for me. I do wish that our music directors would program some of these works more often. They deserve to be heard live and played by top-notch orchestras.
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Topic - The Great American Symphony - TGR 12:10:29 03/21/15 (41)
- RE: The Great American Symphony - Daverz 00:07:02 03/22/15 (0)
- RE: The Great American Symphony - learsfool 21:01:23 03/21/15 (0)
- No Copland 3rd! (nt) - jdaniel@jps.net 18:44:25 03/21/15 (7)
- RE: No Copland 3rd! (nt) - Todd Krieger 10:03:24 03/22/15 (5)
- RE: No Copland 3rd! (nt) - Chris from Lafayette 23:15:17 03/22/15 (4)
- RE: No Copland 3rd! (nt) - Todd Krieger 16:12:31 03/23/15 (3)
- RE: No Copland 3rd! (nt) - Chris from Lafayette 19:01:24 03/23/15 (0)
- Disagree re: Bernstein's final DGG w/NYPO. Iron and Steel - jdaniel@jps.net 18:56:28 03/23/15 (0)
- RE: No Copland 3rd! (nt) - Todd Krieger 16:42:50 03/23/15 (0)
- I was thinking the same thing. - rbolaw 19:17:51 03/21/15 (0)
- For further listening - Amphissa 17:54:40 03/21/15 (13)
- +1 Diamond 3rd and +1 Still's 2nd [nt] - Mike Porper 13:37:58 03/25/15 (0)
- I would add - csofan 19:18:03 03/22/15 (0)
- Hovhaness did 2 things over and over- - oldmkvi 00:08:24 03/22/15 (8)
- Yes - but at least he often uses different modes. . . - Chris from Lafayette 13:30:51 03/22/15 (0)
- The morality of music - Amphissa 05:22:41 03/22/15 (6)
- Not Diamond??!! - Mike Porper 13:52:37 03/25/15 (0)
- hahaha -- that's what I get - Amphissa 10:22:23 03/22/15 (1)
- Don't feel bad.... - D Harvey 14:15:45 03/22/15 (0)
- It's time for new glasses!!!! LOLOLOLOLOLOL. nt - oldmkvi 08:33:09 03/22/15 (0)
- The poster above wrote "Homophonic." As in, a one-line composition. - John Marks 05:53:33 03/22/15 (1)
- RE: The poster above wrote "Homophonic." As in, a one-line composition. - oldmkvi 08:34:52 03/22/15 (0)
- Hovhaness' Symphonies could get a whole article by themselves! - Chris from Lafayette 18:21:45 03/21/15 (1)
- A mighty task indeed - Amphissa 05:38:03 03/22/15 (0)
- Interesting juxtaposition... - Jim Treanor 16:07:22 03/21/15 (8)
- Not in the original film score ... - Amphissa 05:32:03 03/22/15 (1)
- Yup - in fact there used to be a CD of Goldsmith's original closing music [nt] - Chris from Lafayette 13:21:55 03/22/15 (0)
- Yes - a very unexpectied use of that work, but very effective nevertheless [nt] - Chris from Lafayette 18:06:41 03/21/15 (0)
- I was told, without the courtesy of asking permission - John Marks 17:51:55 03/21/15 (4)
- RE: I was told, without the courtesy of asking permission - rbolaw 19:03:25 03/21/15 (3)
- I meant of the publisher. Yes, a blunder. - John Marks 20:05:28 03/21/15 (2)
- Alien was the subject of a plagarism lawsuit from - oldmkvi 08:41:52 03/22/15 (1)
- Are you thinking of 2001? - Chris from Lafayette 13:25:37 03/22/15 (0)
- Hmmm. Perhaps the context of the passage of time has not been kind to Harris' Third - John Marks 15:43:07 03/21/15 (2)
- Yes - interesting that Harris' later symphonies didn't get the same kind of acclaim [nt] - Chris from Lafayette 18:04:40 03/21/15 (1)
- Well... just throwing some ideas out in answer to your observation - John Marks 20:20:40 03/21/15 (0)
- Nice post - it really helps provoke interest in those works - Chris from Lafayette 14:58:25 03/21/15 (4)
- Stop Listening to Bruckner [nt] - Mike Porper 13:40:39 03/25/15 (0)
- RE: Nice post - it really helps provoke interest in those works - ahendler 15:49:06 03/21/15 (2)
- +1 Copland 3rd [nt] - Mike Porper 13:46:54 03/25/15 (0)
- Yeah - funny the Copland wasn't on there - I like it too [nt] - Chris from Lafayette 18:02:28 03/21/15 (0)