The Art-Music, Literature and Linguistics Forum

Music of Ronald LoPresti
From the collection of Karl Miller

I have the pleasure of announcing the upload of a collection of music by American composer Ronald LoPresti, who is definitely, in my opinion, one of the most underrated American composers. Lopresti, a clarinetist as well as a composer, was born in 1933 in Williamstown, Massachusetts. A pupil of Howard Hanson, he graduated from the prestigious Eastman School of Music, and taught at Arizona State University.   He is most known for a band composition,  his moving elegy for JFK, “Elegy for  a Young American”. (If you search youtube, you will find many versions of this).  His two movement Orchestral Suite “Masks”, conducted by Hanson, was released as part of the Mercury Living Presence series, and is also a strong work, but, to date, far too little of his work has been commercially released.

I’ve uploaded a collection of live performances of some of his never-released orchestral works:  two excellent symphonies, a nocturne for viola and strings, and other works.  

Note:
There are some of LoPesti chamber works available through the Arizona State University web site at
http://repository.asu.edu/search?q=lopresti (http://repository.asu.edu/search?q=lopresti)

On a v. brief 'skim through', pleasant indeed, thanks !

Clarinet Concerto by Barney Childs
(http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/b/bb/BarneyChilds.jpg/250px-BarneyChilds.jpg)
Stanley Drucker, Clarinet
American Symphony Orchestra
Dennis Russel Davies, Conductor
Barney Childs

From the collection of Karl Miller

DISSONANCE ALERT

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Wikipedia Bio
Barney Childs (February 13, 1926 – January 11, 2000) was an American composer and teacher.
Born in Spokane, Washington, he taught and composed avant-garde music and literature at universities in the United States and United Kingdom.

Music
He was a musical autodidact till his association in the 1950s with Leonard Ratner and Elliot Carter in New York and with Aaron Copland and Carlos Chavez at Tanglewood. He was associated later with double bass player Bertram Turetzky and clarinet player Phillip Rehfeldt. He wrote several pieces for these and other players, often using extended techniques. Much of his music employs improvisation and indeterminacy (see his "Roachville Project," 1967). However, his influences are diverse and include jazz artists, John Cage, Charles Ives, and Paul Hindemith. Childs won the Koussevitzky Award at Tanglewood in 1954.

Education and Teaching Career
Trained originally as a literary scholar, Childs earned a Ph.D. in English from Stanford University (1959) and remained active as an editor and writer of poetry (see ...and other poems, 1955). He had previously studied at Deep Springs College, the University of Nevada at Las Vegas, and Oxford University, where he was a Rhodes Scholar. He taught at the University of Arizona, where he was mentor to the young Joseph Byrd, Deep Springs College, where he served as Dean, Wisconsin College Conservatory, and Goldsmiths, University of London. From 1974 until his death, he was professor of composition and music literature at the University of Redlands in Redlands, California. He also taught literature and creative writing at the Johnston Center for Integrative Studies, located on the University of Redlands campus.

Childs died with Parkinson's disease in 2000.

Music of Bernard Rogers
Repost from UC

At long last, I am happy to say that I have just posted several works of Bernard Rogers from the collection of Karl Miller.  Having listened to about half of this, I can say without doubt that he is definitely a candidate for poster child for unsung composers, and this should be a major bonanza.  Some of the sources were pretty lo-fi, but my thanks to Karl for spending more than a week on doing everything he could to improve them.  He’s provided some technical notes on some of the sources and restorations, which I will reproduce in the downloads section.

Music of Bernard Rogers Volume 1

1-5: Symphony No.4 “To Soldiers”
Battle Fantasy; Eulogy; Fugue and Epilogue
CBS Symphony Orchestra
Thor Johnson, conductor
[15 May 1949]

A version of this recorded has already been posted to Unsung.  Karl explains:




6-8: Symphony No.4
Eastman Rochester Symphony Orchestra
Howard Hanson, conductor
[6 May 1948]


9:  Symphony No.5 “Africa” (1962)
Visions; Tribal Drums
Symposium Orchestra
Composer, conducting

Notes from Karl:


Music of Bernard Rogers Volume 2.

1-10: Song of the Nightingale, Suite (1939)
Prelude; The gardens of the porcelain palace; Expedition of the Chinese gentlemen; Berceuse; A court festival; The clockwork nightingale; Death and the emperor; Song of the nightingale; Happy ending
Peabody Orchestra
Gunther Schuller, conductor

11:  Symphony No.3? in C
“On a Thanksgiving Song”
Rochester Philharmonic
Howard Hanson, conductor
[27 October 1937]

Notes  on Symphony 3 from  Karl:



Music of Bernard Rogers 3

1Apparitions for Orchestra
Cincinnati Symphony Orchestra/Max Rudolf
[date unknown]

2-3 Four Pictures after Hans Christian Anderson
Eastman Rochester Symphony Orchestra/Howard Hanson [28 April 1945?]

4-8: Three Japanese Dances
Cleveland Orchestra/Louis Lane
[date unknown]

9: Portrait for Violin and Orchestra
Josef Gingold, violin
Cleveland Orchestra/George Szell
[18/20 October 1956]

10:  Suite “Silver World” (1949)
A Hobby Horse; Chinese March; A Princess; Tug of War
Eastman Little Symphony/Frederick Fennell
[date unknown]
No notes…

I haven’t found much about Rogers with a quick search, but we’ll start with a photo and 2 quick bios.

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Wikipedia Bio
Bernard Rogers (4 February 1893 – 24 May 1968) was an American composer.

Rogers was born in New York City. He studied with Arthur Farwell, Ernest Bloch, Percy Goetschius, and Nadia Boulanger. He taught at the Cleveland Institute of Music, The Hartt School, and the Eastman School of Music. He retired from the latter school in 1967, and died in Rochester, New York.

Bernard Rogers composed five operas , five symphonies, other works for orchestra, chamber music, three cantatas, choral music and Lieder.

He was a National Patron of Delta Omicron, an international professional music fraternity.[1]

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Archive.Org  Bio:

Bernard Rogers (1893-1968) was professor of composition and chair of the composition department at Eastman from 1930 to 1967. He was born in New York City, and studied architecture before turning to music. His early composition teachers were Hans van der Berg, Arthur Farwell, and Ernest Bloch. After the successful premiere of his symphonic elegy, To the Fallen, by the New York Philharmonic in 1919, Mr. Rogers was awarded a Pulitzer Traveling Scholarship for study in Europe. In 1927, he received a Guggenheim Fellowship, and studied with Nadia Boulanger in Paris and with Frank Bridge in London. He began to teach composition and orchestration at Eastman when he returned to the United States in 1929. In the ensuing 38 years, he taught more than 700 composers, many of whom went on to achieve international prominence. Mr. Rogers’ work as a composer included four symphonies, three operas, several major choral works, and numerous works of chamber music. His book The Art of Orchestration has been acknowledged as a classic in its field since its publication in 1951. He received honorary doctorates from Valparaiso University and Wayne State University, and was elected a member of the National Institute of Arts and Letters in 1947.

I pulled the bio from  this page, which also features with 4 very clean transfers of 78s of neglected American artists conducted by Hanson, free to download.  I would not hesitate to snag the Rogers Soliloquy for Flute and the Barlow.

  http://archive.org/details/AmericanWorksForSoloWinds (http://archive.org/details/AmericanWorksForSoloWinds)

Lukas Foss: Exeunt
(http://wp-images.emusic.com/assets/2011/04/a483427d-747b-4928-b5cb-0efe929fed12.jpg)

Milwaukee Symphony Orchestra
Zdenek Macal, Conductor
Radio Broadcast, Date Unknown

DISSONANCE ALERT

From the collection of Karl Miller

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Wikipedia Bio
Lukas Foss (August 15, 1922 – February 1, 2009) was a German-born American composer, conductor, and pianist.

Music career
Foss was born Lukas Fuchs in Berlin, Germany in 1922. His father was the philosopher and scholar Martin Fuchs. He and his family moved to Paris in 1933, where he studied piano with Lazare Lévy, composition with Noël Gallon, orchestration with Felix Wolfes, and flute with Louis Moyse. In 1937 he moved with his parents and brother to the United States, where his father (on advice from the Quakers who had taken the family in upon arrival in Philadelphia) changed the family name from Fuchs to Foss. He studied at the Curtis Institute of Music in Philadelphia, with Isabelle Vengerova (piano), Rosario Scalero (composition) and Fritz Reiner (conducting).

At Curtis, Foss began a lifelong friendship with classmate Leonard Bernstein, who later described Foss as an "authentic genius". In 1961 Bernstein would conduct the premiere of Foss's Time Cycle, while Foss would conduct the premiere of Bernstein's Symphonic Dances from West Side Story.[1]

Foss also studied with Sergei Koussevitzky during the summers from 1939 to 1943 at the Berkshire Music Center (now known as the Tanglewood Music Center) and, as a special student, composition with Paul Hindemith at Yale University from 1939 to 1940.[2] He became an American citizen in 1942.[3]

Foss was appointed professor of music at UCLA in 1953, replacing Arnold Schoenberg. While there he founded the Improvisation Chamber Ensemble, which made its Boston debut in 1962 for the Peabody Mason Concert series.[4] He founded the Center for Creative and Performing Arts in 1963 while at the State University of New York at Buffalo.

From 1963 to 1970 he was Music Director of the Buffalo Philharmonic Orchestra. From 1971-1988 he was Music Director of the Brooklyn Philharmonic (formerly Brooklyn Philharmonia). From 1981 to 1986, he was conductor of the Milwaukee Symphony Orchestra.[2] He was a Professor of Music, Theory, and Composition at Boston University beginning in 1991. His notable students include Faye-Ellen Silverman, Claire Polin and Rocco Di Pietro.[3]

He is grouped in the "Boston school" along with Arthur Berger, Irving Fine, Alexei Haieff, Harold Shapero, and Claudio Spies.[3]

He was a National Patron of Delta Omicron, an international professional music fraternity.[5][not in citation given]

Lukas Foss died at his home in Manhattan on February 1, 2009, aged 86, from a heart attack.[3]

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Interesting perspective from eMusic:

The Adequate Genius of Lukas Foss
 
The composer Lukas Foss, who turns 85 in August, has been working long enough to experience all the stages of appreciation: dazzlement at his youthful gifts, inflated hopes for his future, quiet disappointment in his maturity, distinguished oblivion and belated reassessment. Foss's meager discography and his invisibility in most standard accounts of 20th century music belie a thick and high-quality catalogue of works, and a career spent at the heart of American musical life.

Foss committed the unforgivable sin for an American creative artist: He was really quite good. In this country we treasure Bernstein-scaled talents (which Foss doesn't have) and relish failings spectacular enough to hold out the exciting prospect of redemption (which Foss never experienced). But we reserve a special, unjust contempt for the consummate professional, the non-genius who influences nobody but keeps loyally producing fine, quiet novels or satisfying symphonies. We don't easily forgive adequacy.

He was born Lukas Fuchs in 1922, into a Berlin Jewish family that had the double foresight to leave Germany for Paris as soon as Hitler came to power, and then to get to the United States in 1937. The teenager was by then a prodigious pianist, a practiced composer and a budding conductor, and he absorbed the English language and American culture as quickly as he did music (though he still has a brushstroke of an accent). At 22, he had his first major compositional triumph with “The Prairie,” a cantata on poetry by Carl Sandburg that honored Aaron Copland, the American heartland and the wartime self-image of the nation that Foss adopted with gusto.

Already, he was sorting through his kitbag of identities. In 1945, with his native city nearly razed, his people nearly extinguished from Europe, and his new country vigorous and proud, Foss wrote a big, noisy downer of a piece: “Song of Anguish,” a 20-minute orchestral song with text from Isaiah. “Woe unto them that call evil good and good, evil; that put darkness for light and light for darkness,” proclaims the baritone after a fire-and-brimstone orchestral prelude. He must have seemed awfully callow to be the bearer of such forceful gloom.

“Song of Anguish” is a displaced person's response to the grotesque moral inversions of World War II, and it staked a claim for American symphonic music as the expression of an ethical conscience. In the immediate aftermath of the war, few composers of any school, young or elderly, were writing with the expertise and urgency of the young Lukas Foss. Few could bring such overweening clarity and liveliness to bear on such serious, aspirational music. If the cantata has not had much of an afterlife in the concert halls, it's partly because of its utter lack of irony.

People always had trouble deciding how seriously to take Foss, or what file drawer to locate him in — an elusiveness he has been rightly proud of. Was he the Americanist of “The Prairie,” the Biblical tragedian of “Songs of Anguish,” the experimental modernist of the '60s, whose “Time Cycle” and “Echoi” still hold up as triumphs of the moderate avant-garde? Or was he the light-fingered neoclassicist who seemed still to be working out the answers to puzzles proposed by Bach? Is his “Central Park Reel” a genuine tribute to backcountry folk music, or just a form of urbane condescension?

There can be no doubt about the sincerity or effectiveness of his 1989 piano concerto “Elegy for Anne Frank.” A naive melody hesitantly forms itself against a background of melancholy strings, as if a child were sitting at the piano, plunking out the elements of her identity. But a tune, Foss shows, can mutate, acquire character and a destiny, and Anne Frank's morphs into a grim, oppressive march. Foss'musical narrative is so clear, it's hardly even necessary to know that Frank spent her truncated adolescence during World War II hiding in an Amsterdam attic and musing into her diary, before the Nazis deported her to Auschwitz and murdered her there. The piece ends with the tinkle of a toy-like piano petering out into silence.

Music of Harl McDonald
(http://www.bach-cantatas.com/Pic-Lib-BIG/McDonald-Harl-01%5Bc1930-Rembrandt-Studios%5D.jpg)
From the collection of Karl Miller
All sources from LPs or Radio Broadcasts

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Volume 1:
1-4 Symphony 1: The Santa Fe Trail (the Explorers, The Spanish Settlements, The Wagon Trains of the Pioneers
Philadelphia Orchestra, Eugene Ormandy
Victor M754

5. Rhumba from Symphony Number 2
Philadelphia Orchestra/Leopold Stokowski
Victor 8919

6. Cakewalk from Symphony #4
Philadelphia Orchestra/Eugene Ormandy, Victor 15377

7. Festival of the Workers(Dance of the Workers)
Philadelphia Orchestra/Leopold Stokowski, Victor 8919
NOTE: Tracks 5 and 7 may be commerically available.  I've reposted a corrected link in the downloads section. 

8-9: Two Poems on Hebrew themes
Philadelphia Orchestra/Eugene Ormandy; Victor 14903

10-13: Children’s Symphony (On Familiar Tunes)
Allegro, Andante, Scherzo, Finale
Philadelphia Orchestra/Composer
Columbia ML 2141

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Volume 2
1-3: Violin Concerto
Alexander Hilsberg, Violin
Philadelphia Orchestra/Eugene Ormandy
17 March, 1945

4-7: From Childhood, For Harp and Orchestra
Allegro, Moderato, Allegro
Edna Phillips, harp
Philadelphia Orchestra/Composer; Victor M839

8-10: Elegy and Battle Hymn
George Newton, Bass Baritone
Indianapolis Symphony Orchestra/Fabien Sevitzky
28 Jan 1943

11.  My Country at War
Philadelphia Orchestra/Eugene Ormandy, Victor M592

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Bio from BachCantatas.com

Born: July 27, 1899 - near Boulder, Colorado, USA
Died: March 30, 1955 - Princeton, New Jersey, USA

The American pianist, composer, conductor, music adminstrator and teacher, Harl McDonald, began to study music in elementary school, where he showed promise as a pianist. He undertook his graduate study at University of Southern California in Los Angeles, where his professors included Vernon Spencer, Ernest Douglas, and Yaraslav de Zielinsky. McDonald earning his bachelor of music degree in 1921. He also studied at the University of Redlands, California. He then traveled to Europe, where he spent a year studying in Leipzig, gaining a further diploma from the conservatory there in 1922.

Harl McDonald returned to the USA during 1923, embarking on a full-time career as a solo pianist and accompanist. In 1924, he also joined the faculty of the Philadelphia Musical Academy as a piano teacher, and remained at that until 1926, when he was hired by the University of Pennsylvania. At Pennsylvania, where he stayed for the next 20 years (1926-1946), McDonald held a number of academic posts (including Director of the University's Choral Society and the University of Pennsylvania Glee Club), rising through the ranks to become senior professor and finally Director of the Music Department.

Harl McDonald also served as general manager of the Philadelphia Orchestra in from 1939 to 1955, and on the Board of Directors of the Philadelphia Orchestra Association. He also worked as a researcher in the fields of acoustics and sound measurement for the Rockefeller Foundation. In 1955, he published his findings in collaboration with O.H. Schenck in the book New Methods of Measuring Sound. In recognition for this acclaimed book, McDonald was elected to the scientific society Sigma Xi.

In addition to his administrative duties with the University, Harl McDonald composed numerous musical works, often of a programmatic nature.. His four symphonies are subtitled "The Santa Fe Trail" (#1 - 1933), "The Rhumba" (#2 - 1934), "Lamentations of Fu Hsuan" (#3 - 1935) and "Festival of the Workers" (#4 - 1937). His other works include a concerto for two pianos, two piano trios, and choral music. His 1938 Lament for the Stolen, for women's chorus and orchestra, was written in commemoration of the Lindbergh kidnapping.

jowcol, thanks so much for uploading all the McDonald works. I had done a similar post in the old UC forum, but you have a couple of works I was lacking, which I'm grateful to finally have! I regret to inform you, however, that the Festival of the Workers, and the Rhumba from the 2nd Symphony have appeared on CD in these same recordings on the Cala label.

Thanks for the warning.  Colin and I had already identified a couple other tracks that I needed to remove from the collection.  For now,  me pull the link(s) affected, and re-upload.  I'll have it remedied in a day or so, but in the meantime I don't want to leave the links up.

Cantata for Soprano, Baritone, Violin and Harp by Robert Starer
(http://photos.instantencore.com/68970/68970_300.jpg)

1. Radio Intro
2. Cantata for Sop, Bar, Violin and Harp
3. Radio Outro

Radio Broadcast  20 March 1949 

From the collection of Karl Miller

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Wikipedia Bio:
Robert Starer (8 January 1924[1] in Vienna – 22 April[2] 2001 in Kingston, New York) was an Austrian-born American composer and pianist.
Robert Starer began studying the piano at age 4 and continued his studies at the Vienna State Academy. After the 1938 plebiscite in which Austria voted for annexation by Nazi Germany, Starer left for Palestine and studied at the Jerusalem Conservatory with Josef Tal. In World War II he served in the British Royal Air Force. And in 1947 he settled in the United States. He studied composition at the Juilliard School in New York, studied with Aaron Copland in 1948 and received a postgraduate degree from Juilliard in 1949. Starer became an American citizen in 1957.

Robert Starer taught at the Juilliard School, Brooklyn College and the Graduate Center of the City University of New York where he became a distinguished professor in 1986. He was married, had one child, Daniel, and resided in Woodstock, NY until his death. He lived with writer Gail Godwin for some thirty years; the two collaborated on several librettos.
Starer was prolific and composed in many genres. His music was characterized by chromaticism and driving rhythms. His vocal works, whether set to English or Hebrew texts, were particularly praised. He composed the score for Martha Graham's 1962 ballet Phaedra. He also wrote four operas The Intruder (1956), Pantagleize (1967), The Last Lover (1975), and Apollonia (1979).

One of the pieces Starer wrote was "Even and Odds" for piano players in their early stages.

He is also known for his pieces entitled "Sketches in Color".

To learn more about life of Robert Starer, one may read his autobiography. [3]

He is buried in Artists Cemetery, Woodstock, Ulster County, New York   

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BCOM Wiki Page

The Brooklyn College Center for Computer Music originated when composer Robert Starer, then a member of the faculty of the Conservatory of Music at Brooklyn College, originated the idea of creating an electronic music studio at Brooklyn College in the mid-1970s.  The idea took root, and Jacob Druckman and Noah Creshevsky were the studio’s first Co-Directors. In those early days the equipment consisted largely of Moog analog synthesizers. Charles Dodge took over as Director in 1978, and he was responsible for having the studios designated as an official Center within Brooklyn College, the Center for Computer Music (CCM).

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From the Starer Home Page written before his death:
This home page was written by Robert Starer before his death:
 
Welcome to my Web Site.  To begin with: a brief biography.  Longer, more detailed ones are available from a number of sources.  Included here is an autobiographical story called CONTINUO, which deals with my early years in Vienna and Jerusalem.
 
To help you locate one of my compositions I have prepared two lists of work: one by publisher and one by instrument.  (A complete list of works with the dates they were written can be found in the 2001 edition of Grove's Dictionary).
 
On this web site recordings, books and articles are separate.  PhD. theses are not included.  Neither are reviews.  My feelings about listing reviews are that if you like my music, you don't need them and if you don't like it, they won't convince you.
 
I hope you find this information useful and I thank you for your interest.
     
Biography

ROBERT STARER was born in Vienna in 1924 and entered the State Academy of Music at the age of 13. Soon after Hitler's annexation of Austria, he went to Jerusalem and continued his studies at the Palestine Conservatoire. During World War II, he served with the Royal British Air Force. In 1947, he came to New York for post-graduate study at the  Juilliard School and also studied with Aaron Copland at Tanglewood in 1948. He became an American citizen in 1957. He has taught at Juilliard from 1949 to 1974 and at Brooklyn College and the Graduate Center of the City University of New York from 1963 to 1991. He was named a Distinguished Professor in 1986. Among his honors are two Guggenheim Fellowships and grants from the National Endowment and the Ford Foundation. He was elected a member of the American Academy of Arts and Letters in 1994, awarded the Medal of Honor for Science and Art by the President of Austria in 1995, an Honorary Doctorate by the State University of New York in 1996 and a Presidential Citation by the National Federation of Music Clubs in 1997.

His stage works include three operas with libretti by Gail Godwin and several ballets for Martha Graham. His orchestral works have been performed by major orchestras here and abroad under such conductors as Mitropoulos, Bernstein, Steinberg, and Mehta. Interpreters of his music include Janos Starker, Jaime Laredo, Paula Robison and Leontyne Price. The recording of his Violin Concerto (Itzhak Perlman with the Boston Symphony under Seiji Ozawa) was nominated for a Grammy. Excerpts from his book CONTINUO: A Life in Music have appeared in the New Yorker, Musical America, and the London Times. In 1997 the Overlook Press published THE MUSIC TEACHER, his first work of fiction. The opening chapter was excerpted in The Keyboard Companion. CD recordings of his music are available from CRI, VOX, Albany Records, Transcontinental and MMC. 

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From: Continuo: A Life in Music, Random House, New York, 1987:
"Nations go through stages just as human beings do; in essence there are only three such stages (not counting birth and death), the first being ascent and the vigor of youth; the second maturity and the height of power; the third decline and the diminishing of vital forces.

The Austria of my childhood was already past the third stage. The Jewish Palestine I knew in my teens had just begun its youthful ascent and was the most idealistic society I have even known. The British were just beyond their highest peak when I proudly wore their uniform. They fought valiantly, but while they did win the war, it cost them dearly.
The United States that I came to as a student in 1947, was young, pure and strong when I arrived. It had beaten evil and felt itself untainted by it.

Why all these observations? Mainly to see my own life in relation to that of societies I have been part of. It appears that I have swum against the stream; that I moved from an old, decaying civilization to a young, powerful one, having touched others in between.

How has all this affected me and my music? I have probably selected what suited me from all the cultures that have touched me, and rejected or ignored what was incompatible with my nature. In my music, I have been told, there are elements of Viennese sentiment, Jewish melisma, Near Eastern playfulness and American jazz. These elements must have been compatible with my nature to have become part of my style and musical personality. Other features of the cultures I have known did not become part of me. This has led me to believe that while our lives are shaped by events that others control, we do have the choice of accepting from the worlds around us.

I would also like to extend my thanks to you, jowcol, for uploading the Harl McDonald pieces. His Concerto for Two Pianos is a beautiful, romantic piece and I have always wanted to hear more of his music.

John Lewis:  Jazz Ostinato
(http://www.jazclass.aust.com/profiles/lewis.jpg)
John Lewis recording at the Broadcast Studios in Geneva on July 5th-6th, 1972
(Photo courtesy of Jean-Jacques Becciolini, Zürich)



Modern Jazz Quartet
Cincinnati Symphony Orchestra
Max Rudolf, Conductor
January 1967
Private Recording of live performance, (Venue unspecified, but the MJQ and CSO played Carnegie Hall that  month)

From the collection of Karl Miller

I'd clearly rank this work as a very successful "Third Stream" outing.  Although I'm a pretty big jazz fan, I didn't know much about the MJQ,, but I guess I'm going to have to learn more about them.  Lewis's participation in the "Birth of the Cool" Nonet (with Miles Davis and Gil Evans) already makes him of interest to me.

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Following from Michael Furstner's Jazz Class website:

JL 1 - John Lewis and the Modern Jazz Quartet
John Aaron Lewis was born in La Grange (Ill.) in March 1920 and sadly passed away recently in March 2001.   He grew up in Albuquerque (N.Mex.), and started playing the piano when he was seven.   Lewis studied anthropology and music at the University of New Mexico until 1942 when he joined the Army. In the Army he befriended Kenny Clarke, a prominent Bebop drummer.

After the war, in 1946, Clarke introduced Lewis into the Dizzy Gillespie Band as arranger and pianist.  Lewis also started at the Manhattan School of Music. He included voice lessons in his curriculum and completed two degrees , developing a special interest in Renaissance and Baroque music (counterpoint).
Through Clarke, Lewis joined the nine piece Miles Davis Capitol recording group in 1949.

The Rhythm section of this group became the nucleus from which in 1952 the Modern Jazz Quartet was formed.
The Modern Jazz Quartet consisted of : John Lewis, piano - Milt Jackson, vibraphone - Percy Heath, bass - Kenny Clarke, drums. In 1955 Clarke was replaced by the quieter and more appropriate drummer Connie Kay.

Initially known as the Milt Jackson Quartet, John Lewis soon took over as musical director of the group and the name was changed to the Modern Jazz Quartet (MJQ).

The group played together for 22 years (until 1974), and is arguably the most successsful ensemble in the history of Jazz.

MJQ has been the main, though by no means only, vehicle for John Lewis' compositions and arrangements.

In Jazz his compositions are unique, as they commonly combine the element of Classical form with the Traditional Jazz element (largely lost in modern Jazz) of collective improvisation. The fugue is Lewis' favourite form. He uses it very effectively to integrate written lines with single and collective improvisations.    

Leonard Feather wrote in the 'Encyclopaedia of Jazz' :

As an instrumental soloist, Lewis has been described as :

In the 50's and 60's the MJQ played a major role in making Jazz 'respectable' to many 'serious music' listeners in Europe. In the winter of 1957 alone the MJQ played 88 concerts in four months in Europe and England.

John Lewis once described his music as 'economical and transparent'.

William O Smith, Interplay (1964)
(http://faculty.washington.edu/kendo/billsmith.jpg)

Private recording of live performance-- most likely details are:
Modern Jazz Quartet
Cincinatti Symphony Orchestra
Max Rudolf, Conductor
January, 1967


From the collection of Karl Miller

This work is a bit edgier than the Lewis and Prohaska I've posted, but still has a very elegant blend of jazz and 20th century orchestral elements, where neither sounds superficial to my ears.   Smith also sounds like a very interesting individual.  The fact that he "turned his back" on Julliard mirrors Miles Davis, who was likely attending around the same time.   (Miles said that playing every night with Charlie Parker and Dizzy Gillespie was much more of an education than his class work....)

Also note that he crossed paths with Stuart Dempster, who was quite a character-- Dempster's album Underground Overlays from the Cistern Chapel took brass instruments, a conch, and a didgeridoo into a giant cistern--an empty, two-million-gallon water tank--at Fort Worden, near Port Townsend in Washington State, with a reverb time of over 45 seconds...if you are curious, you can sample track from that album here: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VQqrQbyVG6s (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VQqrQbyVG6s).

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From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia


William Overton Smith (born September 22, 1926), known as Bill Smith, is a U.S. jazz clarinetist, and composer. He has played with Dave Brubeck, among others.

Life
Bill Smith—also known as a "classical" composer under his full name, William O. [Overton] Smith—was born in Sacramento and grew up in Oakland, California, where he began playing clarinet when he was ten. He put together a jazz group to play for dances at 13, and at the age of 15 he joined the Oakland Symphony. He idolized Benny Goodman, but after high school, a brief cross-country tour with a dance band ended his romance for the life of a traveling jazz musician. He gave two weeks' notice when the band reached Washington, D.C., and, encouraged by an older band member to "get the best education you can get," headed to New York.

He began his formal music studies at the Juilliard School of Music, playing in New York jazz clubs like Kelly's Stable at night. Uninspired by the Juilliard faculty, he returned to California upon hearing and admiring the music of Darius Milhaud, who was then teaching at Mills College in Oakland. At Mills, he met pianist Dave Brubeck, with whom he has often played since, in both the famous Dave Brubeck Octet and The Dave Brubeck Quartet, as well as other groups. In 1947, he composed Schizophrenic Scherzo for the Brubeck Octet, one of the earliest works that successfully integrated jazz and classical techniques, a style that later was given the name "third stream" by Gunther Schuller (Mitchell 2001). He studied composition with Roger Sessions at the University of California, Berkeley, where he was graduated with a bachelor's and a master's degree.

Winning the Prix de Paris presented Smith the opportunity for two years of study at the Paris Conservatory, and in 1957, he was awarded the prestigious Prix de Rome and spent six years in that city. He has since received numerous other awards, including two Guggenheim grants (Monaghan 1996).
After a teaching stint at the University of Southern California, Smith began a thirty-year career at the University of Washington School of Music in Seattle, where he taught music composition and performance, co-leading the forward-thinking Contemporary Group first with Robert Suderburg, and then with trombonist Stuart Dempster, from 1966 to 1997 (Mitchell 2001). Both Smith and Dempster are currently professors emeritus.

Smith has investigated and cataloged a wide range of extended techniques on the clarinet, including the use of two clarinets simultaneously by a single performer, inspired by images of the ancient aulos encountered during a trip to Greece (Monaghan 1996), numerous multiphonics, playing the instrument with a cork in the bell, and the "clar-flute," a technique that involves removing the instrument's mouthpiece and playing it as an end-blown flute. As William O. Smith, he has written several pioneering pieces that feature many of these techniques, including Duo for Flute and Clarinet (1961) and Variants for Solo Clarinet (1963) (Smith [n.d.]), and he compiled the first comprehensive catalogue of fingerings for clarinet multiphonics (Rehfeldt 1994, 99–121). Smith was among the early composers interested in electronic music, and as a performer he continues to experiment with amplified clarinet and electronic delays. He remains active nationally, internationally, and on the local Seattle music scene as well, where in 2008, he composed, recorded, and premiered a "jazzopera" titled Space in the Heart (Anon. 2008).

Awards
•   Prix de Paris
•   Phelan Award
•   1958 Rome Prize
•   1960 Guggenheim Fellowship (John Simon Guggenheim Memorial Foundation 2010)
•   A Fromm Players Fellowship
•   National Academy of Arts and Letters Award
•   BMI Jazz Pioneer Award

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I've also found part of a PhD thesis that offers a good description of all the interesting techniques that Smith added to the clarinet...

From:
A PERFORMER’S GUIDE TO MULTIMEDIA COMPOSITIONS
FOR CLARINET AND VISUALS: A TUTORIAL FOCUSING ON
WORKS BY JOEL CHADABE, MERRILL ELLIS, WILLIAM O.
SMITH, AND REYNOLD WEIDENAAR
A Written Document
Submitted to the Graduate Faculty of the
Louisiana State University and
Agricultural and Mechanical College
in partial fulfillment of the
requirements for the degree of
Doctor of Musical Arts



William, “Bill,” Overton Smith was born in Sacramento, California on September
22, 1926. According to Peter Monaghan, “Smith’s life in jazz began at age ten. A
traveling salesman came to his family’s door in Oakland and said to his mother, ‘You
can’t pass up this opportunity. If your boy takes 24 lessons I’ll give him a free
clarinet.’”76 Bill did earn the clarinet and by the age of thirteen, he started a dance band.
By sixteen, he was studying theory, and was leading a jazz orchestra. By fifteen he was
performing with the Oakland Symphony. He toured with various bands after high school
before attending Juilliard. Smith continued to play at jazz clubs while in New York, but
eventually returned to Oakland after discovering that the French composer, Darius
Milhaud was teaching composition at Mills College.

Smith studied composition with Milhaud in 1946 at Mills College and then
studied with Roger Sessions at the University of California at Berkeley. He received
both the Bachelor of Arts (1950) and the Master of Arts (1952) degrees from Berkeley.
Smith later attended classes at the Paris Conservatory (1952-53) and at Juilliard (1957-
58).

Smith has received numerous awards and honors, including a Prix de Paris (1951-
3), the Phelan Award, a Prix de Rome (1957), a Fromm Players Fellowship, a National
Academy of Arts and Letters Award (1972), a BMI Jazz Pioneer Award, and two
Guggenheim Fellowships.

Smith has taught at the University of California at Berkeley, the San Francisco
Conservatory, the University of Southern California, and since 1966, the University of
Washington (U.W.). He was lured to Seattle in 1966 to form the new music ensemble,
the Contemporary Group. “The Contemporary Group was founded with a grant from the
Rockefeller Foundation by William Bergsma . . . U.W. music professor and director of
the music school.”77 Smith now co-directs the ensemble with trombonist Stuart
Dempster, and teaches composition courses and jazz ensemble.

While studying at Mills College, Smith met fellow student Dave Brubeck. They
founded the Dave Brubeck Octet in 1947. Smith was responsible for many of the group’s
arrangements. In 1947, Smith wrote his Schizophrenic Scherzo (1947) for the Octet. It
was one of the first successful integrations of modern jazz and classical writing, or “third
stream.” He has played and recorded with Brubeck periodically since the 1951 Octet
recording (Cicero). He recorded one album per year from 1960-66. Later, in 1982, he
took over the solo spot with the Brubeck Quartet and resumed a recording schedule as a
full-time member, performing up to 100 concerts a year.

Smith and the pianist, John Eaton, formed the American Jazz Ensemble, a group
that toured the United States annually, playing for community concerts. It was Eaton
who introduced the Synket, the first portable voltage controlled synthesizer, “a novel
machine for the production and transformation of sounds.”79 It was built in Rome in
1963, on a design by Paul Ketoff. Eaton composed and performed several works for the
instrument, including Concert Piece for Synket and Symphony Orchestra (1967) and
Mass (1969). Eaton wrote, “One real danger of the Synket is that it sometimes writes its
own music so beautifully that a composer is led to wonder if he is really necessary.”80
As a clarinetist and composer, William O. Smith is, “an acclaimed and influential
innovator in ‘new’ or ‘contemporary music.’ He pioneered the use of many untapped
sounds of the clarinet, and incorporated them into his 200 compositions.”81 It was in
Rome, while working on a Guggenheim grant, that Smith began to experiment with and
codify clarinet sounds, now known as “Smith’s multiphonics.” Eric Salzman wrote the
following about Smith’s Variants for Solo Clarinet (1963):


In addition to multiphonics, Smith has led the way with other innovations in
contemporary clarinet performance. For example, he was influenced by several images
he saw in Greece of ancient Greek aulos, or double-pipe, players, and in 1977, he began
writing Five Fragments for Double Clarinet (1978). It is his first piece written for two
clarinets played simultaneously by one musician. Around 1994, Smith began to play the
clarinet as an end-blown flute, calling it the “clarflute.” He has also written for “demiclarinet,”
a version of clarinet where the performer uses only the lower half of the clarinet
with the mouthpiece. Meditations (1990), a demi-clarinet composition, also uses a
plunger mute.

Smith’s compositions are often strongly indicative of his early exposure to jazz
and dance bands. Smith refers to Benny Goodman as the “hero” of his youth.83 Some of
his works showing jazz influence include Five Pieces for Clarinet Alone (1957), which
contains highly rhythmic and syncopated movements juxtaposed with free, lyrical
movements of a more improvised style.

Smith represented the United States at the International Congress of Electronic
Music in Venice with Duo for Clarinet and Tape (1960), the first composition to use
transformed clarinet sounds on tape in combination with a live clarinetist. This sparked
Smith’s interest in electronic music and technology. He has experimented with
computerized, real-time notation and has written pieces, including Five Pages, in which
the performer(s) reads color-coded notes on a musical staff from a computer monitor.

About other visual elements in Smith’s music, Monaghan writes,
(Smith) and his wife, the well-respected visual artist, Virginia Paquette, were (in
Tasmania) to complete residencies at the Queen Victoria Museum and Art Gallery
of Tasmania. They worked on one of their ongoing series of installation-piece
performances that combine music and visual art.84

Smith has influenced the performance of the clarinet by the implementation and
classification of contemporary techniques. Ian Mitchell wrote,85 Mitchell also wrote,

86

In addition to his many successes as composer, jazz artist, and classical clarinetist,
Smith has also contributed to the field of music with the publication of his book, Jazz
Clarinet. This method book was published by Parkside Publications in 1993, and
contains, “an excellent discography.”

Salvatore Martirano: Contrasto
(http://sphotos-a.xx.fbcdn.net/hphotos-snc7/357_48780554248_3379_n.jpg)

New York Philharmonic
Lorin Maazel, conductor
Radio broadcast: November 11 1966

From the collection of Karl Miller

This may seem a bit dark or edgy, but doesn't sound like full blown modernism, either. I'd like to find out more about his instrument he designed. (I must confess that one project I've wanted to do with my composition software was to write a script that would realize Terry Riley's "In C" with sections of of the orchestra, rather than individual insturments deciding when to play which module, based on some AI principles and a bit of state transition theory, so I could generated different versions based on parameters....)  Some of his design features seemed a bit similar-- but I may not have understood it well enough.

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From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Salvatore Giovanni Martirano (January 12, 1927 – November 17, 1995) was an American composer of contemporary classical music.

Born in Yonkers, New York, he taught for many years at the University of Illinois. He also worked in electronic music and invented electronic musical instruments.

Martirano received his undergraduate degree in 1951 from Oberlin College, where he studied composition with Herbert Elwell. A year later he completed his master's degree in composition at the Eastman School of Music, where he studied with Bernard Rogers. Martirano worked in Italy from 1956 to 1959, when he was a resident fellow at the American Academy. Between 1959 and 1964, Martirano received commissions, awards, and fellowships from the Guggenheim, Ford, Koussevitzky, and Fromm Foundations, as well as from the American Academy of Arts and Letters and Brandeis University. In 1963, Martirano joined the Theory and Composition Department at the University of Illinois, where he remained on the faculty until his retirement and death in 1995. Many of Martirano's early works incorporate twelve-tone compositional techniques as well as jazz, vernacular, and multimedia idioms. His best-known composition, "L's GA" (Lincoln's Gettysburg Address), was widely performed in the late 1960s and early 1970s and became associated with the anti-war movement. [1]

In 1969, Salvatore Martirano along with a group of engineers and musicians at the University of Illinois began work on the design and construction of a musical electronic instrument. The instrument, named the SAL-MAR CONSTRUCTION, is a hybrid system in which TTL logical circuits (small and medium scale integration) drive analog modules, such as voltage-controlled oscillators, amplifiers and filters. The performer sits at a horizontal control panel of 291 lightable touch-sensitive switches (no moving parts). The two-state switches are used by a performer to dial sequences of numbers that are characterized by a variety of intervals and lengths. A sequence may then bypass, address, or be added to other sequences forming an interlocked tree of control and data according to a performer's choice. The unique characteristic of the switch is that it can be driven both manually and logically, which allows human/machine interaction. The most innovative feature of the human/machine interface is that it allows the user to switch from control of macro to micro parameters of the information output. This is analogous to a zoom lens on a camera.

A music composition award in his name, the Salvatore Martirano Memorial Composition Award, has been given annually since 1996.[1]

Martirano was the second resident to inhabit the 1955 "Garvey House" in Urbana IL, after Garvey himself. This house was designed by notable architect Bruce Goff.

Ralph Shapey: Ontongeny for Orchestra (1958)
(http://lifeinlegacy.com/2002/0614/shapeyralph.jpg)

Chicago Symphony Orchestra
Composer, conductor
Radio Broadcast, Date Unknown

From the collection of Karl Miller

Dissonance Alert


Before you write Shapey off as a hopeless modernist, I would see what he has to say about his approach.

---

Wikipedia Bio

Ralph Shapey (Philadelphia, March 12, 1921 – Chicago, June 13, 2002) was an American composer and conductor. He is well known for his work as a composition professor at the University of Chicago, where he founded and directed the Contemporary Chamber Players. Shapey was a MacArthur Fellow in 1982.

Although Shapey's style is characterized by Modernist angularity, irony, and technical rigor, his coincident concern for sweeping gesture, frenetic passion, rhythmic vitality, lyrical melody, and dramatic arc recall Romanticism. Shapey was dubbed by critics Leonard Meyer and Bernard Jacobson as a "radical traditionalist," which pleased him immensely—he held a deep respect for the masters of the past, whom he regarded as his finest teachers.[citation needed]

The French-American composer Edgard Varèse was among Shapey's most important influences. Both composers shared a fascination with unusual sonorities, counterpoint masses, and the outer extremes of pitch space. The coordination of static "sound blocks" in Shapey's music also reminds one of another great French composer, Olivier Messiaen, though Shapey reportedly found Messiaen's music saccharine and maudlin. Shapey also studied with Stefan Wolpe.[citation needed]

Although comparisons are useful, Shapey's compositional voice is undoubtedly personal and distinctive. Many listeners would call his music[weasel words] "atonal," but Shapey himself denied the label. He considered himself a tonal composer, and indeed his work, though couched in a highly dissonant harmonic idiom rich in interval classes 1 and 6, does adhere to certain organizational features of tonal music, including pitch hierarchy and object permanence.[citation needed]

In 1992 the Pulitzer Prize for Music jury, which that year consisted of George Perle, Roger Reynolds, and Harvey Sollberger, selected Shapey's "Concerto Fantastique" for the award. However, the Pulitzer Board rejected that decision and choose to give the prize to the jury's second choice, Wayne Peterson. The music jury responded with a public statement stating that they had not been consulted in that decision and that the Board was not professionally qualified to make such a decision. The Board responded that the "Pulitzers are enhanced by having, in addition to the professional's point of view, the layman's or consumer's point of view," and they did not rescind their decision. [1]

Shapey created a body of over 200 works, many of which have been published by Presser. Presser also offers his textbook A Basic Course in Music Composition, written after over fifty years of teaching the subject. Recordings of Shapey's music are available on the CRI, Opus One, and New World labels. Shapey's works have been catologued by Dr. Patrick D. Finley in A Catalogue of the Works of Ralph Shapey, published by Pendragon Press

His students include Gerald Levinson, Robert Carl, Gordon Marsh, Michael Eckert, Matt Malsky, Lawrence Fritts, James Anthony Walker, Frank Retzel, Jorge Liderman, Jonathan Elliott, Deborah Drattell, Ursula Mamlok, Shulamit Ran, Terry Winter Owens, and a very broad and exceptional list of others.

The composer Robert Black was particularly influenced by him, and as a conductor he also premiered Shapey's Three for Six.[citation needed]

Statement by Ralph Shapey about his work
 
Shapey the conductor
“[A] 'radical traditionalist' is what I’ve been called. My music combines two fundamentally contradictory impulses–-radical language and romantic sensibility. The melodies are disjunct and dissonant; they contain 'atonal' harmonies and extremes in register, dynamics, and textural contrast. Yet the musical structures are grandly formed and run the gamut of dramatic gestures. Like the Romantics, I conceive of art in a deeply spiritual way. A great work of art transcends the immediate moment into a world of infinity.

My credo is: 1) The music must speak for itself. 2) Great art is a miracle. 3) What the mind can conceive will be done."[this quote needs a citation]

Rock Requiem by Lalo Schifrin
(http://4.bp.blogspot.com/_8ZGl1R_0l9w/S1cOfGmWEgI/AAAAAAAABt8/_b0LiMfL5xk/s400/img0132.jpg)
(http://2.bp.blogspot.com/_4d7-hdrEROQ/R8NCULdY2jI/AAAAAAAAAI8/LGashg6GqLk/s320/Lalo+Still.jpg)
Source LP, Verve 1971
LP Rip by Yoruba Jazz.
Unlikely to EVER be released on CD.
WARNING: REPEATED LISTENING  MAY CAUSE BRAIN DAMAGE

I was tempted to hold off on this until April Fool's day, but i can't wait.  Sometimes I believe we can learn the most from artistic misfires, and this one is definitely a poster child for the "What was he thinking?" award. Yes, what follows is my own opinion, and if you think differently, I welcome your opinion.

Lalo Schifrin has a strong musical pedigree.  The fact that he studied under Charles Koechlin and played piano with Astor Piazzolla means a lot to me.  He's also an artist that has been able to write serious "classical" music, arranged a lot of highly capable jazz, and also achieve commercial success-- such as his iconic theme music to Mission Impossible.  Karl Miller had sent a work by Schifrin which I was unable to share as it had recently been released on CD. However, this reminded me of an album of Schifrin's I picked up used for 25 cents are a used record store that still haunts me to this day.  (And not necessary in a good way.)   My copy is in bad shape, but i've found a version on the web to share with those of you who may appreciate a good train wreck.

I can see WHY Schfirin would try this.  Others were flirting with mixtures of rock and classical.  (There is Deep Purple's Concerto for Rock Band and Orchestra, conducting by Sir Malcom Arnold. The Videos on You Tube are amusing, to say the least.) And the Electric Prunes had their biggest selling album with their Mass in F Minor, sung in latin, which managed to get on the Soundtrack for Easy Rider.  And the album Jesus Christ, Superstar had just come out.  So why not write a politically correct Requiem for the Dead in South East Asia, mixing classical, jazz, rock, and some latin percussion?   How could he lose?  In a way, he might have forseen the formula that Golijov has based his success upon.

A lot of the parts make sense, if you don't try to comprehend them all together.  But some of the juxtapositions are, by turns, unintentionally hilarious and unintentionally tragic.  The segue form mid-stravinskian choral writing, to early funk wah-way guitar, the bongos and late 60s pscychedelic organ,  to the "popular" choruses that sound like commercial jingles, he has  created a anti-gestalt where the the whole is a lot less than a sum of the parts.   In some ways, I think Schifrin was trying too hard to be serious. Which is why I find this work so amusing and fascinating.  


If you don't wish to befoul your hard drive with this work, but do want to get at least a taste of what you may be better off missing, there are a couple tracks on youtube.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kMAGci03FZw (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kMAGci03FZw)
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rmiXSsJx57c&feature=related (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rmiXSsJx57c&feature=related)
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=raEpzh9D9yU&feature=related (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=raEpzh9D9yU&feature=related)


Okay, and one final indignity, as long as I'm on this topic, Alan Copeland won a grammy in 1969 for his mashup of the Beatles Norwegian Wood (3/4 time) and Schifrin's Mission Impossible theme (5/4 time) that is just.. wrong, IMO.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pzolkIF5epA (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pzolkIF5epA)


Don't worry-- I don't plan to make posts like this too often... I don't want to permanently reduce you to a lower state of consciousness...

Ben Weber: Piano Concerto, Op 52 (1960)
(http://composers.com/sites/composers.com/files/images/weber_phototrefousse.preview.jpg)

William Masselos, Piano
NY Philharmonic Orchestra
Leonard Bernstein, conductor
Radio broadcast, March 26, 1961

From the collection of Karl Miller

The article referenced below is quite interesting, and contains two paragraphs that talk about the creation of this piano concerto.

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THE STRANGE LIFE OF BEN WEBER - Article by Roger Tréfousse

http://www.composers.com/content/strange-life-ben-weber-roger-tr%C3%A9fousse (http://www.composers.com/content/strange-life-ben-weber-roger-tr%C3%A9fousse)

Four versions of In C by Terry Riley
(http://3.bp.blogspot.com/_tkm9v4opNG8/SxN7-mizljI/AAAAAAAADNI/uhvaeoUD0vY/s1600/Terry+Riley+In+C+full+score.jpg)

1.  In C Excerpt
 from Rites of Summer Concert, July 4, 2011
Led by Jed Distler (toy piano), Corey Dargel and Mellissa Hughes (vocals); Peter Flin (accordion); Caleb Burhans (melodica);  Gene Pritsker (electric guitar), and others.

Audio taken from portions posted on YouTube. 

2.  In C Full version
William Patterson University New Music Ensemble
Led by Peter Jarvis
November 30. 2009
Audio taken from portions of video  posted on YouTube by Peter Jarvis, video recorded by David Saperstein.

3-5:  Full version with radio intro and outro from the Small World Podcast. 
Freeform Ensemble, Led by "Bazooka Joe"
http://www.podfeed.net/episode/small+WORLD+Studio+Sessions+Terry+Rileys+In+C/477771 (http://www.podfeed.net/episode/small+WORLD+Studio+Sessions+Terry+Rileys+In+C/477771)

6.  Excerpt (Doom Version)
by the group Orobous is Broken
Free download offered by group.

Score for In C included with download.


I've looked around for some freely available versions of Terry Riley's seminal work "In C", which was arguably the first major work of the "Minimalist" school.  As you all may know, the score (shown above) has 53 small "modules", and may be played by any ensemble with any instruments.  Each play is to repeat a module as many times as they wish, but once they move the the next module, they may not go back.  One musician typically provides a rhythmic pulse of a C octave in 8th notes.  Riley also encouraged sharing of the score.  The result is that no two versions of "In C" are every the same, and each group and ensemble can put its own creative stamp on the work.   My current favorite commercial version is by the group Bang on a Can, but there are so many directions one can go with this work.

Some words about the versions:

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From a review of the Rites of Summer concert, July 3 2011, New York Times
2011 review: Summertime Anarchy but of the Guided Kind
(http://i.ytimg.com/vi/2sVwZV6Dt5E/hqdefault.jpg)
Posted on July 4, 2011 by Blair
 By STEVE SMITH
Published: July 3, 2011


What better time to kick off a contemporary-classical concert series? The Rite of Summer music festival, assembled by the pianists Pam Goldberg and Blair McMillen, is relatively modest in its first year: three free concerts in three months. On Saturday afternoon the series got off to a merry start with two performances of “In C,” Terry Riley’s Minimalist milestone from 1964, by roughly 40 players from some of New York’s most industrious new-music ensembles.

In a way you could hardly ask for a piece better suited to celebrating Independence Day. “In C” consists of 53 short musical motifs that can be repeated an arbitrary number of times or sometimes skipped outright. A rendition can last 20 minutes or several hours. In effect Mr. Riley’s work boils liberty, equality and community down to a blissful hippie ideal: If it feels good, do it.

That is not to say that the work is entirely chaotic. One instrument, here a glockenspiel, is assigned to play a steady, ceaseless stream of octave C’s. And with a conductor the piece will often show a coordination and nuance that can otherwise be lost.

During the first performance there was no question that Jed Distler, a pianist, composer and concert organizer, was shaping what was heard by an audience of a few hundred hardy listeners and many more passersby. An old hand at “In C,” Mr. Distler has led previous accounts at the Cornelia Street Café and on the street outside that club. Facing the ensemble at a toy piano he plunked and patted sporadically, Mr. Distler raised a finger to summon conspiratorial hushes, and leapt, arms outspread, to urge climaxes.

No two performances of “In C” are alike, and this one stood out for its vibrant, variegated colors: the voices of Corey Dargel and Mellissa Hughes; Peter Flint’s accordion; Caleb Burhans’s melodica; subtle percussion from a clutch of players. Probably no one had more fun than the guitarist Gene Pritsker, who provided slick wah-wah licks and pinched fuzz-tone riffs, and ran an iPhone along the strings as an impromptu slide to waft Pink Floyd-style space probes into the summer air.

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Peter Jarvis
(http://www.wpunj.edu/resize_image?path=/dotAsset/381094.jpg&maxw=250&maxh=199)
Director of the New Music Series at William Paterson University and the New Jersey Percussion Ensemble, Peter Jarvis is active as a teacher, percussionist, conductor, director, clinician, composer and copyist. He has performed as a soloist, chamber musician and conductor with any number of new music groups in New York, New Jersey, throughout the USA and abroad. Countless pieces have been composed for him and/or his ensemble by composers from all over the world. He has premiered well over 100 pieces and has recorded extensively for, NAXOS, Kotch International, CRI and several other recording labels. His compositions are published by Calabrese Brothers Music.

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(http://a0.twimg.com/profile_images/560615824/image.jpg)
the Freeform Ensemble perform Terry Riley's In CThis episode is work safe.California composer Terry Riley launched what is now known as the Minimalist movement with his revolutionary classic In C in 1964. This seminal work provided the conception for a form comprised of interlocking repetitive patterns that was to change the course of 20th century music and strongly influence the works of Steve Reich, Philip Glass and John Adams as well as rock groups such as The Who, The Soft Machine, Curved Air, Tangerine Dream and many others.When I first started having bands on my show at WMFO I was heavily into hardcore, punk, industrial, hip hop, anything that was aggro and in your face. But after a few years I got bored with that format and embraced my freeform roots. The live performances I had on my show reflected that change. I started inviting blues or jazz or pop bands to play over the air.At one point I wanted to have a small orchestra perform a piece over the air. But the challenge was what piece could I choose that a bunch of musicians could easily learn that didn't require that they be a virtuoso on their instruments?A friend suggested Terry Riley's In C.Let me explain how In C works so you can appreciate this month's installment of the Small World Studio Sessions.In C is an aleatoric musical piece composed by Terry Riley in 1964. By aleatory we mean music in which some element of the composition is left to chance or some primary element of a composed work's realization is left to the determination of its performers. In the case of In C, the piece can be performed by a group of 35 musicians or smaller. As the title suggests, the piece is in the key of C.From Wikipedia:"In C consists of 53 short, numbered musical phrases; each phrase may be repeated an arbitrary number of times. Each musician has control over which phrase he or she plays: and players are encouraged to play the phrases starting at different times, even if they are playing the same phrase. The performance directions state that the musical ensemble should try to stay within two to three phrases of each other. The phrases must be played in order, although some may be skipped. As detailed in some editions of the score, it is customary for one musician ('traditionally played by a beautiful girl,' Riley notes) to play the note C (in octaves) in repeated eighth notes. This drone functions as a metronome and is referred to as 'The Pulse.'"In C has no set duration; performances can last as little as fifteen minutes or as long as several hours, although Riley indicates 'performances normally average between 45 minutes and an hour and a half.'"The concept of In C was exciting to me and after hearing a recording of In C I decided to form an ensemble to perform the piece.I roamed the streets of Boston and Cambridge for a month, inviting musicians to play In C. Some were friends. Some were friends of friends. Other were street performers. In the end I had gather 15 musicans to perform In C.The next stage was to rehearse In C. Getting that many people together at once is a challenge, particularly with musicians. I decided to break up the ensemble into two groups and had them rehearse at my friend Matt's place, since he had enough room for that many musicians.Finally we were ready.One Saturday night I had everyone meet at WMFO to perform In C in our small recording studio. Getting a band of five musicians in there was a challenge but to have an ensemble of 15 people, plus all their instruments and the microphones, was almost more of a feat then putting the ensemble together.I wanted to be a purist about this performance but I compromised by inviting musicians who played the electric guitar and the keyboard. As long as they staid true to the score I would be happy. Unfortunately, at one point the guitar player decided to improve during the performance. In the end it wasn't a terrible thing and I'm just glad we managed to pull of In C.As I mentioned earlier, a beautiful girl is supposed to function as the metronome for the score. Despite our best efforts, we had forgotten that essential part of In C.Instead of a beautiful girl we had a bearded man act as the metronome. The pulses were played by Michael Bloom, who volunteered to act as the metronome by playing the pulses on his marimba.Michael had rented a station wagon so he could transport his marimba to the station. Then he had to lug it up three flights of stairs into the studio. His marimba was like a large xylophone so having Michael just play the pulse was a waste but someone had to do it. Thank you again, Michael.I was a deejay at WMFO for 17 years and performance of Terry Riley's Thank you again, Michael. is the moment I am proudest of. I'd like to thank Vera Beren for rescuing the performance and transferring it from a DAT cassette to a CD. I'd also like to thank all 15 of the musicians who made the performance if In C possible.

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Orobous is Broken
(http://www.blabbermouth.net/soulflypremiere/ouroboros2011.jpg)

I don't know much about this group, but they are part of the "Doom" genre of rock, which typically emphasize very slow tempo, downtuned electric intstruments, and fairly long songs. (The seminal album in the genre, Sleep's Jerusalem, for example, in a continuous 45 minute suite.) Orobous is Broken has released albums with catchy titles such as Grave Desecration and The Satanic Spear of Destiny. Although I follow some of the current underground rock scene, I can't say I am a big fan of the Doom genre.  I will give Orobous is Broken credit for making an arrangement of "In C", and also sharing it freely.  While I don't think they captured the pulse that Riley had in mind, if they get one person to investigate the work further, I would consider it a success.

In reply fifteen above, the quotation of M. Tréfousse's text in its entirety has been replaced by a direct link, since the original article is prominently marked "© Copyright 2012 Roger Tréfousse. All rights reserved," and the non-observance of such declarations can easily trigger trouble. For further information about how to handle copyright on reviews and programme notes please read THIS MESSAGE (http://artmusic.smfforfree.com/index.php/topic,493.msg4484.html#msg4484).

With thanks to all members for their understanding.

Thanks very much for the catch, and remedying it!   I'll be applying more caution in the future, but also am grateful to be in a forum where matters like these are a shared concern.

Many thanks for the upload of the Stucky Symphony lescamil. Will look forward to listening to it later.

Music of Gardner Read #1
(http://www.elizabethvercoe.com/photos/photoread.jpg)

This collection of music has  been pulled together  from several private collections and radio broadcasts by Karl Miller , who has also applied a large amount of pitch collection and other restoration.

To the best of my knowledge, none of these recordings are commercially available in any form. 

Karl's Notes:
Most of these recordings come from the collection of Paul Snook. Read was a
guest on Paul’s radio show and Paul got copies of some of Read’s personal
recordings.
 
The performance of the Second Symphony was not broadcast. It was put on disc for
Read.  Other recordings were probably in house as well, but, as you will hear,
the rest of the recordings were either featured in broadcast programs devoted to
the music of Read or from direct broadcasts. This is especially true of the
program with Arthur Cohn that may have featured some performances broadcast only
on that program. You will hear the voice of Paul Snook at the opening of the
Steinberg performance of the Third Symphony.
 
The performance of the First Symphony suffers from substantial cross talk and is
incomplete. From what I can tell, a complete performance can be found at the
Eastman Archives, which houses the Read Archives. They also have two sets of
discs of the Second Symphony.
 
I am trying to convince the NY Phil and the Boston Symphony to get copies of
their respective performances from Eastman. We shall see. The Barbirolli Society
is checking their copy of the First Symphony, to see if it is complete.
 
Pitching of these recordings was difficult. The Fleisher Collection refused to
make available any photocopies of the score for the unpublished Second Symphony.
So much for their devotion to research! The tape I have of the First Symphony
was pitched incorrectly, with the First movement being off by a certain amount
and the other movements being off by differing amounts. Needless to say, this
has taken several weeks to do the restoration and get the performance
information correct.
 
Special thanks to Paul Snook. Also thanks to conductor Peter Bay who caught one
of the side overlaps I missed, and who caught mistakes in the pitching…he had
scores!
 
All are MP3 @ 192 kbps
 
Karl

Contents of the Collection:


Music of Gardner Read #1
 
Symphony No.1, Op.30(incomplete)(1934-36)
1. Lento Mistico-Allegro molto deciso;
2. Largo e molto espressivo;
3. Allegro Vivace;
4. Allegro feroce (portion)
New York Philharmonic/Sir John Barbirolli
[4 November 1937]

Symphony No.2, Op.45 (1940-42)
5. Presto asssai e molto feroce;
6. Adagio;
7. Largamente – Allegro Risoluto e Molto
Energico
(alternate tempi indications)Presto assai e molto feroce; Adagio e molto mesto;
Allegro frenetico.
Boston Symphony Orchestra
Composer, conductor
[27 November 1943]-First performance

8-10 Same source recording with different noise reduction applied
(both from the collection of Paul Snook)
 

 
 
Music of Gardner Read #2
 
1Commentary

Symphony No.3, Op.75 (1946-48)
2. Introduction and Passacaglia;
3. Scherzo;
4. Chorale and Fugue
Pittsburgh Symphony Orchestra
William Steinberg, conductor
[2 March 1962]-First performance

5. Commentary
6-11. The Temptation of St. Anthony, Op.56 (1940-47)
Boston Symphony Orchestra
Composer, conductor
[19 March 1954]
(both from the collection of Paul Snook)

12Commentary
13- 15.  Pennsylvaniana Suite, Op.67 (1946-47)
I. Dunlap's Creek, II. I'm a Beggar, III. John Riley
Pittsburgh Symphony
Loren Maazel, conductor
[12/14 April 1996]
 

Music of Gardner Read #3
 
Symphony No.3, Op.75 (1946-48)
1. Introduction and Passacaglia;
2. Scherzo;
3. Chorale and Fugue
National Gallery Orchestra
Richard Bales, conductor
[27 May 1979]
4. Commentary

5. Commentary (Gardner Read and Arthur Cohn
6. First Overture, Op.58 (1943)
Rochester Philharmonic Orchestra/Guy Fraser Harrison
[13 February 1947]

7.  Commentary
8. Threnody, Op.66 (1946)
George Hambrecht, flute
Eastman Rochester Symphony/Howard Hanson,
[12 May 1949]

9. Commentary
10. Soundpiece for Brass and Percussion, Op.82
Cincinnati Brass Ensemble/Ernest Glover
[15 November 1950]

11/12Commentary

13. Prelude and Toccata, Op.43 (1936-37)
Pittsburgh Symphony/Fritz Reiner
[2 November 1945]
14. Commentary
(from the collection of Edward McMahan)
 
 
Music of Gardner Read #4
 
The Prophet, Op.110
1-12: Prologue: The Coming of the Ship; On Love; On Marriage; On Children 
II O Joy and Sorrow; On Reason and Passion; On Pain 
III On Teaching; On Beauty; On Death;
Epilogue, The Farewell,
Text by Gibran
William Cavness, narr.; Eunice Alberts, Mac Morgan, soloists
Boston University Chorus and Orchestra
Composer, conducting
[23 February 1977]
(from the Pizer collection)
 

Music of Gardner Read #5
 
1. Arioso Elegiaca, Op.91 (1950-51)
Zimbler String Sinfonietta
[8 April 1953]
(from the collection of Bret Johnson]

2Commentary
3. Night Flight, Op.44
Boston Symphony Orchestra
Michael Tilson Thomas, conductor
[16/18 April 1970]

4. Commentary
5. Concerto for Cello and Orchestra, Op.55 (1939-45)
Barry Sills, cello
New Haven Symphony Orchestra/Eric Kunzel
[14 October 1975]-First performance
(from the collection of Paul Snook)
 

 
 
Music of Gardner Read #6
 
1. Prelude and Toccata, Op.43 (1936-37)
National Gallery Orchestra/Richard Bales
[21 March 1976]
2. Commentary

3. Commentary
4. Prelude and Toccata, Op.43 (1936-37)
Indianapolis Symphony Orchestra/Fabien Sevitzky
[7 January 1943]
(from the collection of Fred Fellars)

5 -7.  Pennsylvaniana Suite, Op.67 (1946-47)
I. Dunlap's Creek, II. I'm a Beggar, III. John Riley
Pittsburgh Symphony Orchestra/Fritz Reiner
[21 November 1947]
(from the collection of Paul Snook)

8.  Dance of the Locomotives, Op.57a
Boston Pops/Arthur Fiedler
[20 May 1978]
(from the collection of Paul Snook)
 

Background Material about Gardner Read

From Wikipedia: 
Gardner Read (January 2, 1913 in Evanston, Illinois – November 10, 2005 in Manchester-by-the-Sea, Massachusetts) was an American composer and musical scholar.

His first musical studies were in piano and organ, and he also took lessons in counterpoint and composition at the School of Music at Northwestern University. In 1932 he was awarded a four-year scholarship to the Eastman School of Music, where he studied with Bernard Rogers and Howard Hanson. In the late 1930s he also studied briefly with Ildebrando Pizzetti, Jean Sibelius and Aaron Copland.

After heading the composition departments of the St. Louis Institute of Music, the Kansas City Conservatory of Music and the Cleveland Institute of Music, Read became Composer-in-Residence and Professor of Composition at the School of Music at Boston University. He remained in this post until his retirement in 1978.

His Symphony No. 1, op. 30 (1937, premiered by Sir John Barbirolli) won first prize at the New York Philharmonic-Symphony Society's American Composers' Contest, while his second symphony (op. 45, 1943) won first prize in the Paderewski Fund Competition. Another first prize came in the 1986 National Association of Teachers of Singing Art Song Competition, won by his Nocturnal Visions, op. 145. He wrote one opera, Villon, in 1967.

His book Music Notation: A Manual of Modern Practice is a standard text at most music schools and conservatories in the United States. It is considered by many to be a place of first (and last) authority when trying to determine the proper method of notating musical performance techniques, ideas and gestures.


Bio from the Gardner Read Website:

Biography

Composer, teacher, conductor, and author Gardner Read was born January 2, 1913, in Evanston Illinois. As a high school student, he studied piano and organ privately and took lessons in composition and counterpoint at Northwestern University’s School of Music. During the summers of 1932 and 1933, he studied composition and conducting at the National Music Camp, Interlochen, Michigan, to which he returned in 1940 to teach composition and orchestration.

In 1932, he was awarded a four year scholarship to the Eastman School of Music, where his principal teachers were Bernard Rogers and Howard Hanson. In 1938, on a Cromwell Traveling Fellowship to Europe, he studied with Ildebrando Pizzetti in Rome and briefly with Jan Sibelius in Finland just prior to the outbreak of war in 1939. A 1941 fellowship to the Berkshire Music Center at Tanglewood enabled him to study with Aaron Copland.

From 1941 to 1948, Read headed the composition departments at the St. Louis Institute of Music, the Kansas City Conservatory of Music, and the Cleveland Institute of Music. In 1948, he was appointed Composer-in-Residence and Professor of Composition at the School of Music, Boston University, retiring as Professor Emeritus in 1978. In 1966, he was a visiting professor at the University of California, Los Angeles.

Read has held resident fellowships at both the MacDowell Colony in Peterborough, New Hampshire, and the Huntington Hartford Foundation in California. In 1964, he was awarded an honorary doctorate in music by Doane College. His major awards include first prize in the 1937 New York Philharmonic-Symphony Society’s American Composers Contest for his Symphony No. 1, Op. 30, which was premiered by the orchestra under the baton of Sir John Barbirolli; first prize in the 1943 Paderewski Fund Competition for his Symphony No. 2, Op. 45, given its first performance by the Boston Symphony Orchestra, conducted by the composer; the Eastman School of Music Alumni Achievement Award in 1982; and first prize in the 1986 National Association of Teachers of Singing Art Song Competition for his Nocturnal Visions, Op. 145.

Read was Principal Conductor with the St. Louis Philharmonic Orchestra in 1943 and 1944, and he has been guest conductor with the Boston Symphony, the Philadelphia Orchestra, the Kansas City Philharmonic, and various university orchestras in his own works. In 1957 and 1964, he conducted and lectured throughout Mexico on grants from the U. S. State Department.

In 1996, Greenwood Press published Gardner Read: A Bio-Bibliography by Mary Ann Dodd and Jayson Rod Engquist (ISBN 0313293848), which includes an annotated and indexed catalog of Read’s compositions, performances, literary writings, and recorded works, as well as a biography, reviews, and other extensive information about Read’s life and work.

Gardner Read passed away at his home in Manchester by the Sea, Massachusetts, on November 10, 2005.

Interview
There is an transcript of a very informative interview with Read by Bruce Duffie here:
http://www.bruceduffie.com/read3.html (http://www.bruceduffie.com/read3.html)



Finally:
I know I've dropped off the radar the last few weeks-- I've had a lot of other projects and commitments keeping me busy, but you should be seeing more posts from me soon enough.

 

I apologise....this is a lot to take in ;D

Can I assume that the performances of

Symphony No.2
Symphony No.3(Bales)
Threnody
First Overture
Prelude and Toccata(Reiner)
The Prophet

are the same recordings as those previously added to this site ???

From my catalogue I think that they are :)  You may recall that I spent a lot of time cataloguing all of the American music uploaded for UC.....but, of course, that catalogue is now lost to me >:( >:(

Thank you, thank you, thank you, for the treasure trove of Gardner Read!

Colin-  I did not find any postings of any Gardner Read works on this site (or reposting links).  I may have searched wrong. If the links are on UC, I am assuming they don't exist.  (and certainly won't forever...)   

If they have been added here, could you send me a link?   Thanks.

Symphonies 4 and 5 by David Van Vactor
(http://www.lib.utk.edu/music/aboutus/images/dvv.gif)


1. Symphony No. 5 (1976)
A symphony written for the Bicentennial, and featuring the Vactor family’s roots in the revolutionary war.
Knoxville Symphony Orchestra/ Arpad Joo
World premiere, private recording.

2-4:  Symphony No.4 “Walden”
Maryville College Choir
Knoxville Symphony Orchestra
Premiere, Conducted by Composer, private recording of performance.

From the collection of Karl Miller

Wiki Bio:
David Van Vactor (May 8, 1906 – March 24, 1994) was an American composer of contemporary classical music.

He was born in Plymouth, Indiana, and received Bachelor of Music (1928) and Master of Music (1935) degrees from Northwestern University. He studied with Arne Oldberg, Mark Wessel, Ernst Nolte, Leo Sowerby, Paul Dukas, Franz Schmidt, and Arnold Schoenberg.

He was the assistant conductor of the Chicago Civic Orchestra (1933–34) and was both the flute section leader and assistant conductor the Kansas City Philharmonic Orchestra from 1943 to 1947.[1] He served as the conductor of the Knoxville Symphony Orchestra from 1947 until 1972.[2] He also appeared as guest conductor with the New York Philharmonic-Symphony Orchestra, the Cleveland Orchestra, the Chicago Symphony Orchestra, the London Philharmonic Orchestra, the Frankfurt Radio Symphony Orchestra, and the orchestras of Rio de Janeiro and Santiago, Chile.[1]

He composed well over one hundred major works, including seven symphonies, nine concertos, five large pieces for chorus and orchestra, many orchestral, chamber and vocal works, and four pieces for symphonic band.[3] In 1938 his Symphony in D won the Second Annual Competition of the New York Philharmonic-Symphony Society for a major symphonic work by a U. S. composer (his former teacher Mark Wessel received the sole Honorable Mention in the same competition).[4] The Symphony was premiered on January 19, 1939 by the Philharmonic-Symphony, conducted by the composer.[5] His music was recorded by the conductor William Strickland.

He was Professor Emeritus of Composition and Flute at the University of Tennessee, Knoxville.[3] He taught at the University of Tennessee. His notable students include the "Van Vactor Five":[6] Gilbert Trythall, Richard Trythall,[6] David P. Sartor, Jesse Ayers,[6] and Doug Davis.[7] He died in Los Angeles, California, in 1994.

The David Van Vactor Collection is held by the University of Tennessee Special Collections Library in Knoxville, Tennessee.


Other Resources:

Good history of Vactor  and Knoxville Symphony Orchestra  here:
http://www.knoxvillesymphony.com/our-history/david-van-vactor/ (http://www.knoxvillesymphony.com/our-history/david-van-vactor/)

Bio PDF from Roger Rhodes Music:
http://www.rogerrhodesmusic.com/Bio-rev.pdf (http://www.rogerrhodesmusic.com/Bio-rev.pdf)

Bruce Duffie Interview
http://www.bruceduffie.com/vanvactor.html (http://www.bruceduffie.com/vanvactor.html)

You know, their may be a way to retrieve your catalogs from the UC site and set them up here, so you can continue the great work you've done on them in the past. 

You also may wish to note in the catalog (sorry, yank spelling), that Karl has spent a good time of restoring/re-pitching the recordings, so we may wish to make these the canonical versions.

Ah....I THINK that I now understand ???

When Sydney said that he had "taken a snapshot" of UC before the "apocalypse" he did not mean to imply that the links to downloads had been moved to this site-with the notable exception of the entire British Music Archive which Albion had backed-up and was able to move in toto.

The links to which he refers are still the same links available on that site. Where a link has disappeared from UC he has been notifying us and requesting re-uploads(which have all-I think-been provided to date ???). Otherwise members here are being redirected to UC for the link.

Fortunately-for ME- that is ;D I do not need to be so redirected: (1) because I wouldn't get into that site since I am "excluded" even as a "guest" and (2) because I downloaded virtually everything from the site in any case before I was carted off to the scaffold.

So....in the case of the Gardner Read, I had the previous incarnations of the links from UC. If, however, as you say, Karl has improved the sound quality then I shall download the lot again :)

Weren't you permitted to march thereto, in true symphonic manner as would have befitted you?(!)...

Speaking of American music and symphonies, how did you get on with Carter's A Symphony of Three Orchestras, by the way?

You're like me,Dundonnell. I have a 'grab-it-while-you-can' policy. I even downloaded the Foulds World Requiem the moment I saw it here. Next minute,for copyright reasons,it was gone! I still haven't listened to it yet & it's safely in my personal vault! It won't get out!
Hope I don't get banned for revealing this?!! :(

But surely it's out of copyright now anyway?

Well,poor old Foulds won't be getting any dosh from it,either way! ;D

Regarding the Foulds....presumably we are talking about an off-air recording of the World Requiem which Chandos subsequently issued on cd(just as Hyperion did with the Brian Gothic). In which case, as a (now) commercial recording it falls outside our rules for posting. It is though an interesting case of the "chicken and the egg" ;D

....and no, to answer the other question. I was given no opportunity for anything even remotely resembling a grand, ceremonial, symphonic send off ;D The axe fell on my unsuspecting neck with brutal suddenness ::)

Don't start talking about food now,Dundonnell,or I'll be raiding the larder! ;D As to the Foulds World Requiem. Erm :-[,well thank you very much to whoever provided that very brief upload. I suppose I'd better listen to it,now! ;D

Music of Eldon Obrecht
(http://www.liben.com/images/obrecht2.jpg)

All private recordings (and likely premieres)  performed by the University of Iowa Symphony Orchestra
Never commercially released.

1-4 Symphony No 1 in C on Shelly Motives(1950) - Premeire
Maxine Obrecht, soprano (composer’s wife)
Phillip Greely Clapp, conductor
Apriil 19, 1950

Symphony 2 (date not known)
James Dixon, Conductor

Symphony  3  (Premiere)
February 7, 1972
James Dixon, Conductor

From the collection of Karl Miller

Three unjustly neglected symphonies from a composer whose name may be  known in state of Iowa, if nowhere else.

Bio from, I believe, the Iowa Unversity website:

Eldon Ross Obrecht was born in Rolfe, Iowa on June 9, 1920. His father ran a movie theater, which provided some of his early musical experiences. His first piano lessons were given by the pianist who supplied the music for the silent films, a Mrs. LaChance. When movies with sound came to the theater, he was forced to find a new teacher. He began to study with Amy Ireland.

In 1933, the superintendent of schools in Rolfe decided that the school needed an orchestra. Obrecht was chosen to play one of the two double basses brought back from Des Moines. His early lessons were from Karl Spotvoldt, Sr., a member of Karl King's band who traveled from town to town giving lessons for thirty-five cents per half hour.

Upon graduation from high school in 1936, he sent a letter to the University of Iowa (then the State University of Iowa) in Iowa City, Iowa, to inquire about the possibility of studying music. The director of the school, Philip Greeley Clapp, having become familiar with Obrecht through high school music competitions, offered Obrecht a scholarship that helped make it possible for him to attend the University.

He began to study composition with Philip Greeley Clapp while an undergraduate, then continued as a graduate assistant at Iowa to earn his Master's degree in composition in 1942, with the Sextet in E Flat serving as his thesis. Maxine Schlanbusch was also a graduate assistant at Iowa. In 1943, she and Obrecht were married. They have four daughters, each of whom has some tieto music, as performer or teacher or both.

During World War II Obrecht joined the Navy Pre-flight School Band in Iowa City. Near the end of the war, he was transferred to the Philippines.

Obrecht spent the first part of 1946 in Boston studying with Ludwig Juht. It was his desire to find out if he could play in a professional symphony. This was determined when he was accepted into Washington D.C.'s National Symphony Orchestra. He performed there during the 1946 summer season and the 1946-47 season during which Clapp offered him the opportunity to return to Iowa to attain his doctoral degree and to serve as a teacher. He joined the faculty of the University of Iowa in the fall of 1947.

The Symphony in C, on Shelley Motives of 1950, was his doctoral thesis. This piece was performed by the University Orchestra under Clapp on Wednesday, April 19, 1950. The soprano part, in the two movements that are settings of poems by Shelley, was performed by Maxine Obrecht.

As a student and graduate assistant, Obrecht had attended Clapp's two-year History and Appreciation of Music course several times. As an instructor, he had also occasionally taught the course in summers when Clapp was away on vacation. This surely aided him in preparing to teach the program upon Clapp's death in 1953. Obrecht then took over the music appreciation classes and with them the WSUI radio broadcasts that Clapp had begun in 1920. He broadcast the lectures with musical examples from records and with guest faculty and advanced student performers until 1972, when the University's schedule and the WSUI¼s schedule came into conflict. After the School of Music decided that courses in music appreciation and music history should be separated, with the appreciation classes reserved for non-majors, Obrecht renamed the course "Masterpieces of Music."

During his tenure at the University, Obrecht taught studio double bass, music appreciation, music theory, and composition. He also collaborated with a colleague, Tom Turner, in writing a book on musical form and analysis. As can be seen in the bibliography of his music, only one of his compositions before 1965 uses the double bass as soloist. Until then he had avoided writing for double bass so as not to be stereotyped as someone who could write for only one instrument. He then decided that he knew the double bass better than any other instrument and needed music to perform. In 1965 he composed the first diversion. The diversions began as relaxation from larger works and figured prominently in a number of faculty double bass recitals that he performed in the 1970's and 1980's, Diversion I being used as a break from the Symphony No. 3.

Obrecht retired from the University in 1990, but remained as the double bass professor until 1992. Obrecht was known for many different talents. As a performer he served as the principal bassist with the Quad City Symphony Orchestra (with time off for World War II, the National Symphony, etc.). As a composer he wrote three symphonies, a concerto, and many other works. As a teacher he launched many students into careers, not all of which ended in music, and taught many non-musicians through his music appreciation classes and their broadcasts. Whatever hat he was wearing, he was always known for his positive attitude.


A news release from the University of Iowa about the second performance of his first symphony.

UI Symphony Will Play Music By Retired Faculty Member Eldon Obrecht Feb. 23
The second performance ever of a symphony by long-time Iowa City resident and retired University of Iowa Professor Eldon Obrecht will be presented on a concert by the University Symphony with conductor William LaRue Jones at 8 p.m. Wednesday, Feb. 23, in Hancher Auditorium on the UI campus.
The concert is part of the University Symphony's Signature Series of subscription concerts.

Soprano Susan Sondrol Jones will be featured as a soloist in the performance of Obrecht's Symphony in C. Other works on the concert are "Sensemaya" by Mexican composer Silvestre Revueltas and Beethoven's Symphony No. 3 in E-flat major, the "Eroica."

"I'm still pleased with the dear old thing," Obrecht said recently about the Symphony in C, which he has not heard since its first performance. Composed as Obrecht's doctoral thesis, the symphony was premiered by the University Symphony April 19, 1950, in the Iowa Memorial Union. Philip Greeley Clapp conducted the performance, and Maxine Obrecht, the composer's wife, was the soprano soloist.

Subtitled "On Shelley Motives," the symphony features settings of two poems by English poet Percy Bysshe Shelley. "As an undergraduate I took all the literature classes I could," Obrecht said. "One was a course in 19th-century English literature. That's where I got very much interested in Shelley and Byron, but especially in Shelley."

The symphony's second and fourth movements are settings of poems by Shelley. The text for the second movement is a poetic fragment, "When soft winds and sunny skies." The fourth movement uses the fifth stanza of Shelley's "Ode to the West Wind," which opens with a musical reference, "Make me thy lyre, even as the forest is" and ends with a line that Obrecht, a life-long Iowan, finds particularly appealing this time of year: "If Winter comes, can Spring be far behind?"

"Shelley had a very musical ear," Obrecht said after reading the text aloud. "Isn't that wonderful stuff?"

Music of Morton Gould
(http://www.schirmer.com/images/composer/large/gs-Gould-portrait.jpg)
(I'll try to get a bigger picture next time  ;D



From the collection of Karl Miller
None of these are commercially available, to the best of my knowledge - sources described  below.



1-4:  Centennial Symphony: A Gala for Band (1983)
Centennial Symphony—written for the UT band for the 100th anniversary of the University of Texas in Austin.
University of Texas Longhorn Band
Morton Gould, Conductor
Private recording of April 9, 1983 performance.

5-7:   Soundings (1969)
Utah Symphony Orchestra
Ardean Watts Conductor
Radio broadcast, date unknown.

Remaining tracks are from an NPR broadcast hosted by Fred Calland,  called An American Salute, dedicated to Morton Gould on his 80th Birthday.
Most performances with the US Coast Guard Band,  led by Louis J. Buckley and Kenneth Megan
8.  Commentary
9. Cheers
10. Commentary
11-16:  St. Lawrence
17. Commentary
18. Red Cavalry March
19. Commentary
20-23:  Holiday Suite
24-25: Commentary
26: Child Prodigy (Gould on Piano)
27: Gavotte (Gould on Piano)
28; Commentary
29. March for Yanks
30. Commentary
31: Santa Fe
32: Commentary


Wikipedia Bio

Morton Gould was born in Richmond Hill, New York. He was recognized early as a child prodigy with abilities in improvisation and composition. His first composition was published at age six. Gould studied at the Institute of Musical Art, although his most important teachers were Abby Whiteside and Vincent Jones.

During the Depression, Gould, while a teenager, worked in New York City playing piano in movie theaters, as well as with vaudeville acts. When Radio City Music Hall opened, Gould was hired as the staff pianist. By 1935, he was conducting and arranging orchestral programs for New York's WOR radio station, where he reached a national audience via the Mutual Broadcasting System, combining popular programming with classical music.

In the 1940s, Gould appeared on the Cresta Blanca Carnival program as well as The Chrysler Hour on CBS where he reached an audience of millions.
Gould composed Broadway scores such as Billion Dollar Baby and Arms and the Girl; film music such as Delightfully Dangerous, Cinerama Holiday, and Windjammer; music for television series such as World War One and the miniseries "Holocaust"; and ballet scores including Interplay, Fall River Legend, and I'm Old Fashioned.

Gould's music, commissioned by symphony orchestras all over the United States, was also commissioned by the Library of Congress, The Chamber Music Society of Lincoln Center, the American Ballet Theatre, and the New York City Ballet. His ability to seamlessly combine multiple musical genres into formal classical structure, while maintaining their distinctive elements, was unsurpassed, and Gould received three commissions for the United States Bicentennial.

As a conductor, Gould led all of the major American orchestras as well as those of Canada, Mexico, Europe, Japan, and Australia.[1] With his orchestra, he recorded music of many classical standards, including Gershwin's "Rhapsody in Blue" on which he also played the piano. He won a Grammy Award in 1966 for his recording of Charles Ives' first symphony, with the Chicago Symphony Orchestra. In 1983, Gould received the American Symphony Orchestra League's Gold Baton Award. In 1986 he was elected to the American Academy and Institute of Arts and Letters.

An active member of ASCAP (American Society of Composers, Authors and Publishers) for many decades, Gould served as president from 1986 until 1994. During his tenure, he lobbied for the intellectual rights of performing artists as the internet was becoming a force that would greatly impact ASCAP's members.

Incorporating new styles into his repertoire as they emerged, Gould incorporated wildly disparate elements, including a rapping narrator titled "The Jogger and the Dinosaur" and a singing fire department titled "Hosedown" commissioned works for the Pittsburgh Youth Symphony. In 1993, his work "Ghost Waltzes" was commissioned for the ninth Van Cliburn International Piano Competition. In 1994, Gould received the Kennedy Center Honor in recognition of lifetime contributions to American culture.

In 1995, Gould was awarded the Pulitzer Prize for Music for Stringmusic, a composition commissioned by the National Symphony Orchestra in recognition of the final season of director Mstislav Rostropovich. In 2005, he was honored with the Grammy Lifetime Achievement Award. He also was a member of the board of the American Symphony Orchestra League and of the National Endowment for the Arts music panel. Most of his compositions and arrangements were issued by RCA Records, some of which are available from BMG, Sony and G. Schirmer.

Gould's original transcripts, personal papers and other pertinent pieces are archived in the Library of Congress and available to the public.[citation needed]

Gould died on February 21, 1996 at the newly opened Disney Institute in Orlando, Florida where he was the first resident guest composer/conductor. He was 82 years old.[citation needed]

I wonder if Elliott Carter was aware of his compatriot's work title and decided to give it another outing some four decades later?...

We wanted the big picture! ;D
I do wish someone would reissue Morton Goulds own recording of his 'Latin American Symphonette' with the LSO. An early digital recording on the Varese Sarabande label & never,as far as I can ascertain,released on cd. A fantastic embossed Aztec design on the front of the lavish gatefold sleeve & one of those now amusing warnings about possible damage to you're equipment. This is still the only time I have ever really warmed to Morton Gould. Exciting music,excitingly played & a truly spectacular recording. (The other items were quite good,too,but not as......!)I played it to death as a youngster & have always been disappointed by every other Morton Gould recording I have bought,since (although his third symphony on Albany has it's moments!).

Thanks so much to Shamus for making the Hilmar Luckhardt works available :) :)

I listened to the Symphonic Variations first and my first thought was that the music sounded rather sub-Rachmaninov but undeniably attractive. I then tried the Symphony No.3 and thought this is more like it, more of a serious visage, not great music but well-wrought, neo-romantic in the best sense and more genuinely my kind of music :)

Many thanks again :)

May I echo Colin's thanks :) :)? Luckhardt is a welcome new name to me-many thanks, shamus, for making his music available for listening :)!

Good Grief :) :)

The end of Part 1 of the Symphony No.4 is pure Vaughan Williams :)

I have never heard an American symphony which sounded so-British :o

Well, if Gomchiksumla, a Mongolian composer, could emulate VW's sound-world in his Symphony no. 1 (which is on YT), I'm sure the Americans could be highly capable of doing the same ;D! IIRC, there is some VW-ish pastoralism in some spots in Randall Thompson's symphonies :)...

Luckhardt's Symphony No.4 is really quite amazing :)

At times in Part 2 the vocal line begins to remind me of the embarrassing dreadfuulness of late Roy Harris...and then seconds later he cancels out that impression with his gorgeous modal, string lines ;D ;D

I am not sure what it all amounts to but my first impressions are of a quite lovely piece to which I shall return with huge pleasure :) :)

No "Gomchiksumla" when I type into into You Tube search :(

My apologies, Colin :-[! His name is Gonchiksumla and his Symphony no. 2 can be heard on YouTube as well :)!

Ha ::)

I have the Symphony No.2 in my download collection already ;D    Maybe I should actually listen to it ;D ;D

Ah, we all have those "now why didn't I listen to that already" moments-I have plenty of them, in fact ;D! While we're on the topic of Mongolian music (which we should really get off ;D), there is the YT channel "YaponyBagsh", which contains a healthy amount of Mongolian classical music, including more symphonies :). Meanwhile, back on American soil...

I sent a message to the Mills Music Library (Wisconsin Univ.) asking about the orchestras and conductors of Luckhardt's Symphonies. Matt Appleby answered this:

“I cannot find any information about the recording of Luckhardt's Symphony no. 3, although it is very likely performed by the University of Wisconsin-Madison Symphony Orchestra, Otto-Werner Mueller conducting.
The recording of Symphony no. 4 is from a March 1972 performance also by the University of Wisconsin-Madison Symphony Orchestra, Otto-Werner Mueller conducting. First performance of the work”

I quite agree, Colin. I listened to both symphonies this week while driving to and from work, and was very impressed with Luckhardt's writing. He clearly was a very skilled, proficient, well-taught, and talented composer. However, I got the impression that he didn't really have anything memorable to say. I enjoyed the ride, though. I was reminded of an old maxim from many years ago -- "Mahler had nothing to say, but knew how to say it. Bruckner had much to say, but didn't know how to say it." Simplistic, but with some grain of truth.

The main problem with Luckhardt's 4th Symphony, in my view, is the rather ponderous, silly, and unpoetic text. Well-intentioned, to be sure, but a bit juvenile. I think that contributes to your impression, Colin. And, a not-quite-professional performance. Quite solid for a university group, and held together by a fine conductor, but lacking the last bit of polish and experience that a major orchestra might bring.

To sum up, I liked both pieces very much, with some great moments and excellent writing, but I'm a bit too aware of their shortcomings as well. I will listen again, though, and I'm grateful to have had this fine composer (of whom I was completely unaware) brought to my attention. Our Thanksgiving holiday here in the USA is a bit past now, but I want to reiterate how grateful I am for the opportunity to have become acquainted with so many previously unknown composers and works I've encountered both here and in the former version of Unsung Composers. What a glorious treasure both have been, and I hope will continue to be.

Thanks to jowcol for this rarity! I did a little searching and discovered that this performance most likely dates from August 14, 1982, in New London, Connecticut, as part of a concert of American music. The piece itself was written in 1967. The composer was born in 1928 and is still alive, living in New London and still offering piano lessons. Apparently he's a graduate of Yale University and has had a long career in music education.

Latvian-- thanks for the update.  I'll post them.

I've found an email for his wife/partner, and wrote them, wishing to see if they would want to share any other recordings, or get a copy of this one.  If I don't hear from them in a few days, I'll pick up the phone and call.

He also teaches composition (at half the going rate that our children's cello/viola teachers charge). I hope he is getting all the students he can handle.

Joe Hill by Charles Frink (1967)
(http://proz-saas.s3.amazonaws.com/www/140/profile.jpg)

Eastern Connecticut Symphony Orchestra
Victor Norman, Conductor
Radio broadcast, August 14, 1982, New London, CT, USA

From the collection of Karl Miller


Charles Frink sounds like a very colorful , stubbornly individualistic  character, and this work  is a very enjoyable neo-romantic work.  Among the  other things about him that have attracted my attention, , Frink  seemed to engage on a personal war with television---
http://articles.courant.com/1999-08-29/news/9910070076_1_zenith-long-island-sound-espinosa (http://articles.courant.com/1999-08-29/news/9910070076_1_zenith-long-island-sound-espinosa)

Article about “Songs for Travelers”  Edited to help get in size limits
Composer Charles Frink is ...
www.theday.com, 11 Dec 2008 [cached]
Composer Charles Frink is living every minute to its fullest as he awaits the West Coast debut of his "Songs for Travelers."
Charles Frink explains, simply and matter-of-factly, why it's so ironic that one of his compositions - one about death - is going to be performed on the West Coast.

"It's interesting," the New London resident says, "that the Festival Chorale Oregon is going to do this piece because I have a terminal illness."
He goes on to describe what has happened to him since last winter. In March, a 100-percent bowel blockage almost killed him. Frink was then diagnosed with a very rare condition called sclerotizing mesenteritis, a progressive infection of the mesentery, which is the network of connected tissue and nerves that keeps intestines in place and provides the nerve impulses that tell the intestines what to do.

A doctor cut out the blockage and spliced two pieces of intestine together. But something else was discovered: a 4-inch mass in Frink's abdomen. Although there's no evidence it's cancerous, it cannot be removed.

Frink, 80, recalls what the doctor said about the sclerotizing mesenteritis: "'If it progresses far enough, it's fatal.

The idea of trying to do something of value every minute is hardly a new or foreign concept to Frink.

For three decades, he taught social studies at New London High School. He became a playwright. In 1980, he and Eastern Connecticut Symphony Orchestra conductor Victor Norman co-founded the William Billings Institute of American Music, to focus on unsung composers and work in the area. Out of that grew the community theater group Performers' Co-op.

Frink even spent time in city politics, serving on the New London City Council from 2005 to '07.

Music, though, remains his singular passion. Performances of his work have been confined to New England for the most part, so the prospect of being sung in Oregon is particularly exhilarating.

Frink jokingly says that some people have told him over the course of his career, "You'll be acknowledged when you're safely dead," but then he adds, "I may be around for a quite a while. You can't tell."

And he remains heartened by the message of all this: that a new level of recognition can come even late in life.

Holmquist says Frink's music "is approachable without being trite.

Kolwicz fondly recalls his time singing for Frink.

For Frink, composing is not really a choice.

"The simplest answer is, I write because I have to. It is in my heart. That's speaking metaphorically. It's the best that I can do. I began thinking up music when I was 4 years old," says Frink, who lived in Norwich until moving to New London when he was 6.

That first song was inspired by a visit to a local farm, and it was a short, childlike piece with lyrics about a boy riding a goat.

"This delighted everybody. I didn't talk, by the way, not a word, until I was almost 3 years old ... but I sang," he says.

Frink also stuttered badly. When he was a sophomore in high school, he had to speak in front of his class. He didn't think he could do it, but his teacher told him, "Look, you have things to say, and we're going to listen. It doesn't matter if you struggle or not. We'll listen."

Frink says, "Gradually, I learned how to be able to talk without that stammer.

Frink studied at the Yale School of Music before deciding he didn't want to become a professional musician and ended up majoring in philosophy instead. He later earned a master's degree and a doctorate in education from Yale as well.

Much of his music is now archived at the Yale Music Library.

Frink doesn't usually compose at the piano. Instead, he sits at a table by his front window and writes it all down. He will go to the piano - there are actually two in that room - when he hits a snag or things get so complicated that he needs to hear how they sound from outside.

When Frink heard that Holmquist has asked where he had been hiding, his response was: He hadn't been hiding. He had been hidden.

"You see, I've been kind of strange in the kind of music I've written all my life because I have not joined what I call the orthodoxy of the pseudo-avant-garde. And that is a powerful force," Frink says.

Ultimately, Frink says, that orthodoxy tends to regard music as an occasion for analysis instead of as a source of spiritual communication.

Years ago, he met with the concert music director for a performance licensing agency that puts compositions in the hands of performers, and showed him one of his compositions.

"He opened it, very briefly to the first page, glanced and said, 'Simple,' and closed it," Frink says. "He was right. It's not really simple, but compared with the so-called new music, because of the traditional element, it's easy to understand."

But Holmquist, and others, have happily found the "hidden" Frink.

Lessons:
Also interesting is this web site that was last updated in 2011, where Frink was giving piano, voice, and composition lessons for a very modest rate of 25$ an hour.  (That’s about half the going rate where I live)  He must be doing this out of the love of music.    I hope some promising people have come to him for composition lessons--
http://www.findproz.com/music-lessons/connecticut/new-london/charles-frink




I have another letter by Frink I'll post in another reply. .

More on Frink

Words of composer Charles Frink
He sent these notes to the festival performing Songs for Travelers, and  I am reproducing the second half has his musings on music, including his interactions with Hindemeth.

Notes of my composition, Songs for Travelers, for its West Premiere by Festival Chorale Oregon on March 7, 2010

(II) Charles’ Music

Although I began creating music at the age of four – (I was unable to write it until age nine) – and have continued composing all my life, except for a hiatus of seven years from my late teens to mid-twenties, and although audiences have loved performances of my music since I was fifteen, my work has never been accepted by the music establishment. This is not due to inadequate quality, but to the fact that I have consistently refused to comply with the orthodoxy of the self-proclaimed avant-garde, enshrined by twentieth-century academia and the performance-licensing oligopoly.

I find it fascinating that Solveig has programmed Songs For Travelers with Hindemith’s In Praise of Music, for I concur with the basic premise of Hindemith’s conception that music theory is a branch of physics. This relationship was first perceived two-and-a-half millennia ago by Pythagoras, and emphatically confirmed by the nineteenth-century German physicist and physiologist Hermann Von Helmholtz, who demonstrated that harmony is rooted in the overtone series. The twentieth-century fads of serialism (Schönberg et al) and randomness (John Cage et al) violate nature – and human nature – and are understandably rejected by the majority of listeners. However, since these pseudo-theories result in complex, unintelligible networks of sound, they have been beloved by a dominant cadre of academicians for whom works of art are occasions for pseudo-analysis.

When, in spite of this discouraging environment, I resumed composing at age twenty-five, I wrote a love song with which I was immediately dissatisfied; I could not get the words right, so I tore it up. However, the melody survived in a submerged portion of my mind. When, at age thirty-five, I began writing Songs For Travelers, I realized that the melody expresses the soul’s ‘free flight into the wordless.’

I am delighted beyond words by Solveig’s recognition of the value of my work. I am confident that the performance will be a worthy experience for all (at least for most) concerned. I hope that you will be able to send me a tape. I am always fascinated by performance, and I welcome the divergence of the performers’ interpretation from what I hear in my head. Inevitable errors do not trouble me. What I seek in performance is expression of the spirit of the work, and I find that expression is rooted in dynamics and rubato. Close attention to, and forceful presentation of, dynamics is essential – far more important than note-by-note accuracy. And I regard rubato as the essence of rhythm. Rhythm must breathe. Metronomic regularity is not rhythm for me – it is mechanical death.

The foregoing is the closest I can come now to providing the information you request. If you have questions, please let me know.

P.S.

Resurrección tells me that I should relate the following. Hindemith’s presence at Yale in the 1940’s was my reason for entering the Yale School of Music at age 17. He tested me for placement in music theory. He quickly concluded that I should pass over introductory theory and harmony, and be enrolled in counterpoint; my teacher there was H. L. Baumgarter, with whom I spent a fruitful year.

I did not study with Hindemith. I read his Craft of Musical Composition, and found therein confirmation and clarification of my instructive perceptions. I audited a few of his classes, and was quickly aware that his teaching was not for me. He imposed his style on students to such an extent that many became disciples.

Before the end of my first semester I had decided not to become a professional musician. I doubted that my individuality would allow me to gain tenure in academic music, and my experience with commercial music had convinced me that it was hopelessly trivial. I therefore set out on the hard road for composers who make their living outside of music – the road travelled by my predecessor at Yale, Charles Ives.

Charles Frink

Prelude for Orchestra, by Martha Beck Carragan

Albany Symphony Orchestra
Julius Hegyi
Private recording of live performance
(Date Unknown, but must be between 1965 and 1988, according to the Albany Symphony Orchestra. )

From the collection of Karl Miller

I have been unable to find out much about Martha Beck (or Martha Beck Dillard, or Martha Beck Carragan- she was evidently married twice ), but she was a composer and educator in New York, and started the Friends of Chamber Music to promote playing of new chamber works in 1949.  I can say that she was not the 1940s serial killer Martha Beck  http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Raymond_Fernandez_and_Martha_Beck (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Raymond_Fernandez_and_Martha_Beck), nor is she the self-help guru Martha Beck http://marthabeck.com/ (http://marthabeck.com/).  She does seem to have been a fine composer.

Update on Charles Frink:


I spoke to him on the phone yesterday.  It doesn't look there are many performances he has recordings of. He doesn't have anything  commercially released, and doesn't make a point of keeping recordings - around.  He only cited two performances of his that are caught on tape-- on one of them, he didnt' care for the performance,  I may be able to get a copy of the other.   I'll be sending him a copy of "Joe Hill", which he will be happy to hear, although he says that he doesn't listen to music much since he is still actively composing at the age of 85.  Most recently, he's been doing theater-based work, and songs for voice and piano, but he has written a few symphonies and other orchestral works, and is working on collecting the scores and plans to leave them to the Yale Music Archive.   

If my retirement is half as eventful as his, I'll be very happy.

Finally got round to listening to the Gene Pritsker "Cloud Atlas Symphony" :)

Very post-modernist symphony........but I must admit to rather liking it ;D

No......I will go a little further than that....I like it a lot ;D  It comes to a splendidly affirmative conclusion which, rightly, earns a really enthusiastic reception from the German audience :)

Thanks, Atsushi :)

1.  Gene Pritsker played electric guitar on one of the versions of In C I posted a while back.
2.  It's interesting that I could not find Pritsker's name listed on conjunction with the "Cloud Atlas" soundtrack, but on his site he said he did much of the orchestration.  I'm wondering if the symphony has a lot of material he wrote for the movie that wasn't used.

Music of John Vincent


1. Symphony in D (Original version)
Louisville Orchestra
Robert Whitney, conductor
LP Transfer-- LOU 57-2
From the collection of Karl Miller

Yes, - this is the same source as has been posted twice to UC.  I don't know how the transfer compares to the to other ones.



2-3:The Music of John Vincent –Radio Broadcast KPFA, August 6, 1973
From the Other Minds Radio Archive (Creative Commons 3.0, Non-Commercial, Attribution, No Derivative Works)
Interview with composer, revised Version of Symphony in D, Symphonic Poem after Descartes(1958), String Quartet #2(1967), “Benjamin Franklin Suite for String Orchestra and Glass Harmonica Obbligato” (1963, piano used in the recording)


This radio broadcast has a very lengthy interview with John Vincent 4 years before his death- you'll hear about the two versions of his symphony, reminiscences about Arnold Schoenberg and Eugene Ormandy, and more details on  all of the recordings in the broadcast.


Description of Radio Broadcast from Other Minds Radio Archive
Composer John Vincent (b. 1902, Birmingham, Alabama) is best known for his “Symphony in D” which was recorded and often played by Eugene Ormandy and the Philadelphia Orchestra. His music is exuberant and joyful and makes for some fine listening in this program which also includes an interview recorded in Los Angeles. You will hear his “Symphony in D,” “Quartet No. 2 for Strings” (1967), “Symphonic Poem after Descartes” (1958), and the “Benjamin Franklin Suite for String Orchestra and Glass Harmonica Obbligato” (1963). The recording of the “Benjamin Franklin Suite” utilizes a piano in place of the glass harmonica.



Wikipedia bio
John Vincent (composer)


John Nathaniel Vincent, Jr (May 17, 1902 – January 21, 1977) was an American composer, conductor, and music educator.

He was born in Birmingham, Alabama, and studied at the New England Conservatory of Music under Frederick Converse and George Chadwick graduating with a diploma in 1927. He continued his studies at George Peabody College where he earned a bachelors and a masters degree followed by doctoral studies at Harvard University from 1933–1935. While at Harvard studying under Walter Piston he won the John Knowles Paine Traveling Fellowship for two years of study with Nadia Boulanger. After transferring to Cornell University he earned his PhD in 1942. Vincent was head of the music department at Western Kentucky University from 1937–1945 and Schoenberg’s successor as professor of composition at UCLA, a position he held from 1946–1969. He died in Santa Monica, California in 1977.

As a composer, Vincent's music is known for its rhythmic vitality and lyricism. Although his music is essentially classical in form it is distinctly individual. The free tonality of his work makes use of what he calls ‘paratonality’: the predominance of a diatonic element in a polytonal or atonal passage. Vincent wrote numerous orchestral works, chamber music pieces, art songs, and choral works. He also wrote one ballet, 3 Jacks (1942), a film score, Red Cross (1948), and an opera, Primeval Void (1969).

In 1951 his book The Diatonic Modes in Modern Music was published. He also conducted orchestras throughout the USA and South America, and he was a director of the Huntington Hartford Foundation from 1952–1965.

Biography by Barnes and Noble

A century after his birth, the reputation of John Vincent rests on two orchestral works: the "Symphony in D," written for and recorded by the Louisville Orchestra (1952, revised 1956), and "Symphonic Poem after Descartes," premiered and recorded in 1958 by Ormandy and the Philadelphia Orchestra (who also made another recording of "Symphony in D"). A "Second Symphony" for piano and strings was arranged by Vincent a year before his death from a 1960 work called "Consort" for the same components "in a neo-Elizabethan style." Born the same year as Richard Rodgers and Stefan Wolpe, Vincent was a student at New England Conservatory, where his teachers from 1922 - 1927 included Frederick Converse and George Chadwick. Awarded a diploma, he earned his B.A. and M.A. at George Peabody College in Nashville in 1933, and for the next two years studied with Walter Piston at Harvard. The John Knowles Paine Traveling Scholarship enabled him to attend l'École Normale de Musique in Paris for two more years (1935 - 1937), where he also received private tuition from the school's doyenne, Nadia Boulanger. In 1942 he earned his Ph.D. from Cornell University. Vincent began a career of teaching after the NE Conservatory: first in public schools at El Paso, TX (1927 - 1930), then at George Peabody while studying there (1930 - 1933). In 1937 he became head of the music department at Western Kentucky State University, and in 1946 was appointed to the composition department at UCLA, where he succeeded Arnold Schoenberg as professor of composition, until his retirement in 1969. He also conducted in North and South America, and from 1952 to 1965 was a director of the Huntington Hartford Foundation. In 1942, Vincent wrote a ballet, "Three Jacks," that he revised for piano and strings in 1954 as "Jack Spratt," in turn revised as "Orchestral Suite from the Three Jacks," and reworked as "The House that Jack Built" in 1957 for speaker and orchestra. In 1948 he wrote the film score for Red Cross, and in 1954 incidental music for The Hallow'd Time. On a text by H.C. Reese (who provided words for "The House that Jack Built"), Vincent composed an "opera buffa" in 1969 called "Primeval Void." His vocal music otherwise was mostly choral. In addition to the symphonies cited and the "Symphonic Poem after Descartes," he wrote a very early "Folk Song Symphony" (1931) and symphonic poem called "Songs of the Chattahoochee." In 1959 he wrote "La Jolla Concerto" for chamber orchestra, revising it twice (in 1966 and 1973). A "Rondo Rhapsody" was premiered in May 1965, and in 1966 he added "Nude Descending Staircase" for strings (arranged in 1974 for xylophone with piano or string accompaniment), also "The Phoenix, Fabulous Bird," for the city of Phoenix, AZ. From 1925 until the end of his life Vincent produced a variety of chamber music. In 1951, he published The Diatonic Modes in Modern Music, cited by Nicolas Slonimsky as "valuable." Stylistically, his music was rooted in Classical forms, notable for rhythmic asymmetry and lyrical melodies (which is not to say memorable). He employed a vocabulary called "paratonality," based freely but not surprisingly on diatonicism -- widespread among composers of his generation, and the later one influenced by Hindemith's residency in the U.S. after 1940. He used some atonal elements, but preferred polytonality in the more complex works.

1978 Friedheim Award Concert
Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts


From the collection of Karl Miller
Radio broadcast


This was the first in a series of competitions that ran about 15 years awarded composers of instrumental music. The five composers listed below were the finalists.
I'm not going to spoil the surprise of who one if you don't already know.

01 Commentary

02 Concerto for Orchestra - Henri Lazarof

03: Commentary

04 Concerto for English Horn- Vincent Perschetti -I

05: Concerto for English Horn- Vincent Perschetti -II

06  Concerto for English Horn- Vincent Perschetti -III

07 Commentary

08: O Dephonica - Marc Consoli-I

09 O Dephonica - Marc Consoli-II

10 Commentary

11 Ricercari Notturni-Stanislav Skrowaczewski-I

12 : Ricercari Notturni-Stanislav Skrowaczewski-II

13 Ricercari Notturni-Stanislav Skrowaczewski-III

14: Commentary

15 Adios- Aurelio de la Vega

16: Commentary

17 Commentary

Music of Leo Sowerby
(http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/0/00/Leo_Sowerby.jpg)


Thanks to the generosity of Karl Miller, I have the pleasure of sharing a fairly large collection of the works of Leo Sowerby, whom I know is appreciated by some of you.   I have put all of the recordings the  duplicated performances already posted to UC in the first volume, so those of who who have already downloaded them may wish to skip them.  (I've not compared the sources, so you may or may not get an improved version. )  Volumes 2 and 3 should hopefully be a treasure trove for Sowerby fans out there.  



From the collection of Karl Miller

All works are from radio broadcasts or in-house recordings of live performances.  To the best of my knowledge, none have been released for sale in digital form, or are available commercially.


Volume 1.  (Note-- all recordings in Volume 1 have been previously posted on Unsung Composers.)

Concerto #1 in C for Organ and Orchestra H.231 (1936)
1.  Vigorously, and Moderately Fast
2. Slowly and Wistfully
3. Boldly,  Moderately Fast

E. Power Biggs, Organ
Philadelphia Orchestra
Eugene Ormandy
Academy of Music, Philadelphia  Sept. 29, 1963.

4-6:  Symphony  # 3
Chicago Philharmonic
Henry Weber, Conductor
May, 1947.

7.  Concerto for Violin and Orchestra
Jacques Gordon, Violin
Eastman Rochester Symphony ‘Orchestra
Howard Hanson,  Conductor
April 15, 1943

8.  Piano Concerto #2 in E (“Concerto in Miniature”) 1932
(three interconnected movements:)
I-Moderately Fast
II- Slowly and Rhapsodically
III – Lively

Janice Weber- Piano
Wayne (NJ) Chamber Orchestra
Murray Collissimo, Conductor
William Patterson College, Feb 17, 1995










Volume 2:

1.   Medieval Poem
Composer- organ
Eastman Rochester School Orchestra
Howard Hanson, Conductor
Private recording of live performance

2-3 . Concerto for Cello and Orchestra (2nd and 3rd movements only)
Mary McCvevy (sp?) cello
Eastman Rochester Symphony Orchestra
Howard Hanson, Conductor
Private recording of live performance.

4. Concertpiece for Organ and Orchestra (1951)
Lorenz Maycher, organ
Richmond Symphony
Neil Campbell, Conductor
St. Stephen’s Episcopal Church
Richmond VA, June 20, 1995

5. Tramping Tune, version for piano and string orchestra (1917)
“Description of political rally themes, off-key bands, street corner harangues, strirring come-along spirit.”

Janice Weber- Piano
Wayne (NJ) Chamber Orchestra
Murray Collissimo, Conductor
William Patterson College, Feb 17, 1995
In-house recording

6. Concertpiece for Organ and Orchestra
7. Dialog for Organ and Piano
8.  Concerto #2 in E Major for Organ and Orchestra

Lorenz Maycher, Organ
Charles Callahan, Piano
Omaha Symphony Orchestra
Ernest Richardson, Conductor
May 5, 2007—in-house recording.




Volume 3:  

1-3: Concerto #1 in C for Organ and Orchestra-
(Note- my notes say that E  Power Biggs was the soloist, and that this was performed with the  Philadelphia Orchestra under Eugene Ormandy—but this sounds much clearer than the ’63 version I have elsewhere in this collection, so I’d welcome any ideas as to the identify of this performance.  I am unaware of this one being commercially available.)

4.  Synconata (first performed Dec. 28, 1924)
5-8: Monotony: A Symphony for Metronome and Jazz Orchestra
 (First performed Nov. 10, 1925 by the Paul Whiteman band. )
Northwestern University Jazz Ensemble
November 20, 1994

9. Money Musk
Indianapolis Symphony Orchestra
Fabien Sevizky, Conductor
March 12, 1943

10.  Ballade “King Estmere” for Two Pianos and Orchestra
George MacNabb, Harry Watts, Piano
Rochester Philharmonic Orchestra
Howard Hanson, Conductor
Jan 24, 1935

11-13: Homage to England’s Country Folk
Three songs from Somerset (1916)
School of Orchestral Studies  NYS
Russell Stranger,  Conductor
Sept. 12, 1990

14-16: Sinfonietta for Strings (1933)
Washington Chamber Orchestra
Ivan Romanenko, Conductor
Date unknown

17: Te Deum
Gloria Del Cantores
Patterson (?) Conductor

18-20: Concerto #1 in C for Organ and Orchestra
Robert Parris, Organ
Los Angeles Philharmonic
Alexander Mickelthwate, Conductor
July 9, 2004
In house recording of live performance..

I also thought I'd pass along this article written on the centennial of his birth by Harold Stover.


Leo Sowerby at 100*
by Harold Stover

American organ journals from the period between the two world wars give a vivid picture of the vitality of the organ world in this country in those days. Its practitioners may not have enjoyed the wider historical overview of the instrument which the much more rigorous scholarship of our own time affords us, but they enjoyed an acceptance by the society in which they lived which we cannot help but envy. As we mark the 100th anniversary of the birth of their world's most distinguished member, it is worth stopping to consider what of his life and times has been lost, what remains, and what may be ripe for revival.

Leo Sowerby came of age at the same time as did American music. With a few isolated exceptions, American composers before the 1920s had merely tried to imitate the voices of their Central European teachers, but Sowerby's generation, led by such men as George Gershwin, Virgil Thomson, Aaron Copland, Roy Harris, and Walter Piston, took the old European forms and poured into them music which sounded distinctly American in its melody, harmony, and rhythm. Like the writers of the period in search of The Great American Novel, many composers dreamed of writing The Great American Symphony. Beyond the mere quotation of folk tunes, this "American-ness" was a subconscious evocation of a national soul, as unquantifiable-but-real as the "French-ness" of Debussy and Messiaen of the "English-ness" of Elgar and Vaughan Williams.

They did so at a time when the organ not only fulfilled its traditional role as an instrument of worship, but was a central part of the secular musical life of America as well. Big pipe organs in the symphonic style from the shops of Skinner, Austin, and others represented the cutting edge of style and technology, and were everywhere in the 20s and 30s: in movie theaters and hotel ballrooms, in concert halls and high school auditoriums, in the mansions and even the yachts of the well-to-do. Great organists drew audiences that regularly numbered in the thousands and occasionally in the tens of thousands. Even the organ's role as a liturgical instrument was much more prominent in the general consciousness: a major New York newspaper then had a regular column called The Choir Loft which chronicled the news and repertoire of the city's leading church choirs, a situation unimaginable today. It was, as Michael Murray notes in his biography of Marcel Dupre, an era of the grand and consummate, a golden age of the organ.

These two trends, of a distinctly American musical style and of the symphonic organ as an instrument that was central to the American listening experience, came together in the music of Leo Sowerby. To cite one example, the organ's capacity for sustained tone had produced beautiful slow movements from every European school, but now the organ could also sing in a new language: the yearning and nostalgia of the blues, and torch songs, and long lonely nights, as in Sowerby's Arioso or the middle movement (Very Slowly) from the Sonatina. In the school of American symphonic composers, only Sowerby, Paul Creston, and Virgil Thomson were organists (and Thomson for only a short time early in his career). Sowerby was the one who extended the reach of the American symphonists into the mainstream repertoire of his instrument in works which include such landmarks of the symphonic organ literature as Comes Autumn Time, the Suite, the Carillon, and others. His organ catalogue reached its monumental peak in the Symphony in G, that epic portrait of the rural, urban, and mythical America that its symphonists sought to enshrine.

Sowerby was born on May 1, 1895 in Grand Rapids, Michigan, and spent most of his adult life in Chicago. He was thus one of the authentic musical voices of the Midwest, of the great American heartland. His talent blossomed early - his violin concerto was premiered in 1913, when the composer was 18 years old and his orchestral works were featured on programs by the Chicago Symphony Orchestra from his early 20s on. He went on to produce a catalogue of more than 550 works, including other concertos (for piano, organ, cello, and harp), five symphonies, and music in every other genre with the sole exception of opera. He was the first winner of the American Prix de Rome, he won the Pulitzer Prize in 1946 for his cantata The Canticle of the Sun, and his orchestral music was played not only by the Chicago Symphony, but by the Boston Symphony, the Philadelphia Orchestra, the New York Philharmonic, and many others. His success extended beyond the traditional classical concert stage. How many people who associate Sowerby only with organ and choral music know that when bandleader Paul Whiteman sought new works in the jazz idiom after his great success with Gershwin's Rhapsody in Blue, one of the first composers he turned to was Sowerby? (He wrote two works for Whiteman's band, one called Synconata and the other called Monotony, a piece for metronome and jazz band). His music could indeed vibrate with the syncopated urban accents of the Jazz Age, but he painted vivid musical landscapes, such as the tone poems Prairie and Comes Autumn Time (in both its orchestral and organ versions), or From the Northland, his evocation of the forests and Great Lakes of his native Michigan. His reputation as a specialist in sophisticated liturgical music was balanced by the fact that two of his best-sellers during his lifetime were his instrumental settings of The Irish Washerwoman and Pop Goes the Weasel.

With the sole exception of his pupil Ned Rorem, Sowerby was the last American composer with a national reputation in the world of concert music to display any more than a token interest in church music. He was organist of St .James' Episcopal Cathedral in Chicago for more than 40 years, and his liturgical music occupies a central place in his life's work and in the history of American church music. He produced a long list of anthems, each of which is a master class in the techniques of writing choral music. They illuminate the sacred texts in a truly symphonic style, and feature organ accompaniments that make integral and idiomatic contributions to the texture of the music - real organ music: no one-size-sort -of-fits-all "keyboard" parts like those which so many church music programs seem to demand today.

Many of Sowerby's anthems are difficult for both choir and organist. They were written for some of the top choirs of his time, including those of David McK. Williams at St. Bartholomew's, New York, Paul Callaway at the Washington Cathedral, and his own choir at St. James, Chicago. These anthems, however, were in print almost as soon as they were written and were performed by many other choirs across the nation, both amateur and professional, a wide acceptance which speaks to the standards of musical education in the period. There are some easier ones, too, and they include Love Came Down at Christmas, the beautiful I Will Lift Up Mine Eyes, the unison Jubilate Deo in C Major, and the set of SAB anthems which includes Jesu, Bright and Morning Star, Martyr of God, and All Hail, Adored Trinity.

What is the outlook for Sowerby's work in his 100th year? Current trends seem to be moving church music further and further away from Sowerby's liturgical esthetic, and many of the best anthems have gone out of print. Despite this, organists who are unfamiliar with the more difficult choral works should investigate them even if they do not direct choirs that are able to do these works justice. Merely playing through them at the piano can take us back to a time when one of the best that America had to offer was also one of our own, and can encourage our listeners to not be satisfied with music that aims at only the lowest common denominator of musical literacy and skill. The outlook for the organ works seems brighter, thanks in part to the revival of interest in the American symphonic organ. Many are back in print, moving out of the limbo into which they were forced by the American Orgelbewegung. Gail Quillman's recordings of Sowerby piano and chamber works have opened a window onto this large area of his output, and we can hope that the recent spate of recording activity on behalf of the American symphonists will extend to Sowerby's orchestral music. The Leo Sowerby Society is engaged in an ongoing effort to publish and promote his complete works, which can now be seen as representing a unique and accomplished voice that sings the song of its exhilarating time and place, an America in which our instrument and the people who play it were central parts of the public's musical experience. If that time evokes a nostalgic yearning in those of us who have inherited a very different world, there is that quality, too, in the music. Let us hope that the centenary celebrations of this American original will set fast his place in the history of his country's music.


Harold Stover (Stovorg@worldnet.att.net) is Organist and Director of Music of Woodfords Congregational Church in Portland, Maine. The Leo Sowerby Society can be contacted at 135 Wintergreen Way, Rochester, NY 14618 (716-461-2331)

Jowcol-many, many thanks for the huge batch of Leo Sowerby uploads as well as the article :) :) I own the Naxos disc of his works for organ and orchestra, the Cedille disc of his tone poems, the Cedille disc of his Symphony no. 2 and other orchestral works and the New World disc of his piano trios and think quite highly of them. Sowerby's music is very conservative and often has that open-air feel so often associated with American composers. And I see the recording of the Organ Concerto no. 1 features such distinguished artists as E. Power Biggs and Eugene Ormandy!

Great to get the late Organ Concerto No.2 :)

What a shame that the Symphonies Nos. 1(1920-21), 4(1944-47) and 5(1964) remain unheard....and, above all, the huge Psalm Symphony of 1923-24 :(

I have duly revised my online Sowerby catalogue :)

Roelef,

The upload of the recording of the Benjamin Lees Concerto for String Quartet and Orchestra should be removed. It IS available on cd:

http://www.amazon.com/dp/B004TMVM3Y/ref=nosim?tag=benjlees-20&linkCode=sb1&camp=212353&creative=380549 (http://www.amazon.com/dp/B004TMVM3Y/ref=nosim?tag=benjlees-20&linkCode=sb1&camp=212353&creative=380549)

.....and I told Roelof I couldn't find a CD recording of it ::)

Thanks for the info Colin. I removed the file.
Didn't check for it myself; should have done that though

Well done. Too late here,though :(! I'd never heard Lees before! Really enjoyed that! Another composer on my 'shopping list' thanks to you! ;D

I don't think this is available anywhere, since I had a heck of a time looking for it some time back, and I had to settle for buying it on LP at a record shop.

Sorry...but is that not just exactly the point: it IS available from this seller via Amazon on cd.

The seller must have a license from whoever owns CRI these days (New World Records ??? ) to transfer music to cd on demand. Does that not mean that as the music is "commercially available" it is not allowed here ???

New World has re-issued the Lees on CD.  They now own all rights to CRI recordings. They are releasing all of the old CRI LPs. They re all available on the New World website and Amazon.  So it is commercially available from a legitimate record company.

http://www.newworldrecords.org/cri-nwr-2004-03.shtml

I'll have to seek out some more Lees,after that. I didn't expect the piece to be so vigorous. In fact,I was expecting something a bit like later Paul Creston. A composer I have yet to get 'into',I'm afraid. Although,I just bought two s/h Delos cds of his music,the other week,so I'm still trying. I DO like Symphonies 1 & 2,though!
Of course more Lee means less in the old wallet. Much as I love music!! :(

I've just posted a rarity in the Downloads folder -- a symphony by American composer Chester Ide (1878-1944). There is precious little information easily obtainable about him, and I haven't been able to discover the date of composition of the symphony.

Here is his obituary, from the Chateaugay Record of April 7, 1944. Chateaugay is a small town in northernmost New York State directly to the Canadian border.

  Chester Edward Ide, composer and resident of Perryridge Road, died at Greenwich Hospital Saturday afternoon after a brief illness. He was 67 years of age.
  Mr. Ide was born in Springfield, Ill., in 1878 and received his musical training at the Royal Academy in London under Ebenezer Prout, Frederick Corder, and F. W. Davenport. He returned to the U. S. in 1913 to teach piano and harmony.
  A prolific composer, he numbered among his larger compositions a Sonata for Piano, String Quartet, Symphony in A Minor, Suite for Small Orchestra and the "Autumn Songs" for soprano and orchestra.
  Mr. Ide also composed many works for children's productions, all characterised by a freshness and fantasy that made them irresistibly appealing not only the the children for whom they were written, but also to adults. "The Piper," "Bag's Christmas" and "The River Nile" were only a few of his children's productions that delighted Greenwich audiences at the Edgewood School.
  A pioneer in the development of orchestral training for children, Mr. Ide taught, in addition to the Edgewood School in Greenwich at the Music School Settlement in New York City and at the Unquowa School in Bridgeport.
  Surviving Mr. Ide are his wife, the former Vella Martin, of Galesburg, Ill., a teacher at the Edgewood School, and two daughters, Mrs. Victor Ratner, of New York City, and Miss Elfrid Ide, now serving with the Red Cross in England.
  Mr. Ide is well known in Chateaugay having owned a camp at Chateaugay Lake, where he has spent a number of seasons. [Note the mistake in his age -- it should be 65 or 66, depending on what date he was born, which I've been unable to ascertain.]

The only other significant information I could find about him is in the 1910 edition of the Wa-Wan Press catalogue:

Chester Ide, of Springfield, Ill., is one of the few American composers whose studies have been conducted chiefly in England. He has a marked gift for melody and rhythm, and aims at simple beauty and clarity of expression. He infuses a spirit of buoyant happiness, a poetic uplift, into his music, that is one of its chief characteristics, and he delights also in moods of wistful and reflective character. His workmanship is extremely careful, and his management of modulations is particularly smooth, and the effect always lucid. A refinement of means is always evident in his work, and his interweaving of themes ingenious and unstrained.

I hear nothing unique, unusual, or revolutionary in his music, but it is clearly well-crafted and very enjoyable. The recording is excellent and the orchestra quite decent, although the work would likely make more of an impact from a major ensemble. The conducting is involved and committed, keeping things tidy, well-balanced, and flowing. However, I feel there is a sense of structure lacking, that allows the music to seem more rambling than it really should be. But, beggars can't be choosers and we're unlikely to ever get a world-class performance and recording of this work.

Many thanks for the Ide Symphony, Maris! I am always on the lookout for obscure American romantic music :)

As am I! One of my favorites. If any of our forum members have any other rarities along these lines, I would certainly welcome them gratefully!

This Little Light of Mine by Phyllis Barnard (Little Joey)  1978

In honor of the day, I wish to share a recording from an old vinyl that will have some novel vocal timbres that you have likely never heard, and may never wish to hear again.  This is from a gospel ventriloquist record by Phyllis Barnard (as Little Joey) , and simply must be heard to be believed.   Please do not play near breakable objects, pets, or people with post-traumatic stress disorder.

(http://farm4.staticflickr.com/3171/2663927940_f3ac2a5900_m.jpg)


I've actually found some bio info about Phylis, who, sad to say, is no longer with us, but I fervently pray is part of the choir way beyond the blue. --

Biography

(http://static.rateyourmusic.com/album_images/2072479838012ac3fccc114fa8c0da5f/422359.jpg)
Phylis Lee Alice (her maiden name was La Folette) married David Barnard in August 1965. Phylis and David traveled the US as evangelists in churches. They both did the preaching and sang together in the services.  Phylis learned ventriloquism on her own as a mean to entertain children in a separate service while David preached in the adult service.

In time Phylis and Joey, the dummy, came to be a part of their songs. David played guitar and Phylis (Joey's voice of course) would duet with David as Joey, holding Joey and doing the head and mouth movement. It was a hit with everyone young and old. David was the straight man and Joey was the punch line part.

Together Phylis and David recorded 5 musical albums that were sold in their church meetings, music concerts, television shows and shopping center appearances.  Often they were asked if they had a "Joey" Children's Album.  So, they went into a recording studio in Orange County in Southern California and in five hours laid down the tracks. Phylis life long friend, Orvel Phillips, pastor of The Lord's Church, Bellflower, CA did the Hammond Organ B3 and piano backup music.

Phylis, Joey and David moved to New Zealand in 1969 to live and pastor a church for two years. They continued to perform throughout the country and did a Gospel part for a huge concert in open field that featured The Bee Gees.

In 1972 Phylis and David and their buddy Joey went to Australia where he took the audience by storm in their church meetings for over a year. They were on every major morning and evening television talk shows throughout Australia as well as many middle schools and high schools, shopping centers and live concerts. From there it was to the Philippines, Indonesia, Hong Kong, India, Fiji and most of South-Eastern Asia. Joey drew hundreds if not thousands who came to see and marveled at Joey, "The Talking Doll".

Phylis and David separated and divorced in 1986. She remarried about 1991 and assumed the name Phylis L. Clark, Insurance Agent, Camarillo, CA.

Phylis passed away in 2002 after a brief time suffering from a brain tumor. David does not know the whereabouts of Joey "The Talking Doll" nor who got possession of him.



To the best of my knowledge this aural abomination is not commercially available.
I take no responsibility if this track leads to psychosis, permanent brain damage,  or worse.
And, despite rumors, I am NOT keeping Little Joey hostage in my basement.

Many thanks, Holger, for the Lukas Foss Symphony No.2 :)

Ditto!

Music of Ernst Bacon
(http://www.ernstbacon.org/files/1.jpg)

From the collection of Karl Miller



Symphonies of Ernst Bacon
Tracks 1-4:  Symphony 2
San Jose Symphony
George Cleve, Conductor
Date unknown.
Symphony No. 2 (Americana), orchestra (1937; fp. 1940) [Syracuse: arrangement for 2 pianos, 1936]
    - Smoky Mountain Scherzo, orchestra (1937) ["Interlude and diversion"] -2nd mvt from "Sym No. 2]

Tracks 5-15:  Symphony #3 “The Great River”
Ken Bowles, Narrator
Syracuse Symphony Orchestra
Karl Kritz, Conductor
20 November, 1961

Great River, A Symphony for Narrator & Orchestra (Sym #3) (1956; fp. 1957) [text: Horgan; episodes in the course and  history of the Rio Grande]
Preface
I. A River Created
II. The Peaks Colorado
III. Pastoral Valleys
IV. Desert and Canyon
V. Mexico Bay (The Gulf)
VI. A Pueblo Dance Prayer
VII. An Indian Death
VIII. Spanish Soldiers before Battle (New Mexico 1599)
IX. Mountain Man (Toas 1820-1830)
X. Soldiers by Firelight (Texas 1846) [narrator only?]
XI. The Honey-Eaters
XII. American Visions



Orchestral Music of Ernst Bacon
1.  Spoken introduction
2-12: From These States
Syracuse Symphony Orchestra
Kazuyoshi Akiyama, Conductor
November 17 or 18, 1997

From These States  (Review posted at Ernst Bacon Society)
Performed by the Syracuse Symphony Orchestra with Conductor Emeritus Kazuyoshi Akyama at Crouse-Hinds Concert Theatre, Syracuse, NY on November 17 and 18, 1997.
The set of 11 miniature movements, totaling about 20 minutes in length, is a cunningly orchestrated work that captures a variety of moods through the use of melodies with modal flavors, and snappy, syncopated rhythmic accompaniments.
...Bacon's settings are unpretentious: simplicity dominates, and the result is an uncomplicated, yet refreshing, array of tunes that charm the ear.
-- David Abrams, The Post-Standard, Syracuse, NY, November 22, 1997

From These States, "Gathered Along Unpaved Roads", a suite (11 mvts), orchestra (fp. 1946; pub. 1951) [1943?]
- Laying the rails (a sledge hammer song)
- Source of the Tennessee
 - The sunless pines
    - The Saluda barn dance
    - The cliff dwellers (no ancient cliffs, these)
    - Wizard oil
    - Storm over Huron
    - Lullaby to a sick child
    - Polly's murder
    - Hickory gap
    - The Timberline express

13-23: Riolama (Piano Concerto 1)
Riolama (10 Places for Piano and Orchestra)
A series of tone paintings of places, real and imagined
Ernst Bacon, Piano
Syracuse Symphony Orchestra
Karl Krtiz, Conductor
Jan 18, 1963

I Salem, Mass. --
II The Chama River (N.M.) --
III Creede, Colo. --
IV Nantahala, N.C. --
V Ruwenzori --
VI Gnaw --BBne, Ind. --
VII Gaspé --VIII Nicasio Valley (Calif.) --
IX Riolama --
X Pico Perdido.

24-27:  Piano Concerto No. 2
Piano Concerto No. 2 (1982)
Julie Steinberg, Piano
Berkeley Symphony Orchestra
Kent Nagano, Conductor



All recordings are either from radio broadcasts or personal recordings, and have not been commercially released.

Note- The Ernst Bacon Society has an excellent (and current) web site at: http://www.ernstbacon.org (http://www.ernstbacon.org)

Wikipedia Bio

Ernst Lecher Bacon (May 26, 1898 – March 16, 1990) was an American composer, pianist, and conductor. A prolific author, Bacon composed over 250 songs over his career. He was awarded three Guggenheim Fellowships and a Pulitzer Scholarship in 1932 for his Second Symphony.

Ernst Bacon was born in Chicago, Illinois, on May 26, 1898 to Maria von Rosthorn Bacon (sister of Alfons von Rosthorn and Arthur von Rosthorn) and Dr. Charles S. Bacon. At the age of 19, Bacon was enrolled at Northwestern University where he pursued a degree in mathematics. After three years of study, he moved to the University of Chicago. Bacon finished his education at the University of California at Berkeley, where he received a master's degree for the composition of The Song of the Preacher in 1935. His teachers there included Ernest Bloch (composition), Alexander Raab (piano), and Eugene Goossens (conducting).

At the age of 19, Bacon wrote a complex treatise entitled "Our Musical Idiom," which explored all possible harmonies. However, when he began to compose music in his 20s, he rejected a purely cerebral approach. He took the position that music is an art, not a science, and that its source should be human and imaginative, rather than abstract and analytical.

Bacon was self-taught in composition, except for two years of study with Karl Weigl in Vienna, Austria. Experiencing the depression of post-war Europe first hand, he understood that the avant-garde movement reflected the pessimism of its origins. Bacon set out instead to write music that expressed the vitality and affirmation of his own country. Sometimes compared with Béla Bartók, Bacon incorporated into his music the history and folklore, as well as the indigenous music, poetry, folksongs, jazz rhythms, and the very landscape of America.

As with Franz Schubert, a large body of more than 250 art songs is at the heart of an oeuvre that also includes numerous chamber, orchestral, and choral works. According to Marshall Bialosky, Ernst Bacon was "one of the first composers to discover Emily Dickinson... and set a great number of her poems into some of the finest art song music, if not actually the very finest, of any American composer in our history." He was deeply drawn by Walt Whitman's amplitude of vision, as well as by the poignant economy of Dickinson. Other poets with whom he felt an affinity included Carl Sandburg (who was a personal friend), Blake, Emily Brontë, Teasdale, and Housman.

In addition to his musical and literary composition, Bacon held a number of positions that took him across the country. From 1925-28, Bacon was an opera coach at the Eastman School of Music. In 1928 Bacon traveled from New York to California to take up a position at the San Francisco Conservatory of Music where he served until 1930. In 1935, Bacon was the guest conductor at the first Carmel Bach Festival in California. A year later he was supervising the Works Progress Administration (WPA) Federal Music Project and conducting the San Francisco Symphony. From 1938-45, he was dean and professor of piano at Converse College, Spartanburg SC. From 1945-47 he was director of the school of music, then from 1947-63 he was professor and composer in residence at Syracuse University. He was professor emeritus from 1964. He continued to compose almost to the day he died, on March 16, 1990 in Orinda, California

Please pass on our heartfelt thanks to Karl Miller for these works by Ernst Bacon :) :)

 :) :) :)

I never dreamed that I would be able to hear the Bacon Symphonies or the Piano Concertos :)

Amazing :)

Many, many thanks for these marvelous rarities!

Music of Samuel Adler
(http://cps-static.rovicorp.com/3/JPG_250/MI0003/459/MI0003459353.jpg)

Tracks 1-3: Symphony No. 1
Tracks 4-6: Symphony No. 2 (Premiere, Feb. 1958)

Dallas Symphony Orchestra
Walter Hendl, Conducter

From the collection of Karl Miller
Never commercially released.


Track 7:  Symphony No. 4 "Geometrics" (1967)
Track 8: Concerto for Organ and Orchestra (1971)

Aalborg Symphony Orchestra with James Freeman conductor.
LP Source:  ARIES LP 1619 (1970s)
Sound captured from YouTube post by Robt007

Notes and Information:

From what I've gathered, symphonies 3 and 5 are available commercially, but symphonies 1,2, and 6 have never been commercially recorded.  Symphony 2 is fantastic, and this omission is, in my book, a criminal offense.

There is a very interesting interview with Adler here, where, among other things, he professes not to understand his own music.
http://www.bruceduffie.com/adler.html (http://www.bruceduffie.com/adler.html)

Finally, here is the current Wikipedia Bio for Adler:

Samuel Hans Adler (born March 4, 1928) is an American composer and conductor.

Biography
Adler was born to a Jewish family in Mannheim, Germany, the son of Hugo Chaim Adler, a cantor and composer, and Selma Adler. The family fled to the United States in 1939, where Hugo became the cantor of Temple Emanuel in Worcester, Massachusetts. Sam followed his father into the music profession, earning degrees from Boston University and Harvard University (where he studied with Aaron Copland, Paul Hindemith, Paul Pisk, Walter Piston, and Randall Thompson and earned an M.A. in 1950). He studied conducting with Serge Koussevitzky at Tanglewood in 1949. Adler has been awarded honorary doctorates from Southern Methodist and Wake Forest Universities, St. Mary's College of Notre Dame and the St. Louis Conservatory of Music.

While serving in the United States Army (1950–1952), Adler founded and conducted the Seventh Army Symphony Orchestra. After his military service he was offered a conducting position just vacated by Leonard Bernstein on the faculty of Brandeis University but instead accepted a position as music director at Temple Emanu-El in Dallas, Texas, where the rabbi, Levi Olan, was a friend of Adler's family. Adler began his tenure in Dallas in 1953. At the Dallas temple he formed a children's choir and an adult choir and made the latter a prominent part of the religious services, often performing contemporary Jewish choral works that might otherwise have been neglected. From 1954 to 1958 Adler conducted the Dallas Lyric Theater. Adler is married to Dr. Emily Freeman-Brown of Bowling Green State University, who serves as Director of Orchestral Activities. From 1957 to 1966, Adler served as Professor of Composition at the University of North Texas College of Music. Between 1966 and 1995, Adler served as Professor of Composition at the Eastman School of Music Since 1997, Adler has been a member of the composition faculty at Juilliard and, for the 2009–10 year, was awarded the William Schuman Scholars Chair.

Adler has given master classes and workshops at over 300 universities worldwide, and in the summers has taught at major music festivals such as Tanglewood, Aspen, Brevard, Bowdoin, as well as others in France, Germany, Israel, Spain, Austria, Poland, South America and Korea. He is also the author of three books, Choral Conducting (Holt Reinhart and Winston 1971, second edition Schirmer Books 1985), Sight Singing (W.W. Norton 1979, 1997), and The Study of Orchestration (W.W. Norton 1982, 1989, 2001; Italian edition edited by Lorenzo Ferrero for EDT Srl Torino, 2008). He has also contributed numerous articles to major magazines, books and encyclopaedias published in the U.S. and abroad.

Awards
Adler has been awarded many prizes, including a membership into the American Academy in Berlin[1] and Institute of Arts and Letters awarded in May 2001, the Charles Ives Award, the Lillian Fairchild Award, etc. In May, 2003, he was presented with the Aaron Copland Award by ASCAP for Lifetime Achievement in Music (Composition and Teaching). In 2008 he was inducted into the American Classical Music Hall of Fame. In 1999, he was elected to the Berlin Akademie der Künste in Germany for distinguished service to music. In 1983, he won the Deems Taylor Award for his book on orchestration; in 1984, he was appointed Honorary Professorial Fellow of the University College in Cardiff, Wales, and was awarded a Guggenheim Fellowship for 1984–85. He has been a MacDowell Fellow for five years between 1954 and 1963. In 1986 he received the "Distinguished Alumni Award" from Boston University.

The Music Teachers' National Association selected Adler as its "Composer of the Year 1986-87" for Quintalogues, which won the national competition. In the 1988–89 year, he has been designated "Phi Beta Kappa Visiting Scholar." In 1989, he was awarded The Eastman School's Eisenhart Award for distinguished teaching, and he has been given the honour of Composer of the Year (1991) for the American Guild of Organists. During his second visit to Chile, Adler was elected to the Chilean Academy of Fine Arts (1993) "for his outstanding contributions to the world of music as composer, conductor, and author." He was initiated as an honorary member of member of the Gamma Theta (1960, University of North Texas) and the Alpha Alpha (1966, National Honorary) chapters of Phi Mu Alpha Sinfonia, and in 1986 was named a National Arts Associate to Sigma Alpha Iota, international music fraternity for women.[2]

Works
Adler's catalogue includes over 400 published works in all media, including five operas, six symphonies, eight string quartets, at least eleven concerti (organ, piano, violin, viola or clarinet, cello, flute, guitar, saxophone quartet, woodwind quintet), many shorter orchestral works, works for wind ensemble and band, chamber music, a great deal of choral music and songs.

Much of the thanks goes to John. He does a wonderful job with tracking down additional information and posting the pieces. I acquired the Bacon material from two sources, the widow of the composer and a Houston collector, the late David Mansfield. I still have about 1,000 reels of material from the Mansfield collection...hopefully I will live long enough to get most of it done. It takes a bit of time, cleaning tape heads, doing noise reduction and adding index points, etc. And then I have about 3,000+ tapes in my own collection!

Best wishes,

Karl

I'll just need to play some verbal tennis and return Karl's thanks, since I couldn't offer anything without his help.  I would hazard a guess, however, that we both take near as much joy sharing music as listening to it!

The link for the Antheil pieces is missing.

You are fast!  I just updated the page.

Thanks :)

It is the Violin Concerto I am particularly interested in :)

Music of George Antheil
(http://www.antheil.org/art/Antheil1.JPG)

Tracks 1-5 from the collection of Karl Miller

1. Jazz Symphony (original 1925 version)
Ivan Davis, Piano  Maurice Peress, Cond.
July 31, 1986
Venue unknown.
(the runtime for this is less than the commercial release Peress had in 1992)

2-4: Violin Concerto (Premiere -- Feb 9, 1947)
Verna Gebauer, Violin
Dallas Symphony Orchestra
Antal Dorait, Conductor

5.  Piano Concerto (No. 2)
T Hartsniker, Piano
Dutch Radio Orchestra
Lucas Vis, Conductor.
1976 (first time performed since 1927)



Track 6 is from a Youtube post by playerpianoJH, with a realization of a piano roll created  by L. Douglas Henderson .

6.  Ballet Mechanique-- Piano Roll #1 (four piano parts on a single Piano)
Date unknown. 



As best as I can determine, these are broadcast or personal recordings, and have not been commercially released in digital form.

Some additional information.


There is some confusion in the history of Antheil's Piano Concerti.  I am really enjoying the one I posted, which I gather was the 1976 performance, nearly 50 years since the disastrous premiere of the work, which was "not radical enough" for the time.   As Guy Livingston explained:



Some notes about the Piano Roll in Track 6:


The video is quite impressive as well: http://youtu.be/9ijD4dU5_Jg (http://youtu.be/9ijD4dU5_Jg)

Finally, I can't say anything about Antheil without mentioning the interesting trivia about his patent on frequency hopping with the actress Hedy Lamarr, who I have a thing for.
(http://www.patentbaristas.com/wp/wp-content/uploads/2010/11/hedy-lamarr.jpg)
(http://www.91history.com/img/uploak/11/16754.jpg)

There is a not so scholarly discussion here:

http://hypatiamaze.org/h_lamarr/scigrrl.html (http://hypatiamaze.org/h_lamarr/scigrrl.html)

Music of Easley Blackwood
(http://cedillerecords.org/music/images/blackwood.jpg)

From the collection of Karl Miller

1-3: Concerto for Oboe and Strings
Dartmouth Community Symphony(?)
Raoul Zazal, Oboe
Mario di Boniventura, Cond(?)

4-6: Concerto for Flute and Strings
Dartmouth Community Symphony(?)
Robert Willoughby , Flute  -- Note-- Robert Willoughby has verified that he was the flautist- he is 91 and still teaching. Thanks to Lani at Symphony Share!
Mario di Boniventura, Cond(?)
July 28, 1968
This performance (and maybe the previous one) may well have taken place during Summer 1968 Congregation of the Arts festival-- http://congregation-of-the-arts.wikispaces.com/Congregation+of+the+Arts+-+Summer+1968
 (http://congregation-of-the-arts.wikispaces.com/Congregation+of+the+Arts+-+Summer+1968)     Thanks to Derek Katz at Symphony Share!

Both of the above are from personal recordings, and, to my knowledge, have never been commercially released.

7-9:  Concerto for Piano and Orchestra, Op. 24
Composer, Piano
Cleveland Orchestra
Louis Lane, Conductor
April 27-28, 1972
Radio broadcast.

From reading about Blackwood, I must confess that I would like to explore some of his microtonal work, which postdates these recordings.

Wikipedia Bio

Easley Blackwood, (born April 21, 1933), is a professor of music, a concert pianist, a composer of music, some using unusual tunings, and the author of books on music theory, including his research into the properties of microtonal tunings and traditional harmony.

Blackwood was born in Indianapolis, Indiana. He studied piano there and was doing solo appearances at the age of 14 with the Indianapolis Symphony Orchestra. After studies at many places (including Yale University, where he earned his Master of Arts degree) in the United States, he went to Paris to study from 1954 to 1956. His teachers include Olivier Messiaen, Paul Hindemith, and Nadia Boulanger. For forty years, from 1958 to 1997, Blackwood taught at the University of Chicago, most of the time with the title of Professor. He then became Professor Emeritus at the University. He is still teaching classes.

Blackwood's initial compositions were not particularly unconventional although in them he employed polyrhythm and wide melodic contours. This early music by Blackwood has been characterized as in an atonal yet a formally conservative style. In 1980-81 Blackwood shifted rather abruptly to a new style, releasing Twelve Microtonal Etudes for Electronic Music Media. For these pieces, he used microtonality to create unusual equal tempered musical scales. Blackwood has explored all equal temperaments from 13 through 24, including 15-ET and 19-ET.[1] Although Blackwood recorded most of these pieces with a synthesizer, his "Suite in 15-Note Equal Tuning, Op. 33" was performed live on a specially constructed guitar.[2] His compositional style moved toward a late-19th-century tonality; he has likened its harmonic syntax to Verdi, Ravel, and Franck.

As a performer at the piano, Blackwood has played diverse compositions and has promoted the music of Charles Ives, Pierre Boulez, and the Second Viennese School. In addition to his solo piano performances, Blackwood is pianist in the chamber group Chicago Pro Musica, largely comprising members of the Chicago Symphony Orchestra.

Blackwood has written a very substantial treatise on music harmony, A Practical Musician's Guide to Tonal Harmony which, "...springs from studies at the French National Conservatory from 1954-1957 with Nadia Boulanger."[3]

Blackwood is also known for his book, The Structure of Recognizable Diatonic Tunings, (ISBN 0691091293) published 1986. A number of recordings of his music have been released by Cedille Records (the label of the Chicago Classical Recording Foundation) beginning in the 1990s such as Introducing Easley Blackwood.[4]

His father, Easley Blackwood, Sr. is a noted contract bridge player and author.

William Bolcom:Concerto Grosso for Saxophone Quartet and Orchestra
(http://www.montage.umich.edu/wp-content/uploads/Bolcom.jpg)

From the collection of Karl Miller

1. Intro
2-5: Concerto Grosso for Saxophone Quartet and Orchestra
6. Outro.

World Premiere
Detroit Symphony
Prism Saxophone Quartet
Jahja Ling, Conductor
2001
Radio Broadcast

Announcement of  Commission by the Prism quartet

PRISM is proud to announce the commissioning of a multi-movement Concerto Grosso for saxophone quartet and orchestra by the Pulitzer Prize-winning composer William Bolcom. The work was composed in 2000 season and given its first performances during the 2000-2001 season by the PRISM Quartet in co-premieres with a consortium of orchestras, including the Detroit and Dallas Symphony Orchestras.

The commissioning of this concerto sets a historical precedent as among the first works of its kind by a major American composer. As such, it will hold a significant place in the contemporary orchestral music literature by demonstrating the beauty and breadth of the saxophone's expressive capabilities.

That William Bolcom's compositions are frequently recorded and performed by the world's leading musical institutions is testimony to his stature as a living "national treasure." His work with American vernacular styles and in theatrical modes has been a strong impulse in his music making, both as a composer and a performer. As he explains, “My explorations in all sorts of music from America’s past have been to learn the roots of our musical language, so that I can build from them.” A student of Darius Milhaud and Oliver Messiaen, Mr. Bolcom has had a number of honors bestowed upon him, including the Pulitzer Prize for Music, two Koussevitzky Foundation Awards, two Guggenheim Fellowships, several Rockefeller Foundation Awards and NEA Grants, the Marc Blitzstein Award from the Academy of Arts and Letters, the Michigan Council for the Arts Award, and the Governor's Arts Award from the State of Michigan.

In recent years, Bolcom has been commissioned by many prestigious performing organizations, including the New York Philharmonic, the Philadelphia Orchestra, the St. Louis Symphony, the Vienna Philharmonic, and the Orpheus Ensemble, among others. These have included Lyric Concerto for James Galway and the St. Louis Symphony, McTeague for the Lyric Opera of Chicago, Fifth Symphony for the Philadelphia Orchestra, Sonata for Cello and Piano for Yo-Yo Ma and Emanuel Ax, GAEA, a double piano concerto for Leon Fleisher, Gary Graffman, the Baltimore, St. Louis, and Pacific Symphonies, Piano Quartet No. 2 for the Beaux Arts Trio with clarinetist Richard Stoltzman, and Sixth Symphony for the National Symphony Orchestra. Other commissions have included the Carnegie Hall Centennial, for which he wrote a song cycle with texts by American women poets, ballet scores for the Pacific Northwest Ballet and the Murray Louis Troupe, and the commissioned work for the Tenth Van Cliburn International Piano Competition in 1997. Mr. Bolcom is Professor of Composition at the University of Michigan in Ann Arbor.


Bolcom's Note about the work:

Many thanks to you, Jowcol, as well as the ubiquitous Mr Miller, for the Antheil, Blackwood, and Bolcolm selections, most especially the Blackwood, for whose music (as you've probably gathered by now) I've developed a bit of an obsession.  I really wish Cedille would record the middle three symphonies, but until then I'll happily depend on your generosity.  Any of Blackwood's microtonal works would be happily and gratefully received!

Samuel Barber:  Symphony # 2
(http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/9/91/Samuel_Barber.jpg/220px-Samuel_Barber.jpg)
Minnesota Orchestra
Marin Alsop, Director
April 16, 1992

From the collection of Karl Miller
Personal recording of live performance.  Not commercially released to my knowledge.

 The second Symphony was probably one of the more controversial works in the Barber Catalog, as the composer himself wanted to withdraw the work from publication. 

Wikipedia Entry

Symphony No. 2 (Samuel Barber)

Symphony No. 2, op. 19 is a three-movement work for orchestra by American composer Samuel Barber. The 25-minute work was originally written in 1944. The work underwent many revisions and was finally published in 1950. The original manuscript was withdrawn by Barber in 1964. He ordered that G. Schirmer destroy the original manuscript and all scores in their library. The work remained unpublished for many years until 1984 when a set of parts turned up in a warehouse in England. Renewed interest in Barber's work led to a 1990 reprint of the 1950 edition.
•   
History
Composition
Samuel Barber began his composition career at the age of seven. He was accepted in the presitgious Curtis Institute of Music at age 14. He received critical acclaim for his early compositions including The School for Scandal and Adagio for Strings. His early success led to a commission from the United States Air Force in 1943 to write a "symphonic work about flyers". The request came soon after he joined the United States Army in 1942. Barber spent time at a U.S. Air Force base so that he could take part in flight training and battle simulations.[1] He was given four months to write the piece with the understanding that the army would receive all of the royalties forever.[2]

General Barton K. Yount approached Samuel Barber about the commission and asked him to include "modern devices" in the composition. Barber honored this request by using an electronic tone-generator built by Bell Telephone Laboratories in the second movement. This device was intended to represent the sound of a radio beam used to guide night flyers. The symphony was revised in 1947 to replace the electronic tone-generator with an E-flat clarinet.[3]

Premiere
Symphony No. 2 was premiered on March 3, 1944, by the Boston Symphony Orchestra. Serge Koussevitzky conducted the premiere performance at Symphony Hall in Boston, MA.[4]

Revisions
Samuel Barber withdrew the symphony in 1964 and ordered the destruction of the score and parts. His explanation implied to some that his piece was war propaganda. He went on to say, "Times of cataclysm are rarely conducive to the creation of good music, especially when the composer tries to say too much. But the lyrical voice, expressing the dilemma of the individual, may still be of reverence." Barber initially thought that the symphony was one of his finest works. However, after twenty years with infrequent performances, he decided that the symphony was, in his words, "not a good work".[5]

A set of orchestral parts that somehow escaped destruction were found in an English G. Schirmer warehouse in 1984. The parts were returned to New York where they were used for a recording by the New Zealand Symphony Orchestra with Andrew Schenck conducting.[6] A renewed interest in the music of Samuel Barber led to a re-release of Barber's revised second symphony in 1990.[7] Samuel Barber also used material from the second movement of Symphony No. 2 to create the tone poem, Night Flight (1964). The single movement work incorporated themes from the second movement of Symphony No. 2, his opera, Anthony and Cleopatra (1966), and his orchestral work, Fadograph of a Yestern Scene (1971).[8]

Reception
The original release of Barber's Symphony No. 2 was widely criticized for various reasons. Several critics felt that the work was little more than war time propaganda. Many people complained about the inclusion of the electronic tone-generator in a symphonic work. Despite much criticism, the work also received many positive reviews. The work was generally viewed as Barber's most ambitious and contemporary work.[9] There was a great sense of tension and energy in the work that was palpable to audiences.[10]

Analysis
The thematic material of Symphony No. 2 is designed to emulate the sensation of flying. Barber was very clear that he did not view the symphony as program music.[11] However, in his program notes he mentions that the first movement was meant to capture the excitement of flying while the second movement was inspired by his night flights. The final movement begins with very fast string passages with no barlines to express the sensation of flight.[12] Samuel Barber uses tension and release throughout to create a greater sense of energy. His use of ostinatos, polytonality,[13] dissonance, and angular lines create a work that can be described as one of Barber's most progressive works.[14] Barber would later revise the work and state that the symphony has no programmatic intentions.[11]

Movement I
The first movement is in simple triple time and marked allegro ma non troppo. This movement, in sonata form, is the longest movement of the symphony lasting over twelve minutes. The movement opens with aggressive woodwind chords in seconds that move at the interval of a seventh. Then, the strings enter playing the initial theme that is based on the opening chords. Next, a second theme, based around sixteenth notes, leads into a lyrical theme from the oboe, which closes the exposition. The development begins with a contrapuntal passage that leads into a full orchestra statement based on the opening motif. The percussion section is used throughout to create diminution and augmentation of the theme.[15]

Movement II
The second movement is in 5/4 time and marked andante, un poco mosso. The slow movement features solos by the english horn, flute, and E-flat clarinet. The piece, which tries to emulate a flier at night, is based on a slow ostinato 5/4 rhythm that is first played by the muted cellos and basses. The english horn enters over the accompaniment to perform a "lonely" melody in 4/4 time.[12] The juxtaposition of time signatures creates an oscillating rhythmic counterpoint that helps propel the movement forward. The second movement is the shortest movement in the work, lasting around seven minutes.[15] The work was later revised and edited to stand alone as Night Flight, a tone poem for orchestra.[16]

Movement III
The third movement is in fast triple time and marked presto, senza battuta. The third movement is the most technical movement of the entire symphony. The final movement begins with a spiral figure for the strings in free rhythm that is interrupted by the brass section. This leads to a set of variations and a short fugue. The spiral section returns in the brass and also in the coda, which brings the work to an exciting finish. The final movement lasts approximately nine minutes.[17]

Notable recordings
Barber's Symphony No. 2 has been recorded by over a dozen orchestras. A 1951 recording of Symphony No. 2 is available by the New Symphony Orchestra with Samuel Barber conducting. The recording was released by Pavilion Records in 2001.[18] The original recording, performed by the Boston Symphony Orchestra, is available in Washington, D.C., at the Library of Congress.[19]

Music of Adolf Bush
(http://greatest-people.com/data_images/main/adolf-busch/adolf-busch-06.jpg)

From the collection of Karl Miller

Note: Busch was born in Germany, and fled the fascist government, and ended up in the US.  Therefore I am posting him here.

1. Psalm No 6 for Chorus and Orchestra
Temple University Chorus, Robert Page Cond.
Philadelphia Orchestra
Eugene Ormandy, conductor
April 27, 1958.
Personal recording, not commercially released.

2. Intro
3.  Violin Concerto
Goffried Schneider, violin
Philharmonica Hungarica
Werner Andreas Albert, conductor
Radio broadcast.


Tilly Porter has written a two volume biography of Busch, as weill as the liner notes for a CD compilation of his work that you can view here:
http://www.eclassical.com/shop/art69/SYMP1109.pdf-277322.pdf (http://www.eclassical.com/shop/art69/SYMP1109.pdf-277322.pdf)

Wikipedia Bio:

Adolf Busch

 
 

Adolf Georg Wilhelm Busch (8 August 1891 – 9 June 1952) was a German-born violinist and composer.

Life and career
Busch was born in Siegen in Westphalia. He studied at the Cologne Conservatory with Willy Hess and Bram Eldering. His composition teacher was Fritz Steinbach but he also learned much from his future father-in-law Hugo Grüters in Bonn.

In 1912, Busch founded the Vienna Konzertverein Quartet, consisting of the principals from the Konzertverein orchestra, which made its debut at the 1913 Salzburg Festival. After World War I, he founded the Busch Quartet, which from the 1920–21 season included Gösta Andreasson, violin, Karl Doktor, viola, and Paul Grümmer, cello. The quartet was in existence with varying personnel until 1951.

The additional member of the circle was Rudolf Serkin, who became Busch's duo partner at 18 and eventually married Busch's daughter, Irene. The Busch Quartet and Serkin became the nucleus of the Busch Chamber Players, a forerunner of modern chamber orchestras.

In 1927, with the rise of Adolf Hitler, Busch decided he could not in good conscience stay in Germany, so he emigrated to Basel, Switzerland. (Busch was not Jewish and was popular in Germany, but firmly opposed Nazism from the beginning.) On 1 April 1933 he repudiated Germany altogether and in 1938 he boycotted Italy. On the outbreak of World War II, Busch emigrated from Basel to the United States, where he eventually settled in Vermont. There, he was one of the founders with Rudolf Serkin of the Marlboro Music School and Festival.

The Busch Quartet was particularly admired for its interpretations of Brahms, Schubert, and above all Beethoven. It made a series of recordings in the 1930s that included many of these composers' works for string quartet. In 1941, it set down three Beethoven quartets that it had not previously recorded, including Opus 130. The Busch Quartet never recorded the Grosse Fuge, Opus 133; an arrangement was recorded by the Busch Chamber Players, with Busch leading from the first violin desk.

Busch was a great soloist, as well as a chamber musician, and live recordings exist of him playing the Beethoven, Brahms, Dvorák and Busoni Concertos, as well as the Brahms Double Concerto. In the studio he recorded concertos and chamber orchestra performances of Bach and Mozart, and of the Concerti grossi, op.6 by Handel; his recordings of Bach's Brandenburg Concertos brought them to prominence[1] after many years of relative obscurity. He had a highly individual tone and great technique. Among his students were Stefi Geyer, Erica Morini and Yehudi Menuhin.

As a composer, Busch was influenced by Max Reger. He was among the first to compose a Concerto for Orchestra, in 1929. A number of his compositions have been recorded, including the Violin Concerto (A minor, opus 20, published 1922),[2] String Sextet (G major, opus 40), Quintet for Saxophone and String Quartet, and several large scale works for organ. Regarding the latter, Busch once remarked that if he could come back after his death he would like to return as an organist.

He was the son of the luthier Wilhelm Busch; brother of the conductor Fritz Busch, the cellist Hermann Busch, the pianist Heinrich Busch and the actor Willi Busch, and grandfather of the pianist Peter Serkin. An exhaustive two-volume biography of Busch by Tully Potter was published in 2010 by Toccata Press [3]

Jeremy Beck:  Sinfonietta for String Orchestra
 
(http://www.beckmusic.org/wp-content/themes/beckmusic/graphics/photo-jb-home.jpg)

From the collection of Karl Miller




Date,venue, orchestra not known.

Biography at composers site:
http://www.beckmusic.org/biography/ (http://www.beckmusic.org/biography/)


Interesting Essay by Beck and Responses on the current state of composition.
http://beckmusic.org/wp-content/uploads/2012/05/Jeremy-Beck_Anything-Goes-Composition-at-the-Turn-of-the-Century-CMS-Newsletter-Jan-May-1999.pdf (http://beckmusic.org/wp-content/uploads/2012/05/Jeremy-Beck_Anything-Goes-Composition-at-the-Turn-of-the-Century-CMS-Newsletter-Jan-May-1999.pdf)

Easley Blackwood: Symphony No. 2  just downloaded from YouTube.  Szell/Cleveland Orchestra I believe.

I think it is the premiere. 1960s sound unfortunately.

Music of John J. Becker
(https://encrypted-tbn1.gstatic.com/images?q=tbn:ANd9GcTep-PZJJ6e9Pu7bbgg980xrCha5S2Sd9r1N-Dfwt0YnkRnGnpo)

From the collection of Karl Miller

1. Intro with Evelyn Becker
2. Concertino for 2 flutes and Orchestra
3. Outro
University of Cincinnati Philharmonia
Leslie Wiley, Judy Ulbert, flutes
Robert Sader, cond.

4. Introduction
5. Psalm of Love  for Soprano and Piano
Elsa Charlston, sop;,  Andrea Swann, pf.
February, 1976

6. Intro
7.  Soundpiece No. 7 for two pianos
Frina Ashanna and Kenwin Bolt, pianos
8. Outro.

Radio broadcast recordings.



Wikipedia Bio:

John Joseph Becker (b. Henderson, Kentucky, January 22, 1886; d. Wilmette, Illinois, January 21, 1961) was an American composer of contemporary classical music. He is grouped together with Charles Ives, Carl Ruggles, Henry Cowell, and Wallingford Riegger as a member of the "American Five" composers of "ultra-modern" music.

The John J. Becker Papers are held by the Music Division of the New York Public Library.[1] Another collection, the Dr. John J. Becker (1886-1961) Papers, is held at the University of St. Thomas Libraries in Minnesota.[2]

More Music of Easley Blackwood:

I ‘m offering up these recordings with an explanation and a caveat.  The original source of these recording were the ones that Karl Miller offered up on Symphony share back in 2010.  At this point, I edited some of the tracks for my mp3 player, and deleted the originals.  Now that rapidshare has deleted the posted files, I am offering up my versions, with the following warnings:

• I lowered the quality from 192 kps to 128 kps.
• I likely tweaked the EQ settings to be a bit more garish.  (I do 98% of my listening on ear buds or in the car, so I tend to exaggerate the ends of the spectrum.
• I’ve increased the volume  in a non-linear way—the low-high range has been narrowed.
• I’ve joined multiple movements into a single track”
• I have also likely omitted some tracks.

In short, if Karl’s original versions are posted again, I will remove these, as I don’t want to taint the “gene pool” .  Nonetheless, this may appeal to some of you.  Particularly if your name is BrianA. 

I've included some duplications from my earlier post here-- the two concertos for oboe and flute here are not as trustworthy from this source  as those I've posted previously.

1. Symphony No.4
Chicago Symphony Orchestra
Sir George Solti, conductor

2.Symphony No.2
Cleveland Orchestra
George Szell, conductor
[5 January 1961]

3. Concerto for Flute and Strings, Op.23
Robert Willoughby, soloist
"Dartmouth Festival Orchestra
 Mario di Boniventura, conductor
July 28, 1968

4.  Concerto for Oboe and Strings, Op.19
"Dartmouth Festival Orchestra
Mario di Boniventura, conductor
Soloist: Alfred Genovese
Some time between July 15 and 28th, 1968

5. Concerto for Piano and Orchestra, Op.24
Blackwood, piano
Cleveland Orchestra
Louis Lane, conductor
[27 April 1972]

6. Symphonic Fantasy
Cleveland Orchestra
George Szell, conductor
[30 September 1966]


All sourced  from personal  recordings or radio broadcasts.  Originally form Karl Miller’s collection, but these are not the definitive releases.

Migrations (for Narrator and Orchestra) by Mario Abril
(http://www.utc.edu/Academic/Music/images/Faculty/Abril_Mario2.jpg)

Text. By Lin C. Parker
The Chattanooga Symphony Orchestra
Robert Bernhardt, Conductor
Roland Carter, Narrator

Premiere Performance
Tivoli Theatre, Chattanooga, TN
Feb 20, 1997

From the collection of Karl Miller

Jowcol, many thanks to you and Mr Miller for your latest installment of Blackwood, for which I have been waiting patiently but with eager anticipation!

Brian

I have now fulfilled my repeated promises to upload music by Paul Creston. I've included every work of which I own a legally uploadable recording, including orchestra or large instrumental ensemble. I believe that even hardcore Creston fanatics will find something here that they have never heard before.

Also included in the uploads is a Paul Creston worklist I compiled a few years ago, including ALL his numbered and unnumbered works that I could find out about. The only titles not included in this list are unfinished works. I didn't include movement titles in the downloads listing of the individual recordings. If you consult the worklist, you should be able to find all the detail necessary.

In a project of this magnitude, there will inevitably be some glitches. Please let me know if anything needs to be fixed and I'll endeavor to do so.

Enjoy!

Randall Thompson Symphony No. 3, Op. 48 "Three Mysteries" (1950):  BBC Philharmonic Orchestra
  George Lloyd, conductor [live, Dec. 6, 1990]
Fascinated to see this listed, because it confirms that I was actually AT that concert! (At the RNCM???) Over the years I had started to come to the conclusion that I must have imagined/dreamed it, because in retropsect it seems so improbable....(and also because, to be honest, I'd forgotten the music!). I have an idea that David Diamond either conducted/was present at the same concert, though in 2013 that also somehow seems equally unlikely...?

Randall Thompson?

Er...Paul Creston. That's spellcheckers for you! (And like I said, it DOES all seem very vague now...)

Thank you, Schuylkill88, for that missing bit of information!

Are you sure that the recent upload of the Don Gillis Piano Concerto No.2 by the Sinfonia Varsovia is not taken from the Albany cd ??? ???

did not check that, but that is likely.
I'll delete the post asap

Probably the wisest option :)

Following some earlier discussion of the music of Ernst Bacon and the uploads of some of that music, I have been honoured by a private and very gracious message from the composer's widow pointing out a few mistakes in my online catalogue of Bacon's music.

I shall correct these once get back from London next week.

If the hugely welcome uploads from  Karl Miller's collection and the catalogue help to raise awareness of Ernst Bacon's music I, for one, would be delighted.

I don't know if anybody's noticed this yet, but the link to the upload of Arthur Foote's Cello Concerto is no longer valid.  Could somebody restore it, or please reload it?  Thanks in advance.

I have uploaded the Foote for you :)

Thanks, Colin!

Hello - this link appears to be broken.  WOuld it be possible to re-upload?  I am particularly interested in the Pregel.....

Music of Alan Hovhannes

(http://farm8.staticflickr.com/7309/10196594963_3f7f17a597_o.jpg)

From the colllection of Karl Miller

This is a truly monumental collection of true original composer.  Karl has spent nearly two months pulling this together and tweaking the sound on the varied tracks, coverinng 37  Of the 67 "Symphonies" he has written, this collection has one or more versions of the following:

• Symphony No.1  Exile Symphony  Op.17 No.2 (1936)   
• Symphony No.2  Mysterious Mountain  Op.132 (1955)   
• Symphony No.5  Short   Op.170 (1953)   
• Symphony No.6  Celestial Gate  Op.173 (1959)   
• Symphony No.8  Arjuna  Op.179 (1947)   
• Symphony No.10  Vahaken  Op.184 (1944, revised 1965)   
• Symphony No.12  "Choral" Op.188 (1960)   
• Symphony No.13  Ardent Song  Op.190 (1953)   
• Symphony No.15  Silver Pilgrimage  Op.199 (1962)   
• Symphony No.16  Kayagum  Op.202 (1962)   
• Symphony No.17  Symphony for Metal Orchestra  Op.203 (1963)   
• Symphony No.18  Circe  Op.204 (1963)   
• Symphony No.19  Vishnu  Op.217 (1966)   
• Symphony No.20  Three Journeys to a Holy Mountain  Op.223 (1968)
• Symphony No.21  Etchmiadzin  Op.234 (1968)   
• Symphony No.22  City Of Light  Op.236 (1970)   
• Symphony No.23  Ani  Op.249 (1972)   
• Symphony No.26   Op.280 (1975)   
• Symphony No.27   Op.285 (1976)   
• Symphony No.28 Op.286 (1976)   
• Symphony No.29   Op.289 (1976)   
• Symphony No.31  Op.294 (1976-77)   
• Symphony No.34  Op.310 (1977)   
• Symphony No.35  Op.311 (1978)   
• Symphony No.36  Op.312 (1978)
• Symphony No.38  Op.314 (1978   
• Symphony No.40 Op.324 (1979)   
• Symphony No.43 Op.334 (1979)   
• Symphony No.46  To The Green Mountains  Op.347 (1980)   
• Symphony Nos. 47 “Walla Walla, Land of Many Waters”   
• Symphony 48: “Visions of Andromeda” Op. 355   
• Symphony No.50  Mount St. Helens  Op.360 (1981-82)   
• Symphony No.57, Op.381 “Cold Mountain”   
• Symphony No. 58: Symphony Sacra   
• Symphony No.59, Op.395 “Bellevue”   
• Symphony No.60  To The Appalachian Mountains  Op.429   
• Symphony No. 66  Hymn to Glacier Peak  Op.428 (1992)
• Symphony No.67  Hymn To The Mountains  Op.429 (1992)

In addition, this collection has:    

• Ode to the Temple of Sound   
• Suite 1 for Band.   

All recordings come from radio broadcasts, out of print LPs, and from private collections.  To the best of my knowledge, none of these recordings has been commercially released in digital form.

This collection is so staggering I felt compelled to come up with a booklet that was worthy of it. This booklet

http://www.mediafire.com/view/yretb1ck3bod7y6/Hohannes_Booklet.pdf (http://www.mediafire.com/view/yretb1ck3bod7y6/Hohannes_Booklet.pdf)

Is more than 60 pages long.  (Note-- the link is only for the booklet.  You need to go to the downloads section to access the recordings).  The Booklet has a full listing of information about each recording, as well as bibliographical information, detailed descriptions of nearly all of the symphonies in this collection, analysis of his compositional style, and also many quotes and insights from Hovhaness himself.  Material in the booklet comes from the Hovhaness web site, a conference paper on his works for band, interviews with Hovhaness, and excerpts from Chung Park's PhD thesis about Hovhannes.  (Park conducted the 2009 Visions of the East CD with an all-Hovhaness program.)

And for what it's worth, I can't stop listening to the 5th section of the Vishnu Symphony.

Many, many, thanks to Karl Miller and Jowcol for all these Hovhaness' works.
I could add a number of symphonies to my collection.
Not all the works may be called 'powerful', but they are IMHO very listenable and I'm glad to have them!

Back to the uploads of Hovhaness Symphonies.

I think there is a little mistake in the zip-files with symphony Nº 3.
On YT Symphony 3 takes about 28 min; in the upload 19 mins.
Listening to both versions I think the file in the upload called 015_Intro is in fact the first part of the symphony

That is certainly an enormous amount of music, for which many thanks.

For those like me with limited bandwidth, can you recommend a good starting point? I don't believe I've ever knowingly heard a note of Hovhaness before.

This is quite incredible :)

I had a total of 28 Hovhaness symphonies in my own cd collection-out of the 67 he composed-I shall (shortly) have another 22 ;D

Huge thanks to both jowcol and Karl Miller :) :)

The booklet-which I have already downloaded-looks marvellous too :)

Thank you, thank you, thank you, jowcol (and Karl)! I can't even begin to adequately express my appreciation for this enormous undertaking! So many gaps in my collection will now be filled!

His second symphony is in the first file-- it's his most famous.   

Indeed, a huge thank you from me to both jowcol and Karl Miller! :) Re dyn's post, I woud recommend his Symphony no. 50 Mount St. Helens as a good starting point (along with no. 2). That last movement is something else!

These are indeed wonderful. Several of these Hovhaness symphonies will be new to me, and I am hopeful that I will experience some of them in better sound - number 28 is a case in point. I am perplexed by the fist two movements of number 27 as well as all 26. They came through from MediaFire without issue but when I want to hear them there is no sound. My MAC tells me there is a there there but no sound. The remaining movements of 27 are fine, as are several others to which I have listened, including 29 whose premiere I attended. The date is May 6th, 1977. Has anyone else had problems? Tx from Schuylkill88.

First, I wish to thank Karl and John a lot as well. I haven't focused too much on Hovhaness' music so far, but it is truly wonderful to get so many symphonies at once.

Now, I only played Nos. 1&67 so far, but in reaction to Schuylkill's alert I tried out the files in question as well and it is true that the same also holds for me: the first two movements of No. 27 and the complete No. 26 are actually not present, that is, there are mp3s with certain durations but nothing can be heard when playing them. Seems to be some kind of error.

I have the same probes with the first two movements of 34 (last three are fine).

(And thanks for all this fine music!)

Gentlemen--
Thanks for your observations-- I'll be looking into these, and re-rip or upload.  I know that one one of the discs in question, I had some odd behavior when I was ripping them. 

Thanks a lot to Karl Miller and jowcol for your uploads of the Alan Hovhaness symphonies.
I am not an AH fan (although I´ve got thirty or more of his works), mainly of those contemplative works with almost no changes... but there are really beautiful moments too.
Thanks again for the effort!

Symphony No.13 is described on the file as subtitled "Visit to a Holy Mountain". I think that this is wrong. No.13 is entitled "Ardent Song". No.20 is correctly subtitled "Three Journeys to a Holy Mountain".

(In a project of such magnitude there were bound to be hiccups ;D)

If forced to choose, Nos. 6 and 2 are my absolute favorites..
His music is superb, but after a while you begin to feel it is all woven from the same cloth.
Not a bad thing, unless you are expecting big differences from work to work..

We are not quite out of the woods yet with respect to the errata for Hovhaness 26, alas. There are two 4th movements at 15:15 but no 3rd. Thanks for the remediation for 34!

(http://rafinhaea7arte.files.wordpress.com/2010/04/homer-doh.gif)

I'll look into the missing movement.

As I said in a former message, I am really grateful to Karl Miller and jowcol for their uploads of the Hovhaness symphonies. I did have an judgment of his contemplative music, based on the more than thirty of his works in my CDs. Listening to the new ones, I am convinced that 64 symphonies can be "compressed" in maybe three or four. My thinking is that If I liked listening to modal music, by far I´d prefer Fantasy/Tallis of RVW.
Surely a lot of you would not agree with me!! (Sorry for my poor English)

i am suspecting that the remaining issue in Symphony 26 in the Hovhaness collection is that the "third" track was simply repeated twice.  I've not yet heard back from Karl, but unless someone knows the score, I can't be sure that there was a 4th movement.

Gabriel-- no need to apologize-- we all react differently to different music.  I LOVE modal music-- I have a lot of Hindustani classical, modal jazz, and blues in my collection.  I would say, in my opinion, that Hovhaness repeated himself a lot less than Steve Reich. (I LOVE a few of Reich's works, but I don't think one needs to learn his whole cataog.)

Music of Don Gillis
(http://www.library.unt.edu/sites/default/files/images/news-and-noteworthy/don_gillis.jpg)

From the collection of Karl Miller

All recordings are from broadcasts, personal collection, and LPs (as noted).  To my knowledge, none of these have been made commercially available in digital form.

Link is in the downloads section.


Volume 1

Adoration at Eventide for Strings
Salt Lake Community Orchestra of Westminster College

Bayou Song for Band
performers unknown

Cathedral Square for Orchestra
performers unknown

Dialogue for Trombone and Band
Lew Gillis, trombone, TCU Band
Don Gillis, conductor
Source LP: Austin Records WAM 33 6527

Frontiersman, a ballet for Band
Peformers unknown

Men of Music
US Army Band/Col. Sam Loboda, Cond.

Night Song for Orchestra
Performers unknown

Silhouettes for violin, cello, and piano
Daniel Gullet, violin; Naum Beditzky, cello; Joseph Kahn, piano

Sinfonia for Brass
Performers Unknown

Downbeat for Narrator and Band
Capt. Allen Crowell, narr.
US Army Band, Col. Samuel R. Loboda


Rhapsody for Harp and Orchestra
Edward Vito, harp
NBC Symphony Orchestra/Don Gillis

Variations on a Kitchen Sink for Kitchen Utensils and Band
Performers Unknown

Volume 2

Touchtone Concerto for 4 Touchtone Phones and Band
Performers Unknown

Streamliner for Brass Choir
Cincinnnatti Conservatory of Music, Brass/Choir
Ernest Glover, cond.

Quintet for Woodwinds No. 1
Interlochen Academy Faculty WW Quintet

Quintet for Woodwinds No. 2
Performers unknown

Quintet for Woodwinds No. 3 "Five Piece Combo"
Peformers Unknown

This is Our America for Chorus and Orchestra
US Army Band and Chorus
Col. Samuel Loboda, conductor


Overture, America's Gifted Youth
US Army Band and Chorus
Col. Samuel Loboda, conductor


Wikipedia Bio:

Don Gillis (composer)
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
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Donald Eugene Gillis (June 17, 1912–January 10, 1978) was a US composer, conductor and teacher. The composition which has gained him most recognition is his orchestral Symphony No. 5½, A Symphony for Fun.
Contents



Biography

Don Gillis was born in Cameron, Missouri. His family moved to Fort Worth, Texas, and he studied at Texas Christian University, playing trombone and acting as assistant director of the university band. He graduated in 1935, and obtained a masters degree from North Texas State University in 1943.

He became production director for the radio station WBAP, later moving to NBC where he became producer for the NBC Symphony Orchestra during the tenure of its conductor Arturo Toscanini. He held several teaching posts at academic institutions in the southern United States during his career, and also helped to found the Symphony of the Air orchestra. Gillis produced several NBC radio programs, including "Serenade to America" and "NBC Concert Hour." After Toscanini retired in 1954 Gillis, serving as president of the Symphony Foundation of America, was instrumental in helping to form the Symphony of the Air, using members of the old NBC Symphony. Gillis also produced the radio program "Toscanini: The Man Behind the Legend," which ran for several years on NBC after the Italian conductor's death.

In 1973 he joined the faculty of the University of South Carolina where he founded, and was chairman of the Institute for Media Arts and was instrumental in establishing the Instructional Services Center. Dr. Gillis also served as USC's Composer-in-residence until his death.

He died in Columbia, South Carolina, on January 10, 1978. His papers and an extensive collection of recorded material are housed at the University of North Texas in Denton.

Music

Despite his administrative responsibilities, Gillis was a prolific composer, writing ten orchestral symphonies, tone poems like Portrait of a Frontier Town, piano concertos, rhapsodies for harp and orchestra, and six string quartets. He also composed a wide variety of band music. Gillis is best remembered as the composer of his Symphony No. 5½, A Symphony for Fun, originally performed by Arturo Toscanini and the NBC Symphony Orchestra during a September 21, 1947, broadcast concert that Gillis also produced; it was preserved on transcription discs but not commercially issued. Since 2005, his symphonies have been recorded on the Albany Records label.

Gillis sought to interpret contemporary American culture musically. His music drew upon popular material, particularly emphasizing jazz, which he considered a revitalizing element in American music. He assimilated popular influences in a simple and straightforward style aimed at communicating with his audiences through an emphasis on clear, accessible, melodic writing. Many of his works are best characterized as fun and full of humor.

UNT Website:


UNT Music Library Celebrates Don Gillis Centennial
By:
Music

“Nothing has been left out of here except a brief mention of the spawning habits of the lamprey eel and a recipe for fried grits.” – Don Gillis, The Unfinished Symphony Conductor (1967)

The UNT Music Library celebrates the 100th birthday of Don Gillis, a musician, composer, educator, and producer, and UNT alumnus (MM, 1941) who had some impact on nearly every major institution of higher education in North Texas, including Texas Christian University, Southwestern Baptist Theological Seminary, Southern Methodist University, Dallas Baptist University, and the University of North Texas.

Gillis was born in Cameron, Missouri on June 17, 1912. After moving to Texas in 1930, he studied composition with Don Mixson at Texas Christian University, and then worked as a band director at TCU, during which time he also played trombone in the staff orchestra for the Fort Worth radio station WBAP, directed a symphony at Polytechnic Baptist Church in Fort Worth, taught at Southwestern Baptist Theological Seminary and Fort Worth Public Schools, and composed prolifically. Gillis’ early compositions established traits that endured throughout his career, with an emphasis on American and sacred themes, good-humored optimism, and the influence of American music, and particularly jazz.

The early 1940s were a period of rapid transition for Gillis, as he was awarded the first master's degree in music composition at UNT (then North Texas State Teachers College) in 1941 for his Symphony No. 1: An American Symphony, and quickly moved from being Director of Productions at WBAP (1941-43) to being a producer for NBC Radio in Chicago (1943), and a producer and script writer for the NBC Symphony Orchestra, directed by Arturo Toscanini in New York City, a year later. Gillis’ Symphony 5 ½: A Symphony for Fun (1947), premiered by Arthur Fiedler with the Boston Pops, and was one of few American works performed by Toscanini, who pronounced Gillis' name “Zhee-li.”

In 1965, Gillis discussed the genesis of that symphony, and his working relationship with Toscanini (Track 5). Later that year, he described Toscanini's high praise for Symphony No. 5 ½ (Track 10):

He had decided to become a conductor instead of a composer, but he said, "you know, I didn't have my 'C-major chord' like Beethoven. You can hear a Beethoven and immediately know it's Beethoven ... You have found your 'C-major chord'."

Upon Toscanini’s retirement in 1954, NBC disbanded its orchestra, but Gillis played a major role in reconstituting it as the Symphony of the Air, as president of its supervising organization, the Symphony Foundation of America. In its first season, Gillis accompanied the orchestra on a State Department-sponsored tour of Asia. After serving as the Sunday producer for NBC Radio's Monitor program in 1955-56 and as vice president of the Interlochen Music Camp in Michigan from 1958 through 1961, Gillis produced the series Toscanini: The Man Behind the Legend for NBC radio, presented by announcer Ben Grauer, from 1963-1967, including a special series for the centennial of Toscanini’s birth.

Gillis returned to Texas and served as chair of the music department of Southern Methodist University in Dallas from 1967 to 1968, and as the chair of the arts department and director of instructional media at Dallas Baptist College from 1968 until 1973. While at DBC, Gillis assisted significantly with the UNT (then NTSU) Music Library’s acquisition of the WBAP radio orchestra’s sheet music collection.

In April of 1974, Gillis was honored as a distinguished NT alumnus, and in September of the same year, announced plans to donate his collection of scores, papers, tapes, and photos to the Music Library.

In 1973, Gillis took the position of Chair of the Institute of Media Arts at the University of South Carolina, where he remained until his death in 1978.

A century after his birth, Gillis leaves behind a twin legacy for music in America, through his own compositions, and through his work with Toscanini. The Music Library is pleased to maintain his collection for the continued use of scholars and musician

I know Colin will be thrilled with your recent Gillis upload, jowcol! ;D

I can enjoy Gillis' music, but I have to be in the right mood. As Colin so rightfully has pointed out, why are there five Diamond symphonies awaiting recording yet all of those of Gillis have been recorded?

BTW jowcol, no disrespect to your uploads! Keep up the good work! :)

Thank you for the Gillis!

I welcome all uploads from our generous members ;D I download 99% of them. I shall even download the orchestral Gillis ;D

I do happen to think-as Kyle has said-that the decision by Albany(probably externally financed I am guessing) to record all the Gillis symphonies when what would be infinitely more memorable and worthy would be complete modern recordings of the Piston and Mennin symphonies or recording the remaining Diamond and Creston(not to mention composers like George Rochberg) was a strange sense of priorities. There IS an appeal to Gillis's music. It IS recognisibly "Americana". I just don't happen to think that it demonstrates any deep musicianship.........but then the same could be said for lots of "lighter" music. But....if you will call a piece of music a "symphony" you will get judged on your symphonic credentials ;D

Music of William Latham

(http://music.unt.edu/comp/files/imagecache/former_faculty_headshot/headshot/Latham.png)

From the collection of Karl Miller.

Recordings are from radio broadcasts or personnal recordings-- to my knowledge, none of these have been released commercially in digital form.

Passacaglia and Fugue for Band (1958)
University of Illinois Band/Mark Hinsley

Suite for Trumpet and Band(1958)
John Haynie, trumpet
University of Illinois Band/Mark Hinsley

Five Sketches for String Quartet(1938)
Cincinnati String Quartet

String Trio #2 (1938)
James Werner, violin; Walter Werner, viola; Aurther Knecht, cello [22 February 1939]

String Quartet #3(1940)
James R. Lerch, Alice Oglesby, violin; George Papich, viola, Charles Baker, cello [24 April 1969]

Sonata for Violin and Piano (1949)
Norman Paulu, volin; Claire Von Ausdall, piano
[31 May 1950]

Intro
Concerto Grosso for 2 Saxophones and Chamber Orchestra(1962)
Sigurd and Karen Rascher, saxophone
Dutch Radio Orchestra/Hank Spruit
[30 October 1962]

Concertino for E-Flat Saxophone and Wind Ensemble (1968)
John Giordano, saxophone
San Diego State Band/Karl Holvig

Sisyphus for Alto Saxophone and Piano (1971)
Francois Daneels, Saxophone
C. Cappel, piano

American Youth Performs(1969)
Youth Orchestra of Greater Fort Worth/John Giordano

Concert March #5 for Band(1969)
Richardson HS Band/Robert M Blanton

Three Choral Predules for Band(1956--Two Movements only)
University of Michigan Symphony Band/William Revelli
[20 March 1957]

Swingin' Reel for Band (1956)
Chicago Symphonic Band/Herman Chebanoff

Court Festival for Band(1957)
NTSU Band/Maurice McAdow






Bio from the University of North Texas Website:


William P. Latham

    (1917-2004)
    Appointment: 1965-1984
    Archive of Works (UNT library)

William Peters Latham was born in Shreveport, Louisiana on 4 January 1917. He was educated in Kentucky, Ohio and New York, completing degrees in composition and theory at the Cincinnati College of Music in Cincinnati, Ohio. Later, he was awarded a PhD in composition at the Eastman School of Music of the University of Rochester in Rochester, New York (1951). His principal composition teachers were Eugene Goossens and Howard Hanson.

Latham taught theory and composition at the University of Northern Iowa from 1946 to 1965, attaining the rank of Professor of Music in 1959. In 1965 he joined the faculty of the College of Music at the University of North Texas (North Texas State University) as Professor of Music and Coordinator of Composition. He was appointed Director of Graduate Studies in Music in 1969. In 1978 he was promoted to the rank of Distinguished Professor of Music, the University's highest rank. Only seven other faculty members of the University had been so honored at that time. He retired from active service at UNT in June, 1984, and he was formally designated Professor Emeritus by the Board of Regents in November 1984.

Dr. Latham has composed 118 works; 62 have been published, 56 remain in manuscript, but all have been performed — many throughout the United States, Canada, Europe, and Japan. He has received numerous awards and commissions (29). His orchestral works have been performed by the Cincinnati Symphony, the Eastman-Rochester Philharmonic, the Dallas Symphony, the St. Louis Symphony, and Radio Orchestras in Brussels, Belgium and Hilversum, Holland, under such well known conductors as Eugene Goossens, Howard Hanson, Thor Johnson, Anshel Brusilow, John Giordano, and Walter Susskind.

Dr. Latham died in Denton, Texas on 24 February 2004. Memorial donations may be made to:

William P. Latham Composition Fund
UNT College of Music
Attn: Elida Tamez
P.O. Box 311367
Denton TX 76203-1367
(940) 565-2243

More Music of Charles Frink

(http://proz-saas.s3.amazonaws.com/www/140/profile.jpg)

From the collection of Karl Miller.



Karl has found some more recordings of the works of Charles Frink, the American composer living in Connecticut.  One could characterize Frink as a higly melodic composer of Americana, who stands in strong contrast to musical academicism.  He's not afraid to write simple, direct, heartfelt, music.

I'll be sharing a copy of these recordings with Charles and his wife, who informed me that Charles has been ill a lot of this year, but is doing much better, and has performed at Yale University last month.

All performances by the Eastern Connecticut Symphony Orchestra, Conducted by Victor Norman. Recordings are from radio broadcasts or personnal recordings-- none of these have been released commercially in digital form.

1. Joe Hill
2. Radio Outro
3-6: John Henry
7-9: Johnny Appleseed



A newspaper article about Frink's and Norman's efforts to help promote American music:
http://news.google.com/newspapers?nid=1915&dat=19810410&id=YwEhAAAAIBAJ&sjid=_nQFAAAAIBAJ&pg=3458,2150472 (http://news.google.com/newspapers?nid=1915&dat=19810410&id=YwEhAAAAIBAJ&sjid=_nQFAAAAIBAJ&pg=3458,2150472)

Mr. Frink provided the following "composer's notes" for his work Songs for Travellers.  I am reproducing them below, since they say a lot about his approach to music.

Music of Elmer Schoettle


From the collection of Karl Miller.

These tracks are from radio broadcasts and personal recordings.  To the best of my knowledge, none of them have been commercially released in digital form.


Fantasy for Strings
Houston Symphony Orchestra/John Barbirolli
[18/19 January 1965]

Intro
Concerto Grosso
Composer, piano; Ray Weaver, oboe; Richard Pickar, clarinet; Paul Tucci, bassoon; Austin, trumpet; Tonkersly, French Horn; Fleigal, violin, Orchestra and conductor not specified.

Concerto Grosso
Outro
Composer, piano; Okalhoma City Symphony Orchestra/Guy Frasier Harrington

Intro
Sontantina for Percussion and Piano
Outro
Virginia Walker, Ferrell Morris, David Walliger, Composer on Piano

Concerto for Two Pianos and Orchestra
Mr. and Mrs. Schoettle, pianos.
Oklahoma City Symphony Orchestra,
Guy Fraser Hamilton

Divertimento for Oboe and Piano
Andante, Little Scherzo, Gigue
Michael Sanchez, Oboe
Randy A Earles, Piano

Songs:

• The Rose Family
• Of Himself
• Dark Girl
• Pierrot's Song

[/u]
Beverly Johnson, Soprano
William Glick, Piano

Piece for Brass
Richard Crady, Bruce Johnson, Trumpet
Dennis Bishop, Lester Kegley, Trombone
Darrel Jensen, Baritone

Gavotte and Cappricio
Carl Gibbs, Piano


Dorian Theme and Varations:

• Theme
• L'issesso tempo
• Poco Piu Mosso
• Fughetta
• Alla Marcia

[/u]

Chanson
Marietta Dustin, Susanne Henneke, soprano
Cynthia Moya, mezzo
Patricia Spain, Jo Ellen Meador, alto
Dennis Bishop, Rodney McGlothin, tenor
Scott Denson, Ronald Tiahrt, bass

Wind Song
Marietta Dustin, Susanne Henneke, soprano
Cynthia Moya, mezzo
[29 November 1973]

Into
Bartok: Sonata for Two Pianos and Percussion
Mr. and Mrs. Schoettle, Pianos
Mary Anne Hines, David Walliger, Percussion




Description of Schoettle by JK Stevenson from Youtube:
Elmer Schoettle (American: 1910-1973) was an American composer who grew up immersed in the musical world from the very start. It is no surprise that he and his younger sister Louise were precocious if not child prodigies. Elmer and his sister were playing duo-piano works around the country as early as 1920 when he was 10 and Louise was 7. Their father was a professor of music at Minnesota University who became the head of the Minnesota University School of Music. This brought them into contact with many stars of musical talent through their youth.

In 1951 Elmer became a professor on the faculty of the University of Houston. His transcription of Bach's Organ Prelude in C Minor for Band was played at the Fine Arts Festival that May. He himself performed in concerts with many big names in the musical world such as Eugene Goossens, Sir John Barbirolli, and Darius Milhaud. He and Mary Phillips Street (later to become wife Mary Schoettle) partnered as duo-pianists. Elmer and his wife enjoyed collecting many works for piano for four hands and travelling around the country performing these works in concert.

Schoettle was a musicologist, pianist, teacher and composer-in-residence through most of his later years. His compositions range from piano works to chamber pieces to works for full orchestra. Among the many works programmed (often with Schoettle himself performing) include:
*A concerto for two pianos and orchestra (1952), reviewed as "beautifully melodic;"
*"Gavotte" for piano
*Trio for Violin, Cello and Piano (1962)
*"Flight," A Song for Tenor, Clarinet, and Piano on a Poem by John Gillespie Magee
*Quartet for Oboe, Violin, Viola, and Cello (which was written at the request of Lady Barbirolli (1966)
*Song: "Of Himself"
*"Fear of the Lord" for Chorus and Organ
*Amores (I - IV) (1960)
* Fantasy for Strings (1964).


The only other source about him that  I've found that offers much detail is the following geneology page:
http://www.rbberg.net/g1/p1231.htm (http://www.rbberg.net/g1/p1231.htm)

Music of Louise Talma
(http://www.bruceduffie.com/talma3.jpg)

From the collection of Karl Miller.

These recordings come from personal collections and radio broadcasts.  To the best of my knowledge, none of them have been commerically released in digital form.

Carmina Mariana (1943, arranged 1963 for chorus and orch)
Pius X Choir of Manhattanville College
(Orch/Conductor unknown)

Dialogues for Piano and Orchestra (1963-64)
Grant Johannesen, Piano
Buffalo Philharmonic/Lukas Foss
[14 December 1965]

A Time to Remember(1966-7)
Hunter College Choir and Orchestra
Ralph Hunter, Conductor
[11 May 1968]


Wikipedia Bio:

Louise Talma (October 31, 1906 in Arcachon, France–August 13, 1996 in Saratoga Springs, New York) was a composer. She was raised in New York City and studied at the Institute of Musical Arts (Juilliard School), 1922–1930, and received her bachelor of music degree from New York University and masters of arts degree from Columbia University. She studied with Isidor Philipp at the American Conservatory in Fontainebleau, France, and with Nadia Boulanger every summer from 1926 to 1939. She taught at Hunter College of the City University of New York.

She began composing in a spare neoclassical tonal style featuring static harmonies, short distinct melodies in counterpoint, ostinatos, and pedal points varied through mode, tempo, rhythm, metre, and articulation. Also featured were rhythmic units varied through imitation, augmentation, and diminution.

She began using the twelve tone technique in 1954 after hearing Irving Fine's String Quartet, and returned to a neo-tonal style in her last works of the 1980s and 1990s. She wrote most of her compositions at the MacDowell Colony where she also met composers of the "Boston school", Arthur Berger, Lukas Foss, Irving Fine, Alexei Haieff, Harold Shapero, and Claudio Spies. She provided a bequest for one million dollars for the MacDowell Colony in her will. She died at the Yaddo artists colony.

She was the first woman to receive two Guggenheim Fellowships, to be elected to the National Institute of Arts and Letters (1974), and to receive the Sibelius Medal for composition from the Harriet Cohen International Music Awards in London (1963). She was also the first American woman to have a full-scale opera performed in Germany and the first American to teach at Fontainebleau.[1]

Her works include Song of the Songless (1928), Three Madrigals (1928), Two Dances (1934), In principio erat verbum (1939), Six Etudes (1954), The Alcestiad (1955–1958) an opera with a libretto by Thornton Wilder, Full Circle (1985), Spacings (1994), and A Time to Remember (1966–1967) based on speeches of John F. Kennedy.

Interview with Bruce Duffie:
http://www.bruceduffie.com/talma.html (http://www.bruceduffie.com/talma.html)
An excerpt below:

Music of the Hartford Symphony Orchestra
(http://blogs.courant.com/curtain/1098-T007%20A%20Winograd.jpg)
From the collection of Karl Miller.

This collection of music focuses not on a single composer, but rather a collection of works of underappreciated americal composers performed by the Hartford Symphony Orchestra under the baton of Arthur Winograd.


To the best of my knowledge, None of these recordings have been commerically released in digital form.

Edward Diemente, Two Preludes for Orchestra
(http://www.hartford.edu/daily/Files/diemente_large.jpg)


Material below from ZoomInfo:
Edward Diemente, born in Cranston, RI, grew up in New Britain, CT.He served a distinguished tenure as professor and chair of the music theory and composition department at the Hartt School of Music.His considerable output as a composer is eclectic, ranging from electronic music for tape and instruments to jazz to a more traditional vocabulary.The Hartford Chorale has had the privilege of premiering three of Diemente's works.Beginning with the Credo in 1991, continuing with My Heart is Ready in 1992 and Porterama in the same year, the Chorale has cherished its close relationship with this special and estimable musician.In the case of My Heart is Ready, Diemente has chosen an unusual instrumentation: 3 trumpets, French horn, trombone, tuba, percussion and strings.Drawing freely from Psalms 33, 108, 145 and 147, Diemente, true to his assertion that a composer's role is to be a "teller of stories," writes a piece that is at once direct, yet sophisticated, and simply, as Anton Bruckner said of his own Te Deum, "praises God" and humankind's relationship with God.
...
Diemente served as Professor of Composition at Hartt School, University of Hartford for over forty years.He also held the position of organist at the Cathedral of St. Joseph and various other organ positions.Diemente has written compositions for chorus and orchestra, orchestra, band, chamber music, choral music and music for solo instruments.
For the past few years, Diemente has been absorbed with the idea of synthesis in his music.His is working with combining musical styles (or dialects).In a search for continuity, not revolution, he looks for methods to bring together the musical past and what has been introduced into the musical vocabulary in the past thirty years.In simple terms, it is the combining of tonal and non-tonal music, acoustic and electronic music.Many composers in the past (often in their more mature years) have done the same.One thinks of Beethoven, in his later works, introducing contrapuntal forms associated with Bach, and of using "Turkish" music in his Ninth Symphony.
In a Diemente work, one might find Gregorian chant, impressionism,, jazz, nineteenth century romanticism, non-tonal music and electronic music (or its influence).For Diemente, it comes to this: Is the composer's music engaging?


Thomas Putsche: Symphony

I've been unable to find out much about Putsche other than he won the BMI Student Composer award in 1958, was a teacher at the Hartt School (in theory and composition)  along with Diemente, and was the author of the following paper.

http://www.ex-tempore.org/putsche/index.htm (http://www.ex-tempore.org/putsche/index.htm)

Edward Miller: Reflections at the Bronx Zoo
(http://composers.com/sites/composers.com/files/imagecache/300xp/MillerEdwardJ.jpg)

Bio from the American Composer's Alliance:

For Edward J. Miller, the motivation for writing music came mainly from performers. During his 27 years on the Oberlin College Conservatory of Music composition faculty (four as chair), he was stimulated by the talents of colleagues and students. His most frequently-performed composition, “Piece for Clarinet and Tape,” was written for clarinet professor Lawrence McDonald. “Beyond the Wheel” for violin and tape, a piece praised by New York Times music critic Allan Kozinn for its “shimmering otherworldly texture,” was inspired by a dramatic passage from the Book of Ezekiel and written for Oberlin faculty violinist Gregory Fulkerson. Both tapes were created in the Oberlin electronic studio, where Miller worked closely with composer Gary Nelson. Another fellow faculty composer, Randolph Coleman, came up with the title for Miller’s orchestral piece, “Anacrusis.” The musical term for “pick-up notes,” the title acknowledged the borrowing of fragments from works by Ravel and Mahler that followed the world premiere of Miller’s piece on a concert by the Hartford Symphony.

Composer-conductor Edwin London, 1982 Cleveland Arts Prize winner and founding music director of the Cleveland Chamber Symphony, characterized Miller as a composer who made “music out of music,” a reference to the recycling of themes or ideas from previous generations. Newark Star-Ledger critic Paul Somers, reviewing Miller’s tone poem “Images from the Eye of a Dolphin,” admired the composer’s “ear for exact color differences” and “care for precise sonority.” Although most of his music is upbeat, Miller regards his doomsday piece, “The Seven Last Days” for chorus, orchestra, film and tape as his masterwork.

Before joining the Oberlin faculty in 1971 at the invitation of composition department chairman and 1980 Cleveland Arts Prize winner Walter Aschaffenburg, Miller completed several pieces that were performed by major orchestras, including the Berlin Philharmonic and the Cleveland Orchestra. By the time he retired in 1998, he had written about 70 works and received numerous commissions and awards. His music is published by Bote & Bock (Berlin), McGinnis & Marx, Music for Percussion, Ione Press, and Associated Music Publishers; and recorded on CBS, Orpheus, CRI, Opus One, New World Records and several other labels.

Born in Miami, Florida, on August 4, 1930, Miller started music lessons at age 10. His first instrument was trumpet, but he switched to valve trombone and baritone horn when he was required to wear braces on his teeth. At 16, he began playing in a professional jazz band. Midway through his undergraduate studies at the University of Miami, he took a year off to tour internationally as an arranger with Miguelito Valdez and His Orchestra. After earning a bachelor of music degree, he received a Koussevitzky Prize to study with Mexican composer Carlos Chavez at Tanglewood’s Berkshire Music Center. Aaron Copland, who had recommended Miller for the prize, later named him one of the “young talents whose music commands attention” and helped him win a Fulbright Fellowship to study with Boris Blacher and Josef Ruter in Germany.

Miller earned his master’s degree in composition at the University of Hartford’s Hartt School of Music, where he studied with Arnold Franchetti and Isadore Freed, and served on the faculty for 12 years prior to his Oberlin appointment. Following his retirement, Miller stayed in Oberlin until 2005 when his wife Judi stepped down from her post as a professor of psychology. The couple then moved to Las Cruces, New Mexico, where they have a new home with a magnificent view of the snow-capped Organ Mountains.

—Wilma Salisbury

If you are curious, you can hear a performance of his Beyond the Wheel at:
http://youtu.be/yzbW6OTC-yI (http://youtu.be/yzbW6OTC-yI)




Obituary Notice from Oberlin (Sept 2013)
Throughout his 27 years at Oberlin, Professor of Composition Edward J. Miller found inspiration in the work of his students and fellow faculty members.

Miller, likewise, was an inspiration to countless others: His compositions have been performed by numerous major orchestras, including the Berlin Philharmonic and the Cleveland Orchestra, and he earned widespread acclaim for his work.

Miller, who retired in 1998, died on August 31 after an extended illness.

“The thing that impressed me most about Ed was his ability to teach a wide variety of courses,” says Professor Warren Darcy, a longtime colleague of Miller’s at Oberlin. “Music Theory, Aural Skills, Composition—he taught it all, and he did it all very well.

“In addition, he was a first-rate composer, and he wrote some of the most beautiful music that ever flowed from the pen of a late-20th-century composer.”

As a younger man, Miller was fortunate to study with some of the best. Born in Miami, he began playing music at age 10, and by 16 was performing in a professional jazz band. He earned a bachelor of music from the University of Miami, then won a Koussevitzky Prize, which afforded him the opportunity to study with Mexican composer Carlos Chavez at Tanglewood’s Berkshire Music Center. Miller had been recommended for the prize by Aaron Copland, who called Miller one of the “young talents whose music commands attention.”

Miller later earned a master’s degree in composition from the Hartt School of Music at the University of Hartford, where he taught for 12 years before joining the faculty of Oberlin. Over the course of his career, Miller won two Ohio Arts Council Awards, a composition award from the National Endowment for the Arts, and the Cleveland Arts Prize, among other honors.

Miller’s compositions—he wrote roughly 70 of them in all—were performed by a number of fellow Oberlin faculty members, including Peter Takács, Gregory Fulkerson, Daune Mahy, and Marlene and Michael Rosen. Though his works tended toward the upbeat, Miller was most proud of The Seven Last Days, an apocalyptic piece he wrote for chorus, orchestra, film, and tape.

“Ed had a fantastic attentiveness to the general flow of music,” says Professor of Violin Gregory Fulkerson, for whom Miller wrote a piece called Beyond the Wheel in the mid-1980s. Fulkerson played it in Cleveland and New York, where a New York Times critic praised it for its “shimmering otherworldly texture.”

Seven years after his retirement, Miller relocated to New Mexico with his wife, Judi Miller, a former Oberlin professor of psychology.



Continued in Next Post...

Music of the Hartford Symphony Orchestra-- Continued

From the collection of Karl Miller...

Alvin L. Epstein: Music for Orchestra:
I have not been able to unearth much about Epstein beyond the fact that he also taught composition at the Hartt school of music, and won the BMI student composer award in 1952.  However, Kyle Gann, a big enthusiast for microtonal music, was a student of Epstein, and speaks very well of Hartt School, which has provided most of the composers in this collection. 



Obituary for Conductor Arthur Winograd from the Hartford Courant:
Arthur Winograd, a cellist and co-founder of the famed Juilliard String Quartet, was a former conductor of the Hartford Symphony Orchestra.

Born on April 22, 1920, in New York, he was one of two sons of Eli Winograd, a wealthy furrier, and his wife, Mildred.

He was exposed early to music — his father played the violin and his mother the piano — and began studying the piano, then switched to the cello and was sitting in with adult quartet players as a teenager. He attended the Curtis Institute of Music in Philadelphia and the New England Conservatory.

During World War II, Winograd was assigned to a musical unit of the Army and was stationed on Fisher's Island in Long Island Sound, where the main mission was to look out for Japanese submarines. At night, he played percussion with fellow soldier Robert Mann in the Army band, and off duty, he and Mann performed in a jazz trio.

In 1946, he, Mann and two other players formed the Juilliard String Quartet, one of the first serious American quartets. It became known for its performances of contemporary music and, while Winograd was with them, recorded all of Bartok's quartets.

"His main quality as a player was a very deep commitment and an athletic projection," said Mann. "I always enjoyed making music with him."

Winograd also was on the faculty of Juilliard and played the cello in the NBC Symphony Orchestra under Arturo Toscanini. In 1956, he left the quartet to embark on a career as a conductor and directed the MGM Orchestra.

He moved to Alabama in 1960 to become music director of the Birmingham Symphony Orchestra, then came to Hartford in 1964 to lead the HSO.

At that time, the local orchestra had a small number of members who were augmented by musicians from New York during performances. Winograd decided to improve the quality of the orchestra by engaging outstanding young players from the Hartt School of Music.

"He built up the orchestra from scratch and really gave the symphony its character," said James Rouman, a former member of the symphony board.

Winograd emphasized the giants of the early 20th century, including Bruckner, Stravinsky, Bartok and Mahler.

"He felt if he was going to introduce 20th-century music, it would have to be of extraordinary caliber," said Rouman. World-class soloists, including Emil Gilels and David Oistrakh, often accompanied the orchestra.

Winograd took the symphony on several occasions to Carnegie Hall, where it received good reviews from The New York Times.

"All true musicians respected Arthur," said Steve Metcalf, a former music critic for The Courant. "They recognized he had this fierce artistic integrity."

Winograd was demanding on the podium. He could be gruff and had a quick temper. When he heard a mistake during rehearsal, he would demand to have sections of the orchestra repeat the passage in pairs until they got it right. When things went wrong, he would take his fists and grab his red hair in frustration.

Conductors such as Leonard Bernstein had a dramatic, flamboyant style, but Winograd followed the Central European practice of using the baton with more restraint.

He copied Toscanini's "straight stick" style and told people that the conductor shouldn't stand in the way of the music, which should speak for itself, Rouman said.

His players admired his musical knowledge and his command of the repertoire.

"He was regarded with a great deal of respect and affection," said violinist Anhared Stowe. "He was someone you really looked up to and revered."

"Arthur was one of the best conductors I've ever played for," said Bernard Lurie, symphony concertmaster for 50 years. "There wasn't an ink spot on the score he didn't know. He was a real student of the music he conducted."

Winograd was known to mutter an oath under his breath whenever there was an egregious musical error, which only Lurie, seated close by, could hear. One day, when Winograd was rehearsing a cello part in a Beethoven quartet with Lurie, Winograd made a mistake. Lurie had the temerity to repeat the oath, and the quick-witted Winograd retorted, "My sentiments exactly."

Winograd retired from the symphony in 1985 but continued to live in West Hartford and taught chamber music at the Hartt School. He moved to New Jersey in 1997, where he died of complications of pneumonia on his 90th birthday.

Winograd was married to Winifred Schaefer, a cellist, with whom he had a son, Nicholas, but they later divorced. In 1950, he married Betty Olsen, a pianist who taught at Hartt for many years before her death in 1987. They had two children, Wendy and Peter, the first violinist of the American String Quartet.

Winograd rode his bicycle frequently around West Hartford. He continued cooking the macrobiotic diet he had adopted while his wife was ill, sometimes to the distress of his dinner guests.

After he retired, the stress of years of conducting affected his shoulder, which made it very difficult for him to conduct or to play the cello. He nevertheless returned to Hartford in 2002 to conduct the symphony, and conducted his son Peter in the Sibelius violin concerto.

"He really helped build the orchestra up," said Peter Winograd. "His passion was always about the music and not about the instrument itself."

hmm I need to check this out since I live in the Dallas area.

Ellsworth Milburn: Salus...Esto (1984)
(http://www.newmusicbox.org/507/images/millburn_200x238.jpg)

From the collection of Karl Miller

Springfield (MO) Symphony Orchestra
Charles Bontrager


To the best of my knowledge, this recording has never been commerically released in digital form.



Salus...Esto by Ellsworth Milburn. Orchestra.
For 3(1d Piccolo).2.2.1: 4.4.3.1: Timpani.Percussion(3).Piano.Harp: Strings. Full score. Published by MMB Music Inc (MU.X077176).

Commissioned by the Springfield (MO) Symphony Orchestra.

Description from the Classical Voice of North Carolina Site:

Reflections on Ellsworth Milburn, by Keith Carpenter

On May 8, my father called and told me that Ellsworth Milburn, one of my undergraduate composition teachers, had died. Ellsworth taught composition and theory at Rice University’s Shepherd School of Music for 25 years before retiring in 2000 to compose in northeastern Pennsylvania. (He didn’t like Houston’s suffocating heat and humidity.) Many of the details of his life are found in the obituaries at the Rice University and Houston Chronicle websites. I will share my reflections on what Ellsworth has meant to me as a composer and a composition teacher. Driving out to one of the colleges I teach at in the Milwaukee area to turn in end-of-semester grades, I had the opportunity to think about how much Ellsworth meant to me. Despite only studying two years with him, he left an indelible mark on my identity as a composer and composition teacher.

Ellsworth’s background always intrigued me. It wasn’t the same as other composers. After all, how many composers have played for the great comedy troupe Second City? Humor, like the entire spectrum of emotions, was allowed to co-exist with the technical precision of his work. That is, technique alone did not make a piece of music. This may seem self-evident today, but given the time that Ellsworth came of age, the mere whiff of emotional expression could consign a composer to compositional purgatory. Instead of clinging dogmatically to axiomatic composition, Ellsworth dared to let his humanity shine through his compositions. This is the greatest lesson I learned from him: allow yourself to express any emotion, but do it with technical excellence. This is the lesson I most want to pass on to my students.

Technique was of paramount importance to Ellsworth. Once, while I was writing a short set of piano preludes, he commented on an octave I had written between the two hands. He seized on it and made me defend its presence. He, of course had nothing against octaves personally (as he would have joked), but it diminished the independence of the parts. After I gave my defense of the offending interval, he granted me that yes, in this particular instance the offense was not so great and may even be useful. Instead of thinking that I had won this battle, I thought: this guy’s got incredible eyes and ears and is watching you like an eagle, so make dandelion sure the technique is in the pocket. I like to think it has been ever since.

Of course, for Ellsworth, technique was only at the service of the expressive quality of music. He made a pronounced distinction between the music he respected (usually highly technical) and the music he liked (music that combined great technical control with expression). In the case of the former, it seemed that he was trying to find ways to integrate the admired technical elements into his own work. Once absorbed, he would write emotionally charged and moving music with the strength and precision of excellent technical execution.

Another great lesson I learned from him was that music shouldn’t shy away from expressing the full range of human emotions. His works appealed to me unlike so many other contemporary works in that they conveyed humor, passion, tenderness, anger and many more emotions. Not that he wore his heart on his sleeve as a composer. His music to me is more analogous to that of Brahms, one of his favorite composers. The emotional intensity is draped in rare technical and formal elegance.

During my doctoral studies I lost touch with Ellsworth. A couple of years ago he and I both had pieces on a conference in North Carolina. I looked forward to reconnecting with him and hearing his music again. At the time, he was recovering from a bout with lung cancer and was in weak condition. He missed most of the concerts but ginned up the energy to come hear my piece. After the concert he congratulated me, beaming like a proud father. He gave me the greatest compliment when he said that I had developed my own voice and was writing gripping music. Hearing high praise from one of my most important teachers was the greatest compliment I could have received and I will treasure this memory. We exchanged a few emails in recent years and I sent him a disc of some of my work. He was complimentary and encouraging, urging me on in my career. He gave me courage to continue on despite setbacks and disappointments, something that I, as a teacher, need to remember to give my students.

Music is the rare art that fully engages every element of our humanity, from intellect to spirit, from soul to body. Few composers write music that touch all of these but Ellsworth Milburn was one of them. I will truly miss him and his compositional voice dearly.

***

Composer Keith Carpenter is a lecturer in composition and music theory at the University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee. He studied composition with Ellsworth Milburn at Rice University in the late 1980s.

Music of Judith Shatin Allen
(http://judithshatin.com/wp-content/uploads/2013/02/js1-e1360885219685.jpg)


From the collection of Karl Miller


Source: Radio broadcast.
To the best of my knowledge, none of these recordings has been commercially released in digital form.


Passion According to St. Cecelia
Gale Martin, Piano
Charlottesville Symphony University and Community Orchestra
Douglas Hargrave
Note: This is likley the premiere, April 27, 1984

From the Composer's Website:

The Passion of St. Cecilia

Instrumentation:  Solo piano,  2 fl (2nd dbl picc), 2 ob, 2 cl, 2 bssn, 2 tpts in C, 2 Hn, 2 trmb, 1 tba, 3 perc, strings

Duration:  21:00

Premiere
4/27/84
Gayle Martin Henry, pianist and the Charlottesville University and Community Orchestra
Old Cabell Hall, Charlottesville, VA


Program Note
The Passion of St. Cecilia, for piano and orchestra, plumbs depths of experience. Here, Shatin creates sound images that are deeply impassioned, and, at times, truly harrowing. The piece begins with a cry of pain inspired by Cecilia’s impossible predicament. The piece was inspired by the story of St. Cecilia, long the patron saint of music, though her musical reputation is based on either a textual misinterpretation or a deliberate embroidering of legend in the fifteenth century. In either case, it’s a delicious irony, and a provocative one: Does it say that Cecilia should somehow be expunged from the official courthouse records of artistic inspiration? Or does it say that faith — and art — work in more powerful, mysterious ways than mere facts?”

“Shatin kept this in mind as she wrote her piano concerto. But she was also inspired by the fifth-century legend of Cecilia as a Christian martyr. When the opening movement was first rehearsed, the pianist wrote on her score, “the struggle.” For the pianist, like Cecilia, it’s a spectacular and dramatic effort to make her voice heard, to raise it in protest or delight or love, and affirm her religious beliefs.

After this public confrontation, the second movement of the Passion turns inwards. Shatin calls it a “meditation on faith” — you may even hear whispers of a chorale by J.S. Bach. Soon, though, the mood of nocturnal reflection passes over, like the eye of a cyclone, and the inevitable approaches. The final movement tells of St. Cecilia’s desperation, and her martyrdom. The piece ends, as did her life, with three brutal blows. Gayle Martin Henry recorded the piece with the Moravian Philharmonic, Joel Suben conducting, and it is currently available on Parma’s Capstone Collection.
–David Schulman

Press
“…Based on the legend of St. Cecilia, the piece uses the piano and orchestra against each other to depict the conflict between Cecilia and the society that condemned her, as well as together to express her calmer, meditative side. The coloristic effects, language and ideas are fresh and bold. (Shatin) has full grasp of her orchestral flavorings, and her sense of direction is always crystal clear. The work has beautiful sonorities yet an almost primitive character in its dramatic representation of conflict. (Shatin) uses a wall of orchestral sound in the first movement to portray society, from which the piano (as Cecilia) seems to rise. The second movement is mainly clam and lyrical; some of its harmonies are almost impressionist. The third builds to a striking finish as Henry pounds the piano with her forearms, perhaps depicting Cecilia’s behading. The ending is almost too abrupt, but the device is tremendously effective, almost making the listeners jump to their feet. ”
–The Denver Post

Arche for Viola and Orchestra
Rosemary Glyde, Viola
Houston Symphony Orchestra/C. William Harwood

Note: the composer's website had little information about this work except for the following.  It is of interest that the soloist is the one who commissioned ths work.

Instrumentation Viola Concerto

Duration 17:00

Commission
Rosemary Glyde

Premiere
9/13/78
Roundabout Theatre, Manticore Orchestra
Thomas James, Conductor; Rosemary Glyde, Viola Solo
New York, NY

Interview: The Mind of the Artist

This is not a musical work, but rather an Library of Congress Podcast addressing a topic that fascinates me no end.  The description from the LOC post is reproduced below:

Title: The Mind of the Artist

Speakers: Michael Kubovy and Judith Shatin, University of Virginia
Series: Music and the Brain
Date: June 2009
Running Time: 26:29 minutes

Description:

Michael Kubovy and Judith Shatin of the University of Virginia discuss their presentation "The Mind of an Artist." Debate has long raged about whether and how music expresses meaning beyond its sounding notes. Kubovy and Shatin discuss evidence that music does indeed have a semantic element, and offer examples of how composers embody extra-musical elements in their compositions. Kubovy is a cognitive psychologist who studies visual and auditory perception, and Shatin is a composer who explores similar issues in her music.


About the Composer:
Judith Shatin (Allen) has a very informative website and blog here:  http://judithshatin.com/ (http://judithshatin.com/)

I am reproducing her bio below:

Judith Shatin (www.judithshatin.com) is a composer and sound artist whose music, called “something magical” by Fanfare, reflects her multiple fascinations with literature and visual arts, with the sounding world, and with the social and communicative power of music. Shatin’s music has been commissioned by organizations such as the Barlow and Fromm Foundations, the McKim Fund of the Library of Congress, the Lila Wallace-Readers Digest Arts Partners Program, as well as ensembles including Ash Lawn Opera, Da Capo Chamber Players, the Dutch Hexagon Ensemble, newEar,the National and Richmond Symphonies, and many more. Twice a fellow at the Rockefeller Center in Bellagio, she has held residencies at MacDowell, Yaddo, the VCCA, La Cité des Arts (France), Mishkan HaAmanim (Israel), among others. Her Rotunda, a film collaboration with Robert Arnold, won the Macon Film Festival Best Experimental Film Award (2011), while her music for the film Cinnamon, by Kevin J. Everson, has been heard at festivals ranging from Sundance to Munich and Rotterdam. In demand as a master teacher, Shatin has served as BMI composer-in-residence at Vanderbilt University, as master composer at California Summer Music, and as senior composer at the Wellesley Composers Forum. She is William R. Kenan Jr. Professor at the University of Virginia, where she founded and directs the Virginia Center for Computer Music. Her work is featured in the recent book Women of Influence in Contemporary Music, Nine American Composers (Scarecrow Press). A staunch advocate for her fellow composers, she has served as President of American Women Composers and on the boards of the League/ISCM, American Composers Alliance, and International Alliance for Women in Music.

Music of Thomas Beversdorf
(http://beversdorf.com/wp-content/themes/revolution-20/images/hp-main.jpg)


From the collection of Karl Miller
Concerto Grosso for Chamber Orchestra and Solo Oboe
Arno Mariotti, oboe
Pittsburgh Symphony Orchestra/Vladimier Bakaleinikov
Source LP: RCA E0QC-11901

Symphony 4 (1960)
Indiana University Philharmonic
Tibor Kozma (Possibly the premiere?)

Other recordings from the Beversdorf Website, collected and restored by  by S. Thomas Beversdorf III (his son):

Symphony 3 for Winds and Percussion (1954)
Thomas Beversdorf conducting Director Band


Cathedral Music: Four Short Pieces for Brass Choir (1953)
Indiana University Brass Choir conducted by Charles Gorham


La Petite Exposition (1976) 
Michael Antonello, violin; Wolfgang Vacano, conductor–Indiana University Symphony Orchestra

Overture to the opera The Hooligan (1969)
based on the short story, “The Boor” by Franz Kafka.
Performed by The University of Utah Symphony Orchestra, Robert Reingart, conductor



Bio from beversdorf.com:
Thomas Beversdorf,
a Most Notable Composer,
Biographical Material*

Thomas Beversdorf’s daughter Anne provides the following information:

S. Thomas Beversdorf, Jr. was born August 8, 1924, in Yoakum, Texas, to Estelle Hamblen Beversdorf and Samuel Thomas Beversdorf Sr. His father (Sam) was a postal carrier and local band-director, and “Tommy” studied the trombone as a child. After a brief period in the army, he was discharged 4F because of his severe allergies. His freshman year at college was at Baylor University in Waco, TX, which is where he first met Norma Beeson, although they didn’t seriously connect at that time. Each independently decided to transfer to the University of Texas at Austin the next year, where Norma, a talented pianist, became his accompaniest. Tom Beversdorf married Norma Beeson in 1945. They had five children together: Anne (1949), Paula (1952), Sarah (1960-1962), STB III (Tom) 1963, and David Quintin (1965). Thomas Beversdorf taught music at Indiana University from 1949-1980, living in Bloomington, and died (asthma) in 1981.

Additional facts were provided from a short bio in the Cook Music Library web pages and the University of Pittsburg web pages. Livingston regards Anne’s material as more primary if there are differences. Thomas Beversdorf was born at Yoakum, Texas on August 8, 1924 and died early at age 57 on February 15, 1981. {Rule: 1981-1924=57 if the 1981 month exceeds the 1924 month in the calendar year.} He began studying piano at age six, and at seven, baritone horn with his father, a band director in Yoakum. He started playing trombone in high school, also under the guidance of his father. Beversdorf graduated high school when he was sixteen. Between age 6 and 16 he also studied horn, saxophone, cello, and clarinet which provided a large sampling of orchestral instruments for his tutelege. In 1941, Beversdorf went to Baylor University on a full scholarship. In 1942, he transferred to the University of Texas at Austin, where he studied composition with Kent Kennan, Eric DeLemarter, and Anthony Donato. He finished his BM degree (cum laude) in Theory and Composition in August 1945. Beversdorf went to the Eastman School of Music that fall, studying composition with Bernard Rogers and Howard Hanson, and trombone with Emory Remington. He received his MM in theory and composition in Spring 1946.

In the summer of 1947, Beversdorf studied composition with Aaron Copland and Arthur Honegger at Tanglewood, and privately with Anis Fuleihan. Fuleihan was teaching at IU in the fall of 1950 and until 1952; Beversdorf apparently got his doctorate in near zero time from IU under Fuleihan. Beversdorf played trombone with the Rochester Philharmonic from 1945 to 1946 and the Houston Symphony from 1946 to 1948, and bass trombone in the Pittsburgh Symphony from 1948 to 1949. He was an instructor at the University of Houston from 1946 to 1948. In 1951, he joined the faculty of the Indiana University School of Music as a professor of trombone and composition. [note from Anne Beversdorf.  Thomas Beversdorf moved to Indiana University in August, 1949 as an assistant professor, according to his wife, Norma Beversdorf.  His wife and newborn daughter followed about a month later.] Amongst other things, he wrote Three Epitaphs for Brass Quartet, which appears larger than life painted on the west outside wall of Smith-Holden Music Store at 222 W. Kirkwood Avenue, in downtown Bloomington, Indiana. The mural was created in 1976. George Holden now owns and manages the store with his son, Mark Holden. He was a much respected professor of the Holden’s as he was of Julian Livingston who also studied composition and orchestration with Beversdorf. [The store has closed and the building has changed hands, but the Bloomington Arts Council has ensured that the mural will always be there.]

Website manager, Livingston’s, experience with Beversdorf was primarily as a student of orchestration, calligraphy, and with one semester spent in composition studies. Fortunately, Livingston, who wrote the orchestration for the songs and ballets of the winning Jordan River Review in 1954, had the opportunity to have Beversdorf’s extensive advice and teaching in those matters. As for orchestration, Beversdorf’s contacts in the WFIU radio station and the early Television Station at IU made it possible for his classes to write music for those outlets as well, an unusual facet in those early days of television, but an all important advantage for the student.

Livingston notes that Beversdorf wrote a piece Serenade to My Wife in 1956; however, as Anne Beversdorf’s submission above shows, this did not coincide with their marriage date. This devotion is strongly reminiscent of Wagner’s work “Siegried’s Rhine Journey” abstracted from his Ring Music, dedicated and performed outside their apartment. Other notable connections to the lives of famous composers may be found such as Beversdorf’s premature death at 57 years [6 months before his 57th birthday. (ab)] resonating with Beethoven’s early loss.

According to a review by Daniel K. Schneider,’57 Beversdorf had a major work, his Symphony No. 3 for Winds and Percussion played November 18, 1955 in the Kresge Auditorium by the MIT Concert Band which is quoted in part. “Due to their improved status, they tackled the Symphony for Winds and Percssiont, an extremely difficult work because of the intense personal concentration which it requires of the performers. This was the hardest piece which the band has ever tried, and therefore required more preparation than it was given. As a result,- the performance was not wholly convincing. Mr. Beversdorf’s work is a very fine composition which is masterfully constructed, and which displays the wind sound as well as, if not better than, any other number in the repertory. The piece reminds one of a Mahler symphony, where the instruments are treated individually rather than in choirs. This reviewer sincerely hopes that the MIT audience will soon hear another, more secure, presentation of the symphony.” This may have well been the premier as it was completed at Bloomington, IN, May 9, 1954. Beversdorf apparently decided to broaden the work’s outlet by presenting it for full orchestra in Bloomington, IN, October 10, 1958.

Searching the Internet reveals that there is material stored at the University of Pittsburg Archives under Collection No.: AIS64:24 Title: Papers of Jennie Bradley Roessing with limited access. Material relating to that file is currently found at: http://www.library.pitt.edu/guides/archives/finding-aids/ais6424.htm . They state that Thomas and Norma Beversdorf, Thomas’s wife, were close friends of Mrs. Jennie Bradley Roessing. Jennie Bradley Roessing was an active participant in the women’s suffrage movement and various Pittsburgh-area organizations, principally for the period, 1904-1920′s. The archives note that Thomas gained recognition as a composer and member of the Houston Symphony Orchestra. His work was performed by the Pittsburgh Symphony on several occassions. The material relating to Thomas and Norma Beversdorf includes correspondence, photographs, and music sheets. All of the correspondence in folder 9 was written by Norma Beversdorf.

Beversdorf continued at IU in the capacity of tenured Professor of Music with special areas of trombone, composition, orchestration, calligraphy until 1977. In 1977, he lectured at the University of Guadalajara. The Thomas Beversdorf Memorial Scholarship has been established, and is awarded annually to a worthy student studying in the School of Music. Bob Burnham reports that although a highly intellectual person, “Dr. B.” encouraged you to keep it simple, not sabotaging the musical goal by focusing on the physical means of producing it. During performance, “Analysis IS paralysis” was his claim according to Burnham. He died in the Bloomington Hospital in February of 1981 [death was approximately 2 am on February 15th. An unmailed letter to his mother was found after his death, where he wrote her "I just hope I don't die on Dad's birthday (Feb 14)] and his obituary in the Herald-Times was dated 17 February 1981.


*Note: This material was gleaned from many sources, especially Anne Beversdorf, his daughter, but also the Cook Music Library web page and the University of Pittsburg, quoted with interspersions from recollections of Julian Livingston and conversations with Sarah Clevenger and Norma Beversdorf.

While listening to Guy Livingston's new Antheil CD from Wergo, I revisited this entry and discovered a
minor spelling mistake concerning the soloist of Antheil's violin concerto. His correct name is/was
Werner Gebauer (1918 - 2013). Some more info about him can be found at
http://gebauer.tv/werner/ (http://gebauer.tv/werner/)

The other likely possibilty is that this did not originate from UC at all, but from a similar site.

Hi, everyone !

I just discovered this forum and it seems to be a very enjoyable place. I intend to read in depth many of the posts and I'm sure I'll discover many composers.

However I have a question. I have downloaded some files (the Hovhaness symphonies, thanks to the uploader, by the way). I was surprised to see that the files in the ZIP archive were in MP3 format. As you may know, the MP3 format uses a lossy compression. Some information is lost in the process, which means that the MP3 file has a lower quality than the original recording.

More about this here : http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/MP3 (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/MP3)

Well, I may sound bitching, but it seems to me, that, when one shares an out of print recording, one should share it in the best possible quality. These LP records are
out of print, right ? Some of these recordings have never been released in LP format (I'm thinking Symphony no.36 here. I never knew it was even recorded). These recordings are pure gold, they must have the best possible treatment they deserve.

There are several lossless formats (WAVE, FLAC, APE are the most used). Anybody can convert a FLAC file in MP3 if one wants to. But the other way around is impossible : I can't regain the information that was lost in the process of conversion in MP3 format.

I will do with the MP3 fles for the moment. But when I'll be listening to these in my living-room on my Hi-Fi system with my very large speakers, I'll be sure they definitely don't sound as good as the original sources. I guess I'll end up buying a second hand copy of the LP's (And I'll listen to Symphony no.36 in MP3 format since it's probably the only source I'll ever come by).

Thanks again for the uploads, I didn't know any of these recordings. And the music is beautiful.

Well, no, anyone can't actually - I certainly have tried and failed numerous times ! Possible answer, as on some 'blogs' which make downloads available, is to give the option of both 'flac' & 'mp3'.

One can convert any audio file to MP3 format using Sound Forge Pro 11. I use this programm to clean up audio files, but it can also be used as a converter. If one wants a freeware programm, there are several of them. A quick search on the Internet finds these : Format Factory, Free Mp3 Wma Converter, MediaCoder, Switch Sound Format Converter, GX::Transcoder.


This is actually a good solution too. Avaxhome users often do this. Uploading the CD or LP in two formats : one lossy and one lossless. That seems fine to me.

There's some misplaced discussion on the Downloads thread -- it should be taking place here, the other is for downloads only.

While lossless formats are undeniably sonically preferable over "lossy" formats such as MP3, I don't believe the intent of this forum was ever to serve as a source for audiophile material. We just share music for each other's enjoyment and edification. There are many, varied, and complex copyright issues beyond the intended scope of this forum that make uploading top quality transfers problematical.

Unless I'm unaware of some history behind the scenes, I don't recall there has ever been a significant complaint about anything uploaded here (or if there was, the material was immediately removed and nothing further occurred). That could very easily change, though, if someone owning the rights to a record label's material found it being publicly freely distributed here in quality transfers.

Offering them in "sample" formats such as MP3 is, for me at least, a perfectly acceptable means of sharing this wonderful material. I appreciate that some listeners are very sensitive to recording quality and are unhappy with anything less than the optimum format. I just don't feel this is realistic in this environment, and don't want to lose this valuable resource due to legal issues.

Yeah, sort of like "think more on what thou hast than on what thou hast not".

Hi, Latvian.

I apologize if I posted in the wrong thread. I didn't know where to post this. The moderators may move the discussion if they think it's more appropriate some place else.

Thank you for your answer. I perfectly understand legal issues.

Thank you again for the music.

The advantages of .mp3 are firstly, smaller file sizes, which can be an advantage if you have to pay for space, and also some music players will play .mp3 but not other formats.

I don't have space problems since I burn the FLAC files on CD's. My CD player never had any problem to read them.

I used to burn CDs of all the music I downloaded from this forum (and Unsungcomposers), too. However, there was SO much that even this became a space problem. Now I keep all the MP3s on a high-capacity external hard drive, and only burn CDs of the music I think I'll listen to more than once.

I admit it -- I'm a hoarder!  :)

No problem! As I've mentioned here before, I get excited when I see unread posts in the Downloads folder, hoping there will be new music to explore, and then I'm disappointed when it turns out to be just discussion.

Welcome to the forum! I hope you find interesting music here and are able to contribute some rarities of your own!

I, for one, prefer music in the highest quality format and it adds to my enjoyment of the music. As far as I know there is no violation of owners' rights to an LP or radio broadcast being uploaded in a high quality transfer versus mp3 format. If it is copyrighted material both are illegal. If space on your computer is a consideration, one could always convert a lossless format to an mp3 format before filing it. But once you receive a file in mp3 format you can never recover the losses.

Thank you. But I'm afraid most of you already know my records. I mostly have standard classical repertoire. I'm slowly getting into obscure composers. I lately discovered Allan Pettersson, a swedish composer. The symphonies are very interesting. But be prepared his stuff can sometimes pretty be violent.


That's the law of my country (France) and I think it makes sense. I don't know about the others countries.

My approach exactly..and updating the mp3 tag fields allows me to embed the documentation in the file for inventory purposes.
Since I listen mostly on my mp3 player, no need for anything more robust although I do record mp3 live at 256KB.

It's not so much a matter of space for files you store locally, as the ones held on internet servers.

There's a very good rundown on audio copyright law at http://boingboing.net/2013/02/04/vinyl-vault-lights-fuse-on-cop.html (http://boingboing.net/2013/02/04/vinyl-vault-lights-fuse-on-cop.html).

Interpretation of copyright law can get very tricky and often the legal implications depend greatly on the willingness and aggressiveness of copyright holders in pursuing their right of ownership. When the laws of more than one country are involved, it gets even messier.

The fact is, whether forum participants like it or not, LPs and broadcasts are copyrighted and have ownership. Often, due to the age of the recordings, and successive mergers and acquisitions, ownership becomes murky and difficult to establish. However, the principle remains -- if you didn't write it or perform it, it's not yours to freely disseminate. In some cases, those owners are very tolerant or supportive of wider distribution of their material, as they may not have the means, motivation, or interest in doing so themselves. That's great -- but we don't always know ahead of time who will turn a blind eye and who will not.

Some copyright owners enforce their rights very strictly. Back in the 1990s, a major recorded music dealership got into very deep legal hot water with the Boston Symphony Orchestra, when the BSO learned that it was reselling CDs of historic BSO concert broadcasts on an import label. "Cease and desist" came into play, and I believe they were fortunate enough to avoid monetary damages due to quick cooperation.

While copyright laws are different for print and recorded material, similar principles still apply. I spent many years as a librarian at a Fortune 500 company and saw firsthand what happened when copyright was abused by rampant photocopying, and the full legal weight of a copyright holder came crashing down. You do NOT want to be on the receiving end of that ton of bricks!

I firmly believe we should continue to exercise great caution here, lest questionable activity show up on someone's radar. If this forum became a home for high quality digitalizations, the likelihood will increase that someone will come upon this forum and make trouble. More likely, if someone downloaded high-quality files here, offered them for resale for profit, and then was sued by the copyright holder, that owner would then trace back the source of the files to here.

Bottom line, as I stated before -- I don't want to lose this tremendous resource!

Music of James Barnes
(http://www.heartoftexasconcertband.org/wp-content/uploads/2014/01/james-barnes.jpg)

"I always tell my students that there are two kinds of music. There's the kind that has integrity, and there's the rest.  And it doesn't matter whether it's bluegrass, or whether it is classical or serious music or jazz or whatever. Music with integrity is a rare thing. "
        James Barnes

Collected from various public sources.

This is a collection of music by the composer James Barnes, who specializes in writing for symphonic band.  As you will see form his program notes, and hear in his music, he has a strong grasp of symphonic form, and I would never pidgeonhole him as a "band" composer.  In particular, his Third Symphony is a very powerful and moving work that will conjures up the same sound worlds as Shostakovitch and darker Vaughan-WIlliams.

Look at the download page for the link....


Works: 
1. Invocation and Toccatta
Woodland High School Wind Symphony
University of Alabama Honor Band Festival
February 5, 2011, Moody Concert Hall.
Under the direction of Chris Shumick and John Herndon

2. Symphonic Essay
Tinley Park High School Symphonic Band
Lemont Music Festival
Feb 23, 2013

3. Trail of Tears
Gunn Symphonic Band, 2013

4. Third Symphony
WISH Wind Orchestra (Date, venue not specified)

5. 4th Symphony (Yellowstone Portraits)
Banda de Música Municipal de Valga
Galatian Bands Contest
November, 2008
I: Dawn on the Yellowstone River
II: Pronghorn Scherzo
III: Inspiration Point

6. Scenes from the Aztecs
Bläserphilharmonie Thum aus dem Verein Jugendblasorchester der Stadt Thum, 2013

7. Second Symphony
(NTNU Band, Shu-Han Yeh, May 31, 2006
 I. Elegaica
II. Variazioni Interrotte
III. Finale

8. Fifth Symphony
Performed by AudioImage Wind Ensemble
Conducted by Samuel Lee
Recorded during the Art of Wind Ensemble 2012

9. Pagan Dances
Windband St.David, Voerendaal,The Netherlands during the
National Championships in 2007 in Hilversum,The Netherlands.
Conductor Steven Walker

10.  Danza Sinfonica
Auburn University Symphonic Band
April 17, 2004,
Dr. Johnnie Vinson Conductor

11. Lonely Beach
Round Rock High School Wind Ensemble   
May 23, 2013 at the
RRISD Performing Arts Center.

Works on YouTube

I have been able to find two other "symphonies" of his on YouTube.
His sixth Symphony is here.  I believe this was a reference recording posted by a music company that has gone out of business.  (And the first company to take over its assets is also gone. )

Sixth Symphony, 1st Movement (http://youtu.be/iMqq6Lb89gk)
Sixth Symphony, Second Movement (http://youtu.be/ubveUolxG1I)
Sixth Symphony, Third Movement (http://youtu.be/pKhOt0B7Ivo)


His "Seventh Symphony " the Symphonic Requiem, is a powerful work based on the American Civil War, commisioned for the US Army Band. They have posted a performance link here:

Symphonic Requiem (http://youtu.be/NsKahWsjRXU)

I belive the last movement is commercially avaialble on one of the US Army band's albums.

It goes without saying that, having heard 6 of his seven symphonies, I would like to hear the first if anyone knows where it may be available...

Program Notes:
All by the composer, unless stated otherwise. At the moment, I've been unable to find any for the Invocation and Tocatta, nor the Second Symphony. I've added any personal observations afterwards in italics.


Symphonic Essay
Symphonic Essay has become a staple of the concert band repertoire. It is a dramatic work featuring brass fanfares, tonal pyramids, and startling polyharmonies. The mysterious undertones of the piece are interwoven with moments of lyricism, counterpoint, and a multiplicity of timbres and creative settings that culminate in a spectacular coda.
(Note: I suspect the above was copy written by Barnes for his music company, and not for a specific performance.  I have found out elsewhere that it orginally was commissioned in 2009 by the Troy Colt Symphonic Band. I'll also add that this stands well compared with Barber's Symphonic essays. )

Trail of Tears
Composed in the summer of 1989, TRAIL OF TEARS, is a tone poem for wind band that describes the 150th anniversary of one of the most cruel, unjust and embarrassing official actions in the history of the United States Government. In 1839-39, Federal troops rounded up many members of the “Five Civilized Indian Tribes” who were living in the Southeastern U.S.: the Cherokees, Choctaws, Creeks, Chickasaws and the Seminoles. Despite a landmark decision rendered by the legendary Supreme Court Justice John Marshall stating that the members of these tribes could not be moved off their sovereign lands because of a prior treaty granting them this territory, troops were ordered to move all of these Native Americans by forced march in the dead of winter over 1500 arduous miles to what was then known s “Indian territory”, now the eastern portion of the state of Okalahoma.

On this tragic journey more than 4,000 Native Americans perished from starvation, exhaustion and exposure to the elements. It is an event that will be forever ingrained in the memory of our Native American; a tragic sequence of events inflamed by political pressure the greed of white settlers for more land, an irrational fear of Indians, And downright racial bigotry.

The music with solo flute, intended to recall the bucolic non-aggressive nature of these “Five civilized Tribes”, who simply wished to be left alone and allowed to live in peace on their ancestral hunting grounds. The faster section portrays the strife between the Indians and the encroaching settler and builds to the ultimate tragic battle scenes of 1838, when the U.S. Army used Calvary to defeat the Indians. The dramatic last scene depicts the agony of the march itself and includes the recitation of a mournful poem in the Cherokee language by members of the ensemble.

"Let us mourn those who have died.
 Let us mourn those who are dying.
 Let us mourn those who must endure."

The work concludes with a final statement of triumph for these Native Americans, who survived the Trail of Tears and have managed to live and prosper in spite of all the odds, and who today stand with pride and great honor as an important and integral part of our nation and it’s severely flawed history in the area of Native American affairs.

I wrote this piece because I believe it is imperative that we remain constantly aware that we are just as capable as any other nation of committing crimes against people who are weaker or different form us, regardless of our form of government and no matter what high aspirations we might espouse every year on the Fourth of July. One needs only to recall the interment in concentrationcamps of  the all Japanese- Americans on the west coast and Hawaii duringthose first dark  months of World Ear II to realize that events such as the Trail of Tears are still within the realm of possibility in the “ Land of the Free and the Home of the Brave.” We must continue to acknowledge these highly distasteful episodes on our history on order to insure that drastic over-reactions such as these do not recur in the future of our nation.

Music of James Barnes-- Part 2

Symphony # 3 ("Tragic")
My “Third Symphony” was commissioned by the United
States Air Force Band in Washington, D.C. The conductor of the band at that time, Col. Alan Bonner, told me that he wanted a major work for wind band. He said that he did not care about style, length, difficulty, or anything else -- I was  given complete freedom to write whatever I wished.

I began work on it in earnest at a very difficult time in my life, right after the death of our baby daughter, Natalie, passed away.This symphony is the most emotionally draining work that I have ever composed.

If it were to be given a nickname, I believe that “Tragic” would be appropriate. The composition progresses from the deepest darkness of despair all the way to the brightness of fulfillment and joy. The third movement is a fantasia about what my world would have been like if Natalie had lived. It is a farewell to her.

The Finale represents a rebirth of spirit, a reconciliation for us all. The second theme of this movement is based on an old Lutheran children’s hymn called “I am Jesus’ Little Lamb. This hymn was sung at Natalie’s funeral.

Three days after I completed this symphony, on June 25, 1994, our son Billy Barnes was born. If the third movement is for Natalie, then the Finale is really for Billy, and our joy in being blessed with him after the tragic death of his sister

Fourth Symphony: Yellowstone Portraits
Portraying the beauty of nature with music is certainly not a new idea. Vivaldi‘s cycle of violin concertos entitled The Seasons, Beethoven‘s Pastorale Symphony, Smetana‘s tone poem The Moldau, and Respighi‘s The Pines of Rome are but a few outstanding examples of this procedure. Composed in the spring and summer of  1999, James Barnes‘Fourth Symphony (Yellowstone Portraits)is a new contribution to the longstanding symphonic tradition of program music. Commissioned by the Kansas City Youth Symphony... the band version was completed in the spring and summer of 2001.

The initial moments of the first movement, Dawn on the Yellowstone River , invoke the sound of river water and th  awakening of birds. It is intended to portray the stillness and calm of nature in the early morning; from the first scant, shadowy rays of daybreak to the moment when the sun rises above the crest of the mountains and glistens in all its glory upon the waters of the magnificent Yellowstone River.

The second movement, Pronghorn Scherzo, describes the humorous and chaotic scrambling of an alerted herd of pronghorns. The first sounds in this movement signify the alert,when all the pronghorns raise their head to what they perceive to be the sound or appearance of danger. The composer has marked this movement Lickety Split, and that is exactly what the animals begin to do, running helter skelter in all directions, seemingly at the speed of light. This general panic progresses to a great climax, when the herd finally follows its leader over the top of a hill. However, one confused and inexperienced baby antelope remains in sight. He soon realizes that he should follow his mother over the hill. With the blink of an eye, he is gone, and so is the second movement.

The composer describes the third movement,Inspiration Point (Tower Falls), as outdoor music; music to take one‘s breath away. Inspiration Point begins with a tremendous fanfare by the trumpets that leads to the initial statement of the main theme by the unison horns, a melody that was first heard in the opening movement of Fourth Symphony. The music is intended to portray the awesome beauty of the greatest waterfall in Yellowstone Park, and its fascinating natural setting at the end of a great canyon. After moments of contemplation and admiration, the music begins to build to a gigantic climax, evoking the immense power and timelessness of nature which is so evident when viewing this seemingly endless journey of water.

(Personal Note:  Althought the very last few measures sound a bit a like a band piece to my uneducated ears, the last few minutes of the third movement do have some of the most majestic moments I've ever heard, and I've had to listen to this over and over many times.)

Scenes from the Aztecs
These notes are not by the composer, but from a Descripton from Murray State.Info
Concluding the concert will be the American permiere of a work by University of Kansas composer, James Barnes entitled, “Escenas de los Aztecas” or “Scenes of the Aztecs”. The work was written as a “test piece” for the 44th World Music Contest which is held in Kerkrade, The Netherlands once every four years. “At this prestigious contest, entering bands are assigned a grade level and then every band in that grade level must perform a certain test piece,” stated Johnson. “I was extremely fortunate to be invited to be on the jury for the contest this past July (which runs for three weeks) and heard this work during the contest. Normally, upon hearing a work that many times, you become almost immune to it but this work captured my attention each time I heard it. At times it is mysterious, then gentle, quietly eerie, and at the end – downright scary – as musical depictions of the sacrificial rituals become ever so prominent. Undoubtedly one of the most complex and emotional works I have ever conducted.”
Personal Note:  It's not suprising that this work has echoes of Reveultas, but I also hear "My Favorite Things" in it.  Go figure.

Music of James Barnes- Part 3

Fifth Symphony

Fifth Symphony was commissioned in 2000 to celebrate the 50th anniversary of the formation of the Japanese Ground Self-Defense Force Central Band. It was premiered in May 2001 at Tokyo Metropolitan Hall with Col. Toyokazu Nonaka conducting. The Central Band, the premier army band in Japan, was formed when Japan instigated its Self - Defense Forces in 1951 at the conclusion of the Allied occupation. This 43 - minute work, scored for very large band including six antiphonal trumpets, is in four movements:

• I.Eulogy,
• II. Scherzo,
• III. Reverie, and
• IV. Jubilation.

The symphony carries the subtitle "Phoenix" to portray in spirit the resurgence of Japan since World War II. The composer writes:

Like the legendary Phoenix bird, which self-immolates, then arises from its own ashes more resplendent than ever, Japan has recovered from the massive devastation of World War II to become a greater and more respected nation than ever before.

Pagan Dances
The Pagan Dances completes the cycle of four “primitive” works for symphonic band I began with Visions Macabre in 1978, followed by Invocation and Toccata in 1980, and Torch Dance in 1984.  All of these works employ highly dissonant harmonic combinations, repetitive melodic material, and driving rhythm to showcase the symphonic band’s immense power and dramatic color combinations.  This suite is intended to portray an imaginary scene from prehistoric times as if it were a scene from a ballet.  It begins with the entrance of the worshipers performing a Ritual dance before their idol god.  Mystics, or high priests, appear, evoking incantations and performing feats of sorcery before the worshipers.  Suddenly, The Master of the Sword enters, performing a savage dance that culminates with his execution of a sacrifice on the high altar with his broadsword.


Danza Sinfonica
THESE NOTES BY RICHARD KUSK
Music in the Spanish style composed by non-Spaniards is certainly nothing new. One need only consider orchestral works such as Emmanuel Chabrier’s Espana Rhapsody,Giuseppe Verdi’s Il Trovatore, Rimsky-Korsakov’sCapriccio Espagnole, and many others that have made music with a Spanish color a significant part of the rapidly expanding repertory of the wind band. James Barnes’ Danza Sinfonica continues this tradition. The first 50 measures encapsulate the thematic material employed. After opening with solo marimba and bassoon, brief flurries introduce the principal motive of the piece, before the timpani fades into silence. An abrupt fanfare by the full band introduces the other principal theme of the work. The remainder of the piece is cast in a broad three-part format. Danza Sinfonica is permeated with colorful soloistic passages, brilliant outburst by the full band, surprise modulations and splashes of pure instrumental color, as the music transports the listener on a brief journey to the Iberian peninsula for a taste of classic Spanish flamenco.


Lonely Beach
To me, the most tragic vision of D-Day is the film footage of American troops disembarking from a landing craft onto the intense machine gun fire of Omaha Beach. One soldier runs out and makes it up the beach to the wall. Then two more. The fourth soldier gets perhaps 15 yards from the landing craft beforehe is hitand
falls. He doesn't move- he was probably dead when he hit the ground. It is an unforgettable and excruciatingly painful moment.

Seeing this newsreel always makes me think these same things: Who was that soldier, and where was he from? How old was he? Who were his parents? Was he married; did he have children? He lies on that beach with thousands of men around him, but he dies alone. On battlefields, all men die alone. The first half of this tone poem attempts to depict what that soldier might have seen on that cold, misty morning. It begins with the wind and the sound of the waves, then gradually builds as the assault begins. Off-stage trumpets and off-stage percussion are employed  in this work to help portray the incredible panic and total chaos of the situation. The music builds into a frenzy and becomes more complex and confusing until, ultimately, the soldier runs up the beach and is struck by the bullet which kills him. The second half of this work is a eulogy for all the soldiers, Allied and German alike, who died on this insignificant length of sand and
rocks. The shouting and gunfire are now but echoes in our imagination. Little remains  on these beaches to show that anything so significant as the Allied invasion of Northern Europe ever occurred along these shores, but, like Waterloo, Gettysburg, Verdun and Pearl Harbor, this will always remainn hallowed ground. Today,almost 60  years later, the ageless constancy of the wind and the waves reminds us of man's comparative insignificance in relation to the world around him, and it reinforces our realization of the waste, the horror and the tragedy of war.






About James Barnes:

Info from University of Kansas Web Page

James Barnes
Professor of Music Theory & Music Composition
jbarnes@ku.edu
785-864-4514
Murphy Hall, room 222

Professor James Barnes teaches music composition, orchestration, arranging and wind band history/repertoire courses at The University of Kansas. At KU, he served as Staff Arranger, Assistant, and later, Associate Director of Bands for twenty-seven years. Barnes served as Division Director for Music Theory and Composition for ten years. This spring, he will complete his fortieth year of teaching at KU.

His numerous publications for concert band and orchestra are extensively performed around the world. His works (including seven symphonies and three concertos) have been performed at such venues as Tanglewood, Boston Symphony Hall, Lincoln Center, Carnegie Hall, the Kennedy Center in Washington, DC, Tchaikovsky Hall in Moscow and Tokyo Metropolitan Concert Hall.

Barnes twice received the coveted American Bandmasters Association Ostwald Award for outstanding contemporary wind band music. He has been the recipient of numerous ASCAP Awards for composers of serious music, the Kappa Kappa Psi Distinguished Service to Music Medal and the Bohumil Makovsky Award for Outstanding College Band Conductors. In 2009, Barnes was awarded the first annual

BMI Award for Excellence in Teaching Creativity from the Music Educators National Conference. The world-famous Tokyo Kosei Wind Orchestra has recorded three compact discs of his music. Over the years, Mr. Barnes has been commissioned to compose works for all five of the major American military bands in Washington, DC. A recent CD release by the United States Air Force Band features two different works by James Barnes: Dreamers, written to commemorate the 100th anniversary of powered flight by the Wright brothers and Wild Blue Yonder, commissioned to commemorate the 60th anniversary of the United States Air Force. The U. S. Army band recently released a new recording of his Symphonic Requiem (Seventh Symphony), commissioned to commemor-ate the 150th anniversary of the American Civil War. One of his recent works, Escenas de los Aztecas, was the required work at the World Band Competition in Kerkerade, Netherlands during July 2013.

Mr. Barnes has traveled extensively as a guest composer, conductor and lecturer throughout the United States, Europe, Australia, Taiwan and Singapore. He has guest conducted in Japan over 35 times. He is a member of the American Society of Composers, Authors and Publishers (ASCAP), the American Bandmasters Association and numerous other professional organizations and societies.


There is a good article about him here:
http://issuu.com/sunflower_publishing/docs/lms09/56 (http://issuu.com/sunflower_publishing/docs/lms09/56)

Mr. Jowcol - many thanks for these; had some of the symphonies from YT, but this really builds up a good collection of his very listenable work !

Thanks for James Barnes' works Jowcol, I've listened to the Symphony No.2 and really enjoyed it. I loved the slow movement where a first climax was very liquid, like hot magma under the surface, which doesn't quite erupt, but the second climax does (very Brucknerian). I'll enjoy listening to the rest.

[I had a smile when I saw Barnes' name, in Australia we have a musician called Jimmie Barnes, who is an original hell-raising rocker from the 70s still going strong. Somewhat different kind of music!]

In doing research, I also found out there is a convicted killer on Death Row in Florida with that name. 

Glad you liked the second- I'm sorry I didn't find program notes-- his quote of Veni Emmanuel was very moving.

Music of William Bergsma
(http://www.mvdaily.com/articles/2002/11/bergsma.jpg)

From the collection of Karl Miller




Paul Bunyan Suite
Oregon All-State Orchestra
Vilem Sokol
Source LP: Century 23578

Documentary One, Suite for Orchestra
Seattle Youth Symphony Orchestra
Vilem Sokol
Source LP: Seattle Youth Symphony 10775-7

Symphony #1 (1949)
Ditson Festival
Columbia University
Izler Soloman

Wikipedia Bio Posting:
William Laurence Bergsma (April 1, 1921 – March 18, 1994) was an American composer.

After studying piano with his mother, a former opera singer, and then the viola, Bergsma moved on to study composition; his most significant teachers were Howard Hanson and Bernard Rogers. Bergsma attended Stanford University for two years (1938–40) before moving on to the Eastman School of Music, where he earned his bachelor's and master's degrees. In 1946 he accepted a position at Juilliard, where he remained until 1963, eventually holding such positions as chair of composition and from 1961 to 1963, associate dean. In 1963 he moved on to the University of Washington, heading the music school until 1971, remaining a professor from then on after stepping down from the administrative post. In 1966 Bergsma founded the Contemporary Group at the University of Washington, which is an organization of composers and musicians who stage performances of new musical works and educate students and the public about contemporary music; the group remains active to this day. He is the recipient of two Guggenheim Fellowships, a grant from the National Endowment for the Arts, and an award from the American Academy of Arts and Letters. Students of Bergsma include composers Jack Behrens, Philip Glass, Karl Korte, Robert Parris, and Steve Reich.

Bergsma's music is noted for its lyrical, contrapuntal qualities. Unlike many of his contemporaries, Bergsma rejected serialism in favor of a more conservative style, though one distinctly rooted in the 20th century. He eschewed the avant-garde—his obituary in the Seattle Post-Intelligencer describes him as having "never deserted tonality" and seeing "dozens of his former avant-garde colleagues returning to the fold"—though he did embrace aleatoric techniques later in his career.

He composed two operas, The Wife of Martin Guerre (1956) and The Murder of Comrade Sharik (1973), which are markedly different in style. The first is a somber tale of a 16th-century French peasant's disappearance and return upon which he is suspected to be an impostor; the music is marked by dissonance which emphasizes the tension in the story, particularly in the final courtroom scene. The second is more lighthearted and comic; Bergsma wrote his own libretto after the story Heart of a Dog by Mikhail Bulgakov, which involves a dog transforming into a citizen of 1920s Moscow as a result of a doctor's experiments. The partially aleatoric orchestral writing is intended to be the voice of Stalin, and uses quotes from Carmen, La traviata and Don Giovanni for comedic effect. He was also a skillful composer of smaller works, including many for chamber ensemble and solo piano as well as orchestral writings.

Bergsma died in Seattle of a heart attack, at the age of 72.

Music of Cecil Effinger
(http://www.bruceduffie.com/eff1.jpg)
From the collection of Karl Miller



Works


Symphony No. 3
Denver Symphony Orchestra
Composer, Conductor
Date, venue unknown

Symphony No. 4 for Chorus and Orchestra (1952)
Crane School of Music Chorus and Orchestra
Helen Hosmer, Conductor(?)
May 14, 1954

Symphony No. 5 "The Iceland" (1958)
Denver Symphony Orchestra
Jan 5, 1960

Symphonic Prelude in D Major
(For Boy's Chorus and Orch)
Denver Symphony Orchestra
Saul Castron, COnductor
Feb 24, 1959

The Invisible Fire
Members of the Kansas City Conference Choir
Kansas City Philharmonic
Thor Johnson, Conductor
Dec. 31, 1957



If you are at all interested in Effinger, please read the interview at: http://www.bruceduffie.com/effinger.html (http://www.bruceduffie.com/effinger.html).  Not only is it insightful, but offers more details on Effinger's Inventions -- the MusicWriter and Tempo Watch.

The "Musical Typewriter" from www.bruceduffie.com.
(http://www.bruceduffie.com/effmw4.jpg)







Cecil Effinger
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Cecil Effinger (July 22, 1914 – December 22, 1990) was an American composer, oboist, and inventor.


Effinger was born in Colorado Springs, Colorado, and resided in that state for most of his life. Reversing the usual cliché, he was the son of musicians and teachers, but initially studied mathematics at Colorado College, receiving a BA in 1935, before deciding to follow in his parents' footsteps (Bono 2008, 6). In the meantime, he had studied harmony and counterpoint with Frederick Boothroyd in 1934–36, and went to Paris in 1939 to study composition with Nadia Boulanger. He was first oboe in the orchestras of Colorado Springs (1934–41) and Denver (1937–41) and taught at the Colorado College before the Second World War (1936–41). A lifelong friendship with Roy Harris began in 1941 (Worster 2001). During the Second World War he served as conductor of the 506th US Army Band in Fort Logan (Bono 2008, 6). After the war, he resumed his position at the Colorado College from 1946 to 1948, when he was appointed professor of composition at the University of Colorado in Boulder. He remained in that position, becoming the head of the composition department until 1981, and was composer-in-residence there until his retirement in 1984 (Worster 2001).

In 1945 in Paris, Effinger conceived the idea of a music typewriter, and by 1947 had developed a rough prototype. In March 1954 he patented his machine as the "Musicwriter", and exhibited his first production model in July 1955, in Denver. It was simple and robust in construction and was a commercial success throughout the world for more than thirty years (Boorman and Selfridge-Field 2001, §5 (iv)). He also invented a device to accurately determine the tempo of music as it is being performed, which he called the Tempowatch (Worster 2001).
Compositions

Effinger was a prolific composer, with 168 works in his catalog, including five numbered symphonies, two Little Symphonies, and five String Quartets. Choral works figure among his most popular compositions, several of which are large scale and based on sacred subjects, including especially Four Pastorales for oboe and chorus (Worster 2001). Effinger never embraced experimentalism, and settled on an idiom he described as "atonal tonality". He never achieved a national reputation, but was esteemed as a regional composer of high standing (Bono 2008, 6).

Charles Frink

I just received a note from Charles wife that he had passed away at the end of last month. 
There is a fine article about him here:

http://www.theday.com/local/20141229/charles-frink-whose-talents-touched-a-city-dies
 (http://www.theday.com/local/20141229/charles-frink-whose-talents-touched-a-city-dies)

I've posted a few of his works from Karl's collection on this site-  I'm not supposed to put the links on this page- but if you search on "Frink" you can find out more about the man and his music.

Lukas Foss: American Cantata
(http://media.npr.org/music/images/2009/foss_300-584a9321d1cc7fc6a0cd1f8f7d2aea371ecac71d-s6-c30.jpg)

From the collection of Karl Miller

First Performance 
Bicentennial Chorus
World Youth Symphony Orchestra
Waldie Anderson, tenor; Rosalind Reed, soprano
Composer, Conductor
Source LP: Audio House AHSI 164F76
July 25, 1976

Intro
First Performance Revised Version
Joseph Evans, tenor; Patricia Ludvigson, soprano
Linda Herrman, speaker, Robert Convery, speaker
Westminster Choir; New York Philharmonic
Leonard Bernstein, conductor
December 1, 1977
Outro

Music of John Donald Robb

(http://www.robbtrust.org/trust-images/Dean_Robb.jpg)

From the collection of Karl Miller


Works

Intro
Matachines Dance Op.28a (1958)
Houston Symphony/Maurice Bonney
[possibly 8 January 1957]

Piano Concerto Op.18 (1950)
Andor Foldes, piano
Albuquerque Civic Orchestra/Hans Lange
[25 February 1952]

Symphony No.2  in C major, Op.23 (1952)
El Salvador Symphony Orchestra/Composer

Symphony No.3 Op.34 (1962) (complete?)
Guatemala National Symphony Orchestra/Composer

Concerto for Piano and Orchestra
Ricardo; Borreguero; Leonore
Andor Foldes, Piano
Albuquerque Civic Symphony Orchestra/Hans Lange
Carlisle Gymnasium, University of New Mexico, Albuquerque, NM
[25 February 1952]

Sonatina for Piano
(Manuscript Title: “Sonatina for Piano, Three Incidents from Iliom” – “To George Robert”) The Carnival; The Star;?
John Ranck, Piano
Composers Group of New York Concert
Carnegie Recital Hall, New York, NY
[13 October 1955]

Variations on a Chromatic Line with Interludes, For Horn and Piano, Opus 29, 1957
Joseph Singer, Horn;  Antonio Lara, Piano
Composers Group of New York Concert
Carnegie Recital Hall, New York, NY
[3 October 1957]
B&C Recordings 13391

About the Composer (from http://www.robbtrust.org (http://www.robbtrust.org))



John Donald Robb (1892-1989) led a rich and varied life as an attorney, composer, arts educator, and folk song collector and preservationist. He composed an impressive body of work including symphonies, concertos, sonatas, chamber and other instrumental music, choral works, songs, and arrangements of folk songs, two operas, including Little Jo, a musical comedy, Joy Comes to Deadhorse, and more than 65 electronic works. Robb’s orchestral works have been played by many major orchestras in the United States and abroad under noted conductors, such as Hans Lange, Maurice Bonney, Maurice Abravanel, Leonard Slatkin, Gilberto Orellano, Yoshimi Takeda, Guillermo Figueroa and James Richards.

During his two decades as an international lawyer in New York City, Robb studied composition with Horatio Parker, Darius Milhaud, Roy Harris, Paul Hindemith and Nadia Boulanger. In 1941, at the age of 49, Robb left his law career to become head of the Music Department at the University of New Mexico. He served as dean of the UNM College of Fine Arts from 1942-57.

During his tenure at UNM, Robb’s fascination with Hispanic folk music led to his recording of more than 3,000 traditional Hispanic folk songs and dances from the American Southwest and South America, all of which formed the nucleus of the John Donald Robb Archive of Southwestern Music at the University of New Mexico. He wrote two books on the subject, including Hispanic Folk Songs of New Mexico (1954; revised edition by UNM Press, 2008) and his authoritative book, Hispanic Folk Music of New Mexico and the Southwest: A Self Portrait of a People (1980), which is scheduled for re-publication in 2014. Robb received numerous honors and grants, including the honorary Doctor of Music from the University of New Mexico.

Robb's music has been performed by more than 16 symphony orchestras in the U.S., Central America and South America, including the New Mexico Symphony Orchestra. His compositions have been performed in many other venues, such as six recitals in Carnegie Recital Hall in New York (some of which were reviewed by the New York Times).

The St. Louis Symphony premiered his Third Symphony in 1962, and his music is performed every spring at the renowned UNM John Donald Robb Composers’ Symposium. His folk opera, Little Jo, was conducted by Guillermo Figueroa at the National Hispanic Cultural Center in 2005, and the New Mexico Symphony Orchestra under Figueroa performed his Dances from Taxco in their 2007 season.

In June 2008, KNME-TV, New Mexico's PBS station, premiered a documentary about Robb entitled, "The Musical Adventures of John Donald Robb in New Mexico." The documentary can be viewed at an interactive website that features folk song recordings and photographs from the Robb archives in UNM Libraries' Center for Southwest Research.

Music of Arne Oldberg

From the collection of Karl Miller


Piano Quintet in c minor
(one movement only?)
performers, date, venue  unknown

Violin Concerto in D major
John Weicher, violin
Chicago Symphony Orchestra
Tanno Hainnakainen, conductor
[25 June 1947]


Bio from Northwestern University

Arne Oldberg was born July 12, 1874, in Youngstown, Ohio. He joined the music faculty of Northwestern University in 1897, eventually becoming the Director of the Graduate Music Department in 1924. Oldberg possessed a consuming interest in musical composition and wrote a large number of concertos, symphonies, quartettes and quintets for piano, string, and wind instruments. Oldberg was granted an emiratus appointment in 1941 and died in 1962.

With his parents, Oscar and Emma (Parritt) Oldberg (see Northwestern University Archives Series 61/1), he moved to Chicago in 1886. At a very early age Oldberg exhibited musical talents and his father taught him to play the piano. He studied music with several piano instructors at the Gottschalk Lyric School in Chicago and in 1892 was graduated with honors. He continued his musical education for two years with Theodor Leschetizky in Vienna. On his return to his family's home, now in Evanston, Illinois, Oldberg was occupied with composing, presenting piano recitals, and teaching piano in Chicago.

He joined the music faculty of Northwestern University in 1897. Oldberg traveled to Europe again in 1898 to study composition with Joseph Rheinberger at Munich's Royal Academy of Art. In 1899 Oldberg accepted an instructorship on the faculty of the School of Music at Northwestern. Subsequent appointments at Northwestern included: Professor of Piano and Composition (1901-1941), Director of the Piano Department (1919-1941), and Director of the Graduate Music Department (1924-1941). The University awarded Oldberg with an emeritus appointment in 1941.

Oldberg possessed a consuming interest in musical composition and wrote a large number of concertos, symphonies, quartettes and quintets for piano, string, and wind instruments. As early as 1908 his compositions were performed by the Chicago Symphony Orchestra. Oldberg attained widespread recognition by many of the great orchestras of the United States. For several summers in the 1930s he was a guest professor of composition at the University of California at Los Angeles. Oldberg also taught music at Mount St. Mary's College, again in Los Angeles. One of Oldberg's compositions won first prize at a Hollywood Bowl music contest in 1931.

Oldberg married Mary Sloan on July 2, 1900. Both were honored in 1941 when the City of Evanston named a park near Northwestern's School of Music after them. When this land was used for a University building another property was named in their honor. In 1976 Northwestern University sponsored a recital and reception dedicated to Oldberg s memory. Northwestern and Evanston joined in celebrating Arne and Mary Sloan Oldberg Day on December 10, 1976, a recognition of their many contributions to the community.

The Oldbergs had five children: Eric (see Northwestern University Archives Series 55/30), Karl, Elsa, Richard, and Robert. Oldberg died in Evanston on February 18, 1962. Mary Sloan Oldberg died in Evanston in April 1968.

Music of Ross Lee Finney
(http://www.james-joyce-music.com/extras/finneypics/finney_photo.jpg)

From the collection of Karl Miller


A copy of the contents of this collection is available in pdf at:  http://www.mediafire.com/view/xjg2yx24oxsq3gf/Music_of_Ross_Lee_Finney.pdf
 (http://www.mediafire.com/view/xjg2yx24oxsq3gf/Music_of_Ross_Lee_Finney.pdf)

Note: There were some extraction issues with the radio program No. 6, and it is currently not included, althought I've listed the contents for it.


Works:
Programs 1-13 are from radio broadcasts hosted by Finney.

Volume 1:

Radio Program No.1
Intro
Poems of Archibald MacLeash
Karen Lovejoy, voice
Commentary
Viola Sonata No.1
Paul Doktor, viola; Benning Dexter, piano
Commentary
Piano Sonata No.3
Melita True
Commentary

Radio Program No.2
Commentary
String Quartet No.2
Walden String Quartet
Commentary
Anon:Pilgrim Songs
Finney voice and guitar
Commentary
Pilgrim Songs for Chorus
Michigan Choral/Lester McCoy
Commentary
Trio No.1 for Piano and Strings
American Arts Trio
Commentary

Volume 2:

Radio Program No.3
Commentary
Piano Sonata No.4 “Christmas  Time”
Benning Dexter, piano
Commentary
Poor Richard Songs
Sam Jones, tenor
Commentary
Symphony No.1
Louisville Orchestra/Robert Whitney
Commentary


Radio Program  No.4
Commentary
Spherical Madrigals
University of Kansas Chamber Choir/Clayton Kreihbiel
Commentary
String Quartet No.5
Stanley Quartet
Commentary
Piano Concerto No.1
Benning Dexter, piano
University of Michigan Symphony Orchestra/Wayne Dunlap
Commentary

Volume 3:

Radio Program No.5
Commentary
String Quartet No.4
Stanley Quartet
Commentary
Nostalgic Waltzes
John Kirkpatrick, piano
Commentary
Cello Sonata No.2
Jerome Jelinek, cello
Rhea Kish, piano
Commentary

Radio Program No.6
[size=14]NOTE: There were some problems with the disc, so it is not included with the initial posting of this set. I'm including this description so that we will have everything in  one place going forward. [/size]
Commentary
String Quartet No.6
Stanley Quartet
Commentary
Quintet for Piano and Strings
Stanley Quartet
Beveridge Webster, piano
Commentary

Radio Program No.7
Commentary
Violin Sonata No.3
Emil Robb, violin; Benning Dexter, piano
Commentary
Variations on a theme by Berg
Benning Dexter, piano
Commentary
String Quartet No.7
Stanley Quartet
Commentary

Volume 4:

Radio  Program No.8
Commentary
Violin Sonata No.2
Gilbert Ross, violin; Helen Titus, piano
Commentary
Fantasy in 2 movements for solo violin
Yehudi Menuhin, violin
Commentary
Sonata quasi una fantasia for piano
William Doppmann, piano
Commentary

Radio  Program No.9
Commentary
Fantasy for Organ
Marilyn Mason Brown, organ
Commentary
Symphony No.3
Wichita University Symphony/James Roberts
Commentary
Divertimento for Woodwind Quintet
University of Michigan Wind Quintet
Commentary
Stranger to Myself for Choir
Colgate University Chapel Choir /Dr. Skelton
Commentary
Fanfare for Band
University of Michigan Symphony Band/William Revelli
Commentary

Volume 5:

Radio Program No.10
Commentary
Trio No.2 for piano and strings
Albeneri Trio
Commentary
Three Love Songs
Norma Hieda (sp?) soprano
Commentary
Quintet for Strings
Dartmouth String Quartet w. Channing Robbins, cello
Commentary


Radio Program No.11
Commentary
Symphony No.2
(live performance not commercial recording)
Louisville Orchestra/Robert Whitney
Commentary
The Edge of Shadow, Cantata
Choral and Instrumental Ensembles at the University of Michigan
Joseph Bloch, conductor
Commentary

Volume 6:

Radio Program No.12
Commentary
String Quartet No.8
Stanley Quartet
Commentary
Piano Quintet No.2
Dartmouth String Quartet; Martin Cannon, piano
Commentary
Three Pieces for Strings, Woodwinds, percussion and tape
Thomas Hilbish, conductor
Commentary


Radio Program No.13
Commentary
Divertissment for Instrumental Ens.
William Doppmann, piano; Ling Tung, violin; Richard Waller, clarinet; Camilla Doppmann, cello 
Commentary
Nun’s Priest’s Tale
Narrator: Michael Best
Chanticleer: Ellen Evans
Pergola: Sarah Franklin
Fox: Joseph Shenard (sp?)
Folksinger: James W. Symington (sp?)
Dartmouth Symphony Orchestra/Mario di Boniventura
[21 August 1965][/i]
Commentary

 Volume 7:

Composer’s Forum broadcast with Martin Bookspan
Intro and interview with Finney
Landscapes Remembered
Cornell University Symphony Orchestra
Karel Husa, conductor
Commentary
Piano Concerto No.2 (finale only)
William Doppmann, piano
University of Michigan Symphony Orchestra
Theo Alcantara, conductor
Commentary
Symphony No.4
Baltimore Symphony Orchestra
Sergiu Comissiona, conductor
Commentary


Additonal Works:

Piano Sonata No.4 in E major  “Christmastime 1945”
Arthur Tollefson, piano
Seven Variations on a Theme by Alban Berg
Benning Dexter, piano [Date unknown]
O God, Be Gracious To Me
University’s Women’s Choir
Michigan Singers  [Date unknown]
Sonata (No.1?) for Violin and Piano
Tranquilly; Humorously; Vigorously in March Tempo; Tranquillity
Gilbert Ross, violin; Helen Titus, piano [Date unknown]


Volume 8:

Violin Concerto in e minor
Gilbert Ross, violin
University of Michigan Symphony Orchestra
Wayne Dunlap, conductor
[24 May 1951]
Violin Concerto No. 2
Robert Gerle, Violin
Dallas Symphony Orchestra
Louis Lane, Conductor
[31 March 1976]
Piano Concerto No. 2
William Doppmann, piano
University of Michigan Symphony Orchestra
Theo Alcantara,  conductor.


For a good online bio, there is a chaper on Finney's life in this thesis--
http://etd.lsu.edu/docs/available/etd-10182007-110446/unrestricted/PerniciaroDissertation.pdf (http://etd.lsu.edu/docs/available/etd-10182007-110446/unrestricted/PerniciaroDissertation.pdf)

Jacob Weinberg: Isaiah  Oratorio
(http://www.milkenarchive.org/media/image/people/187x187/550)

From the collection of Karl Miller

Spoken Intro
Isaiah, Oratorio
(1st Performance)
Lillian Rothschild, soprano (boy soprano part)
Evelyn Sachs, mezzo soprano
Emile Renan, Baritone
Alexander D. Richardson, organ
George Fractman(sp?), trumpet(Note  from Karl: Having a bad day?)
YMHA Chorus/Abraham Wolf Binder
[21 February 1948]
Spoken Outro


Bio from Milken Archive

Jacob Weinberg belongs to that pioneering school of composers who, together with Jewish performers, folklorists, and other intellectuals in Russia, attempted during the first two decades of the 20th century to found a new Jewish national art music based on authentic Jewish musical heritage. It was his membership in the Moscow section of that organization, known as the Gesellschaft für Jüdische Volksmusik (Society for Jewish Folk Music) in St. Petersburg, that first defined for him the nature of his own Jewish identity and ignited the interest in Judaically based art that informed most of his work from then on.

Weinberg was born in Odessa (The Ukraine) to an intellectually sympathetic and cultured but thoroughly assimilated and Russified affluent family, with little if any Judaic observance. His family traveled in the sophisticated musical and literary circles of the intelligentsia. His uncle, Peter Weinberg, a respected poet and professor, was known for his translations of Shakespeare and Heine into Russian; and another uncle was a brother-in-law of the world-famous pianist, composer, and head of the St. Petersburg Conservatory, Anton Rubinstein—who converted from Judaism to the Russian Church. Weinberg’s pianistic gifts were evident at an early age, but his middle-class family insisted that he prepare for business or the professions, and he was sent to the local government-sponsored commercial school. Upon his graduation at the age of seventeen, he assumed a position as a bank clerk in Rostov-on-Don, but he resigned shortly thereafter and went to Moscow. He enrolled at the Moscow Conservatory for piano studies and later studied counterpoint—as had Rachmaninoff and Scriabin—with Sergey Taneyev, a disciple of Tchaikovsky’s. Typical of the practical middle-class path followed by a number of Russian as well as Jewish composers in Russia then (including Tchaikovsky in the 1850s), and still under pressure from his family, he also studied law at Moscow University, and he qualified in 1908.

During that same time frame Weinberg also began to compose, and his early works include his Elegy for Violoncello (his first piece, dedicated to Tchaikovsky), his Sonata in F-Sharp Minor for violin and piano, and his first piano concerto, in E-flat minor, which he played in concerts in St. Petersburg, Kiev, and Odessa. In 1905 he went to Paris to compete in the Anton Rubinstein Competition, the most prestigious competition of the time for pianists and composers. Although he was unsuccessful in that competition (as was Bela Bartók), losing to the German pianist Wilhelm Backhaus, the event helped to bring his gifts to public attention and to launch a career as a virtuoso pianist.

In 1910 Weinberg studied for a year in Vienna with the legendary piano pedagogue and author of piano methodology Theodor Leschetizky, after which he returned to Moscow, where he taught various musical subjects as well as piano, and where he wrote two scientific works on music. During that period he became active in the relatively new Moscow branch of the Gesellschaft, and he was profoundly influenced in particular by critic and composer Joel Engel, head of its music committee. A few of Weinberg’s early works were published by the Moscow branch, independent of the better-known publication series of its parent organization in St. Petersburg. “There began my interest in things Jewish,” he later remarked. “I became very much absorbed in Jewish music, and I began to collect and study Jewish folksongs. A new, great, and practically unexplored vista was opening before me.”

In 1916 Weinberg returned to Odessa to teach at the Imperial Conservatory there. He remained until 1921, when, out of step personally and spiritually with the new Bolshevik order and the fallout of the civil war, and still imbued with the Zionist cultural incentives he acquired from the Gesellschaft affiliation, he left to resettle in Palestine. During the five years he lived there, he resumed his influential association with Joel Engel, who was one of the founders of a Jewish National Conservatory in Jerusalem. Weinberg absorbed much of the Near Eastern melos—Arabic as well as oriental Jewish modes, melodies, and flavors that had been largely unknown in Europe—and soon added these to his pool of musical resources for compositions. Among his works from that sojourn are a twelve-movement piano album, From Jewish Life; Jacob’s Dream, a setting of Richard Beer-Hofmann’s play, which later became one of his most frequently performed pieces; and Heḥalutz (known in English as The Pioneers), one of the earliest operas in Hebrew, set to his own libretto about European settlers in Palestine. Heḥalutz won first prize in a competition of the Sesqui-Centennial Association in America, where it also received several performances. But its most poignant performance occurred in the 1930s in Berlin, during the Nazi era, where, forbidden from non-Jewish public venues as the work of a Jew, a concert version was presented at the Prinzregentenstrasse Synagoge under the auspices of the Jüdische Kulturbund in Deutschland, with soprano Mascha Benya in one of the lead roles.

Weinberg came to the United States in 1926, and he was soon actively involved in New York’s intellectual Jewish music circles, delivering scholarly papers and lectures at various learned societies, directing concert programs, performing, teaching, and composing. He became a prominent member of a coterie of established Jewish composers and other leading Jewish music exponents on the New York scene, including some of his former colleagues from the Gesellschaft in Russia, such as Lazare Saminsky and Joseph Achron (and later, Solomon Rosowsky), as well as Abraham Wolf Binder, Gershon Ephros, Moshe Rudinow, and Frederick Jacobi.

In 1929 Weinberg joined the piano and theory faculty of the New York College of Music, where he taught for many years, and later he taught at Hunter College’s extension division. In the early 1940s he organized a series of annual Jewish arts festivals (music and dance) in New York, which occurred at major concert venues and proved extremely successful; and he spearheaded Jewish music festivals in other cities, sometimes involving major orchestras. Those events are credited with being the impetus behind the formation of the National Jewish Music Council of the Jewish Welfare Board, which until recently initiated and coordinated annual Jewish Music Month celebrations throughout the United States, for a long time an acknowledged and important part of America’s Jewish cultural landscape.

In addition to individual liturgical settings and two biblical cantatas, Isaiah and The Life of Moses, Weinberg wrote three complete Sabbath services (excerpts from one of the services are included in Volume 7.) Yet for a long while he was best known in the United States for his patriotic American works, such as a setting of part of one of President Roosevelt’s addresses; The Gettysburg Address; and I See a New America, on words from a presidential campaign address by Governor Adlai Stevenson.

Among Weinberg’s other Judaically related secular works, apart from those presented in the Milken Archive, are a piano trio on Hebrew themes; Sabbath Suite; Carnival in Israel; and Yemenite Rhapsody—all for chamber orchestra; Berceuse Palestinenne for cello or violin; incidental concert encore pieces for virtuoso klezmer clarinet and orchestra (included in Volume 5, played by David Krakauer); various piano pieces on Judaic as well as secular Hebraic themes; numerous Hebrew art songs; and other chamber music.

Music of Louis Mennini

(http://pastdaily.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/05/Dr.-Louis-Mennini-1-resize.jpg)

From the collection of Karl Miller

Overture Breve
Eastman Rochester Orchestra
Howard Hanson, Cond.
[Broadcast 16 Feb 1954]

Cantilena  for Orchestra
Eastman Rochester Orchestra
Howard Hanson, Cond.
[c 1951-2]

Andante for Orchestra
Eastman Rochester Orchestra
Howard Hanson, Cond.
[date unknown]


Allegro Energico for Orchestra
Eastman Rochester Orchestra
Howard Hanson, Cond.
[c. 1949-50]

Symphony No. 2 "da Festa"
Oklahoma City Symphony
Gury Fraser Harrison, conductor
[date unknown]




From the Gordon Skene Sound Collection
Arioso
Eastman Rochester Orchestra
Howard Hanson, Cond.
[Broadcast 9 Feb 1953]

Update to Karl Millers Ross Lee Finney Collection
If you have downloaded the original, I have just posted a link for the files for Radio Program 6 from that collectiion.

Richard Danielpour: Symphony No. 2 "Visions"
(http://ww1.hdnux.com/photos/23/02/66/4992420/3/628x471.jpg)

From the collection of Karl Miller
[url]



Tenor and soprano unknown
San Francisco Symphony Orchestra
Cond. Charles Wourinen
[19 Dec 1986]

Composer's Program Note:

Symphony No. 2, Visions is a five-movement work. The text is from Dylan Thomas’s “Vision and Prayer,” a poem in two parts, each part consisting of six sections. The poems in the first half of the work were written and are printed in diamond shapes; each poem of the second part appears on the page in the form of an hourglass. I have used all the sections of the first part and the last section of the second part. The last poem serves as an epilogue to Thomas’s entire work and is used in a similar way in the last movement of this symphony – as a final point of arrival and reflection.

In the first half of his cycle, Thomas uses imaes of the life of Christ in birth (movements one and two), in suffering (movement three), and in death and resurrection (movement four). Thomas’s work is, however, not simply a poetic narrative of the life of Jesus as much as it documents a journey of the soul – the soul of the poet-mystic who undergoes his own transformation as he experiences an often fantastic and sometimes frightening vision.

In the last movement (“I turn the corner of prayer…”), an ultimate reaction and resolution occurs in the heart of the poet. Here he returns to the center of his soul to discover that the power of his vision has indeed transformed him. In short, Dylan Thomas’s “Vision and Prayer” is a journey from darkness to light, from unanswered questions to illumination. It was with this spiritual passage in mind that I conceived my Second Symphony, both dramatically and structurally.

In the first movement, the tenor rises out of a darkly orchestrated introduction to ask, “Who / Are You / Who is born / In the next room…” Images of darkness and solitude are evoked with the words “And the heart print of man / Bows no baptism / But dark alone….” The second movement is the shortest of the five. In this movement, the witness experiences an epiphany of sorts, which culminates with the words “And the winges wall is torn / by his torrid crown / And the dark thrown / From his loin / To bright / Light.” Here, as in all five movements, a substantial amount of purely orchestral music follows the final words sung by the voice, and provides an opportunity for reflection and development of the textual and musical ideas.

The appearance of the soprano in the third movement reflects a pivotal turn in the progress of the drama and also provides a coloristic contrast, highlighting the structural centerpiece of the symphony. This central movement is musically the most complex of all and it could be compared to the development section of a sonata movement. It also contains the most violent music in the work, as it expresses an inner confrontation on the part of the poet, who, in his awareness of Christ’s suffering, discovers his own pain (“For I was lost who am / Crying at the man drenched throne….”) A quote from the second movement of Mahler’s Das Lied von der Erde is used here.

I have used two voices in this symphony as a projection of two sides of the same personality. The soprano voice symbolizes the physical and the temporal. She is a harbinger and symbol of death. Indeed, the last words given to the soprano in the fourth movement are “And the whole pain / Flows open / And I / Die.” The tenor, on the other hand, represents the soul and the will of the poet, and in the fourth movement he sings in an impassioned quasi recitative style that is clearly influenced by the violence and fury of the music in the third movement. What follows this furious chant-like introduction is a series of events that lead ultimately to the dramatic climax of the work: the joining of the soprano and the tenor voices, unaccompanied. But before this happens, music that harks back to the ideas and emotional environment of the first movement is heard. “Silent Night” is quoted in the oboe and solo horn, emerging as a by-product of the musical material. What follows is an evocation of the tenor’s opening lines in the first movement (“Who / Are you / Who is born / In the next room…”), rendered now by muted strings.

The last movement is the most orchestral (and least song-like) of the five and serves not only as a denouement to the fourth movement, but also as an epilogue to the entire symphony. Much of the musical material of the first three movements is brought back and transformed to achieve a sense of dramatic closure. The climax of the movement occurs at the words “I / Am found.” These are the only words in the entire text that I have repeated. They are reiterated to mirror both the personal sense of revelation as well as the subsequent need to share the new-found awareness. The coda of the last movement, quiet and intimate in character, uses both solo violin and cello as shadows of the voices in the drama.

Dear Jowcol,

Thank you so much for the recent Ross Lee Finney offerings. I've enjoyed collecting that composer's scores for many years and it's a real joy to be able to listen to many of the works for the first time.

Best,
Caos

I would wish to join in the thanks to jowcol and to Karl Miller for the continuing flood of music made available to us here :)

The quality of the music is variable-as one would expect-but without the opportunity to actually hear the music one cannot make a judgment about that. Not all the music is to my own particular taste-but that is immaterial, there is something for all tastes amongst the music.

I am particularly pleased to be able to hear the Richard Danielpour Symphony No.2 for example.

And of course there has been a lot of music from other countries, including pieces by that extraordinarily fine French composer Charles Koechlin-for which much thanks also.

William Schuman: Symphony No.2 (improved recording)

Downloaded from the unsungcomposers Forum, I´ve got a very noisy recording of the 2nd Symphony of William Schuman. As an admirer of this composer, I treasure this very special recording (although the work has its weaknesses) because later this work was withdrawn by Schuman.

Days ago I sent a message to Bill Anderson, asking if he would accept processing the archive.
And he did a wonderful job!!
He cleaned up the noisy original (of 1938), improved the sound quality and corrected the pitch (comparing with a copy of the score from the Schuman family, held by our ubiquitous authority Karl Miller)

These are his own words:
“A trumpet tenor C is 523 Hz, but the trumpet in the beginning of the recording was around 560 Hz. So the recording pitch was about 6.5% too high!  I digitally slowed the file down by about that percentage, compared it to a "C" tone in my software...and it came extremely close”.

In the link there are two archives (FLAC, mp3) of the work and an excerpt from a paper of J. Steele about the work.
All the merit and honor for Bill, whom I am very grateful!

We should be extremely grateful to Gabriel and Bill Anderson for this improved version of the Schuman Second! It is not likely that any of us will have an opportunity to hear the work performed again-Schuman withdrew it as we know.

We can now hear the work in much improved quality of sound and judge for ourselves :)

If the score still exists, it might still be performed, as it is not without precedent for performers to ignore a composer's decision in this regard. In the case of Schuman, I doubt if there will be a rush though, given the general neglect of this important composer.

I seem to recall a story about the premiere of Schuman's 3rd - someone came up to him afterwards and said, "Boy, you must hate Roy Harris now!"

I believe the actual story is that Koussevitzky had sensed that Schuman was strongly influenced by Harris in his early work, and after K. premiered Schuman's 3rd Symphony, he told the young composer: "Now you must learn to hate Harris!" It was K.s way of telling Schuman that he had to start developing his own voice. Which he most assuredly did! :-)

Interesting, that puts a different slant on it!

Music of Vincent Persichetti
(http://www.bruceduffie.com/persichetti1.jpg)
From the collection of Karl Miller
[/i]



Concertino for Piano and Orchestra
Likely performers
Composer,piano
Eastman-Rochester Symphony Orchestra
Howard Hanson Conductor
[22 October 1945]

Symphony No. 1 (Reading session)
Eastman-Rochester Symphony Orchestra
Howard Hanson Conductor
[28 October 1947]

Symphony No. 4
New York Philharmonic
James de Priest, Conductor
[21 April 1988]

Symphony No. 4
Philadelphia Orchestra
Eugene Ormandy, Conductor
[March 1976]

Concerto for English Horn and Strings
Thomas Stacey, English Horn
New York Philharmonic
Eric Leinsdorf, conductor
[17 November 1977]

Symphony No. 7 "Liturgical"
Buffalo Philharmonic Orchestra
Lukas Foss, Conductor
[25 September 1967]

Symphony No. 7 "Liturgical"
Indianapolis Symphony Orchestra
Izler Solomon, Conductor
[17 December 1960]

Concerto for Piano and Orchestra
1. Allegro Not Troppo
2. Andante Sostenuto
3. Allegro Vivace
Anthony de Bonaventura, Piano

The Pleiades
Gordon Mathie, Trumpet
Crane Chorus
Crane Symphony Orchestra
Composer. Conductor
[10 May 1968]

Concerto for Piano and Orchestra
Anthony de Bonaventura, Piano
Dartmouth Community Symphony Orchestra
Mario de Bonaventure, Conductor
First Performance
[2 August 1964]

Concerto for Piano and Orchestra
James Dick, piano
Chicago Symphony Orchestra
Eugene Ormandy, Conductor
Date unknown

Concerto for Piano and Orchestra
James Dick, piano
Philadelphia Orchestra
Eugene Ormandy, conductor
[7 December, 1979]

Concerto for Piano and Orchestra
James Dick, piano
Houston Symphony Orchestra
C. William Harwood, conductor
[16 March, 1982]


also, some of his works for band from other sources....

Symphony No. 6 (Symphony for Band)
Hofstra University Wind Ensemble
Fall 2013

Masquerade for Band
Opus 82 Wind Band
Norwegian Wind Band Championships, 2013

Psalm for Band
Pageant
North Texas Wind Symphony


Divertimento for Band
USAF Heartland of America Band
Frederick Fennell conducting
Strauss Auditorium, 
University of Nebraska at Omaha
November 1992.





David Dubal and Vincent Persichetti  Radio Show
One in a series of radio programs titled "For the Love of Music,"
hosted by David Dubal on WNCN-FM, New York. Guest is composer Vincent Persichetti. Originally broadcast on June 3, 1984.

More About Vincent Persichetti


Vincent Persichetti
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Vincent Ludwig Persichetti (June 6, 1915 – August 14, 1987) was an American composer, teacher, and pianist. An important musical educator and writer, Persichetti was a native of Philadelphia. He was known for his integration of various new ideas in musical composition into his own work and teaching, as well as for training many noted composers in composition at the Juilliard School.

His students at Juilliard included Philip Glass, Michael Jeffrey Shapiro, Kenneth Fuchs, Richard Danielpour, Robert Dennis, Peter Schickele, Lowell Liebermann, Robert Witt, Elena Ruehr, Randell Croley, William Schimmel, Leonardo Balada, and Leo Brouwer. He also taught composition to Joseph Willcox Jenkins and conductor James DePreist at the Philadelphia Conservatory.


Persichetti was born in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania in 1915 and remained a resident of that city throughout his life. Though neither of his parents were musicians, his musical education began early. Persichetti enrolled in the Combs College of Music at the age of five, where he studied piano, organ, double bass and later music theory and composition with Russel King Miller, whom he considered a great influence.

He first performed his original works publicly at the age of 14. By the time he reached his teens, Persichetti was paying for his own education by accompanying and performing. He continued to do so throughout high school, adding church organist, orchestral player and radio staff pianist to his experience. In addition to developing his musical talents, the young Persichetti attended art school and remained an avid sculptor until his death. He attended Combs for his undergraduate education as well. After receiving a bachelor's degree in 1936, he was immediately offered a teaching position.

By the age of 20, Persichetti was simultaneously head of the theory and composition department at Combs, a conducting major with Fritz Reiner at the Curtis Institute, and a student of piano (with Olga Samaroff) and composition at the Philadelphia Conservatory. He earned a master's degree in 1941 and a doctorate in 1945 from the Conservatory, as well as a conducting diploma from Curtis. In 1941, while still a student, Persichetti headed the theory and composition department as well as the department of postgraduate study at Philadelphia Conservatory.

In 1947, William Schuman offered him a professorship at Juilliard. Persichetti's students included Einojuhani Rautavaara, Leonardo Balada, Steven Gellman, Peter Schickele (P.D.Q. Bach), Michael Jeffrey Shapiro, Larry Thomas Bell, Claire Polin, Toshi Ichiyanagi, Robert Witt (who also studied with Persichetti at the Philadelphia Conservatory) and Philip Glass. He became Editorial Director of the Elkan-Vogel publishing house in 1952.

Persichetti is one of the major figures in American music of the 20th century, both as a teacher and a composer. Notably, his Hymns and Responses for the Church Year has become a standard setting for church choirs. His numerous compositions for wind ensemble are often introductions to contemporary music for high school and college students. His early style was marked by the influences of Stravinsky, Bartók, Hindemith, and Copland before he developed his distinct voice in the 1950s.

Persichetti's music draws on a wide variety of thought in 20th-century contemporary composition as well as Big Band music. His own style was marked by use of two elements he refers to as "graceful" and "gritty": the former being more lyrical and melodic, the latter being sharp and intensely rhythmic. He frequently used polytonality and pandiatonicism in his writing, and his music could be marked by sharp rhythmic interjections, but his embracing of diverse strands of musical thought makes characterizing his body of work difficult. This trend continued throughout his compositional career. His music lacked sharp changes in style over time. (Persichetti once said in an interview in Musical Quarterly that his music was "...not like a woman, that is, it does not have periods!").[this quote needs a citation] He frequently composed while driving in his car, sometimes taping staff paper to the steering wheel.

His piano music forms the bulk of his creative output, with a concerto, a concertino, twelve sonatas, and a variety of other pieces written for the instrument. These were virtuosic pieces as well as pedagogical and amateur-level compositions. Persichetti was an accomplished pianist. He wrote many pieces suitable for less mature performers, considering them to have serious artistic merit.

Persichetti is also one of the major composers for the concert wind band repertoire, with his 14 works for the ensemble. The Symphony No. 6 for band is of particular note as a standard larger work. He wrote one opera, entitled The Sibyl. The music was noted by critics for its color, but the dramatic and vocal aspects of the work were found by some to be lacking.

He wrote nine symphonies, of which the first two were withdrawn (as were the first two symphonies by two other American composers of the late thirties and early forties, William Schuman and Peter Mennin), and four string quartets.

Many of his other works are organized into series. One of these, a collection of primarily instrumental works entitled Parables, contains 25 works, many for unaccompanied wind instruments (complete listing below). His 15 Serenades include such unconventional combinations as a trio for trombone, viola, and cello, as well as selections for orchestra, for band, and for duo piano.

Persichetti frequently appeared as a lecturer on college campuses, for which he was noted for his witty and engaging manner. He wrote the noted music theory textbook, Twentieth Century Harmony: Creative Aspects and Practice, which informed readers such as Robert Fripp.[1] He and Flora Rheta Schreiber wrote a monograph on William Schuman.


Also please check out the Bruce Duffie interview with Persichetti at: 
http://www.bruceduffie.com/persichetti.html (http://www.bruceduffie.com/persichetti.html)

Also included in the download is a copy of John Christie's thesis providing a Strucutural Analysis of Persichetti's Symphony 6 ( for Band)

Thank you :)

Particularly interesting to get the withdrawn Symphony No.1 and the Cantata "The Pleiades".

Music of John Haussermann
(http://file.vintageadbrowser.com/5tmsp600slltb4.jpg)

From the collection of Karl Miller


The After Christmas Suite (1934)
Manilla Symphony Orchestra
Dr. Herbert Zipper, conductor

Symphony No 2 Op. 6 (1937-8)
( Movements 3 and 4  only)
NBC Symphony Orchestra
William Steinberg, Conductor
[28 May, 1939]

Symphony No. 3(1947)
Cincinatti Symphony Orchestra
Thor Johnson, conductor
[1 April 1949]

Pastoral Fantasy for Flute, Harp and String Orch. Op 5a (1939)
Anna Sacchi, harp;
Murray Graitzer flute;
Phil Sims String Orchestra
Jettie J. Denmark, conductor
[16 April 1939]


Concerto for Voice and Orchestra, Op. 25 (1942)
Margo Rehert (sp?) soprano,
Cincinnatti Symphony Orchestra
Sir Eugene Goossens, conductor
[24 April 1942]

From another source....

Morning Concert: The Music of John Haussermann
Radio Show
KPFA-FM
July 2, 1980
From the Other Minds Archive

About the composer from Archive.Org

One of the most unusual and inspiring stories in modern American music is that of composer John Haussermann. Born in 1909, to a wealthy family then living in Manila, Haussermann studied music at the Cincinnati Conservatory (1924–27) and at Colorado College, before going to Paris in 1930 to study organ with Marcel Dupré. While in Paris he became friends with Maurice Ravel and began serious study of composition with Paul Le Flem. Active in the Cincinnati area from the 1930s to the 1950s, he was the founder of the Contemporary Concert series in Cincinnati. In 1967 he moved to San Francisco where he was to reside until his death in 1986. An encouraging example to many others who live with a physical disability, Haussermann was born with cerebral palsy and was later confined to a wheelchair after being in a car accident, and yet he composed for decades in all media from chamber music to orchestral with the aid of a music secretary. In this program you will here some rare early recordings of his music, including the world premiere of perhaps his most famous composition the “Concerto for Voice and Orchestra, Op. 25”.


Note: There was a radio show in 1981 as part of the Disability Radio Arts Project.  Currently, its stored on reel to reel, but not available digitally.  If anyone wishes to pay the cost of a transfer, they will make it digitally--

http://www.pacificaradioarchives.org/recording/az0591 (http://www.pacificaradioarchives.org/recording/az0591)

[size=24]Music of Irving Fine[/size]

(http://bostonclassicalreview.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/05/Irving-Fine-portrait-e13884315281901.jpg)

From the collection of Karl Miller


Symphony (1962)
New York Philharmonic
Leonard Bernstein, Conductor
October 27/31, 1966

From other public sources...

Toccata Concertante (1947)
Serious Song, Lament for String Orchestra (1955)
Boston Symphony Orchestra diretta da Erich Leinsdorf

Bio from the Irving Fine Society

Irving Fine (1914-1962) was an American composer with a remarkable gift for lyricism, whose masterfully crafted scores inevitably "sing." Aaron Copland wrote that his music "wins us over through its keenly conceived sonorities and its fully realized expressive content," praising it for "elegance, style, finish and a convincing continuity." Virgil Thomson cited an "unusual melodic grace."

Fine's initial training was in piano and he became a skilled pianist, admired by colleagues for his superior sightreading ability. Composition and theory studies were with Walter Piston and Edward Burlingame Hill at Harvard University, and with Nadia Boulanger in France and at Radcliffe College, Cambridge, Massachusetts. In addition, Fine studied choral conducting with Archibald T. Davison at Harvard and orchestral conducting with Serge Koussevitzky, at Tanglewood. At Harvard, where he became a close associate of Copland, Stravinsky, Koussevitzky and Leonard Bernstein, he taught theory and music history from 1939 to 1950; and at Brandeis University he taught composition and theory from 1950 to 1962. Fine also conducted the Harvard Glee Club, and for nine summers between 1946 and 1957 taught composition at the Berkshire Music Center at Tanglewood. At Brandeis he was Walter W. Naumburg Professor of Music and chairman of the School of Creative Arts. He suffered a fatal heart attack in Boston on August 23, 1962, leaving incomplete Maggie (based on the Stephen Crane novel), a musical he was writing in collaboration with composer Richard Wernick; he had also begun a violin concerto, commissioned by the Ford Foundation. Among Fine's honors were two Guggenheim Fellowships, a Fulbright Research Fellowship, a National Institute of Arts and Letters award, and a New York Music Critics' Circle award.

An examination of Fine's small but estimable output reveals a composer who was a perfectionist on the order of Copland and Stravinsky. His works are carefully calculated and detailed, their ever-increasing emphasis on melody tellingly allied with rhythmic suppleness, clean-sounding textures, and unobtrusive but integral counterpoint.

As an artist Fine was eclectic, but in the best sense: assimilative yet individual. The influence of neoclassical Stravinsky and eighteenth-century forms is pervasive in much of his early music, along with what proved to be a lifelong attachment to romantic expression. The 1946 Sonata for Violin and Piano was accurately described by the composer as being in an idiom "essentially tonal, diatonic, moderately dissonant, neoclassic in its formal approach." Fine's neoclassicism, nurtured early on by Nadia Boulanger, is apparent even in the movement-titles of pieces such as the 1947 Music for Piano and the 1948 Partita for Wind Quintet (for instance, "Variations," "Gigue," "Waltz-Gavotte"). However, the ebulliently rhythmic Toccata Concertante for Orchestra of 1947 — which has, wrote the composer, "a certain affinity with the energetic music of the Baroque concertos" — stands as the most full-blown example of neoclassic Fine.

Subsequently, romanticism claimed pride of place, and in the elegantly bittersweet Notturno for Strings and Harp (1951), the harmonically diverse song-cycle Mutability (1952), and the austerely elegiac Serious Song: Lament for String Orchestra (1955) the result was a more intense lyricism. With such works he proved himself capable of writing melody which, as he once noted admiringly of another composer, "gives real pleasure to lots of people without being commonplace." It is not surprising that Notturno and Serious Song are the most frequently played of Fine's orchestral compositions. (Also programmed often are his highly idiomatic, unfailingly lyric and varied choral works —Alice in Wonderland, The Hour-Glass, The Choral New Yorker.)

The final development in Fine's aesthetic was his utilization of twelve-tone technique, initially in the eloquent, intense String Quartet of 1952, then in the pellucid Fantasia for String Trio of 1956, culminating in what was to be his last work, the dramatic Symphony of 1962. His interest in serialism had been stimulated by the example of Stravinsky and Copland, and like his elder colleagues he was able to use dodecaphonic method freely and subordinate it to his personal musical ideals. Fine's serially inflected scores have tonal centers, and also the formal and textural clarity, the sense of control, and the rhythmic potency of his earlier pieces. Copland described the symphony, the composer's most ambitious work, as being "almost operatic in gesture," and its urgent rhythmic polyphony, declamatory rhetoric and considerable dissonance quotient marked a new plateau in Fine's creative evolution — one that must forever intrigue as both a beginning and an end.

For what its worth, I've just posted a handful of works by different American composers from the bottomless archive of Karl Miller.  Enjoy-- and let me know if I've screwed something up.

Robert Hall Lewis

Symphony No 2 (1970-1971)

London Symphony Orchestra, composer

I cannot find a work list, but he wrote at least four symphonies. As far as I am aware, this recording (from an old CRI LP) is not commercially available on CD, but correct me if I'm wrong.

-----

Some bio, cribbed from elsewhere on the net:

b Portland, OR, 22 April 1926; d Baltimore, MD, 22 March 1996. He studied with Rogers and Hanson at the Eastman School of Music, Rochester, New York (BM 1949, MM 1951, PhD 1964), with Nadia Boulanger and Bigot in Paris (1952–3), and with Apostel, Krenek and Schiske in Vienna (1955–7). In 1954 he attended Monteux’s conducting school. Lewis taught at Goucher College and the Peabody Conservatory from 1958 and, from 1969 to 1980, at Johns Hopkins University, where he became professor in 1972 (all in Baltimore, Maryland).

Lewis composed mostly chamber and orchestral music. His earlier compositions were concerned with linear developmental processes using serial methods, but the ordered growth and evolution apparent in his music of the 1960s and 70s reflect a change in style. Beyond his basic predilection for inventive textures, unusual timbres, complex rhythms, fluent polyphony and rich harmony in a freely atonal context, Lewis sought new modes of expression in works since the early 1970s.

Lewis said that he adhered "to no particular school or system of composition" and that he considered himself to be an "independent maximalist." Lewis claimed that "it is very important that a composition have an original, distinctive character and an identity of its own, devoid of the obvious, derivative tendencies and commercial influences that surround us in much music today." His intent, he said, was to create a music of genuine interest to the listener, alternately surprising, provoking, soothing, stimulating and hopefully inspiring.

Lewis received many honours and awards, among them a Kosciuszko Foundation Chopin Scholarship, two Fulbright scholarships, two Guggenheim Fellowships, the Walter Hinrichsen Award for Composers, an award from the American Academy of Arts and Letters, several fellowship-grants from the National Endowment for the Arts, and a Maryland State Artist Fellowship Award. He also won ASCAP awards annually for nearly 30 years, beginning in 1969. He served as composer-in-residence at the American Academy in Rome and scholar-in-residence at the Rockefeller Foundation Study Centre in Italy.

Thanks for the Lewis Symphony No.2, Gauk, an intriguing work. Sounds like a Bartok Nachtmusik movement that has evolved into a multi-movement symphony!

Must find out if anything else is recorded.

I'm glad you enjoyed it. I know other works of his have been recorded, but I have never come across any.

there are quite a few things on utube..
https://www.youtube.com/results?search_query=Robert+Hall+Lewis

Music of Lukas Foss
(http://www.bruceduffie.com/foss5.jpg)

from the collection of Karl Miller



Gift of the Magi- Suite from the Ballet

Suite from the Opera Grifflekin

• Devils
• Ballad
• Piano Deviltry (James Kohn, piano)
• On Earth (Dawn)
• Song of the Fountain Statue
• Toyshop Parade
• Chase

[/i]

Behold, I Build a House


Source LP:
KM 14002
University of Wisconsin Oshkosh Choral Union
Carl Chapman, conductor
Oshkosh Symphony Orchestra
Henri B. Pensis, conductor
1986

Music of Kevin Kaska
(http://www.ncregister.com/images/uploads/Kaska(web).jpg)
From the collection of Karl Miller


Triple Concerto (World Premiere)
I Allegro con passione
II Larghetto
III Vivace brioso

Eroica Trio (Adela Peña, violin/Sara Sant' Ambrogio, cello/Erika Nickrenz, piano)
St Louis Symphony Orchestra
Hans Vonk
[9/10 November 2001]

Knights of the Red Branch (Triple Harp Concerto)
The Ride
Lament
The Return
Catherine Barretr, Jeannie Norton, Paula Page, harps
Doctors Orchestra of Houston
Libi Lebel
[19 November 2005]

BSO 2000 Famfare
Written for the Boston Symphony Orchestra

The Golden Falcon
An Egyption folk tale for children

Fratternal Journey
Commissioned by the Scottish Rite Freemasons
Milenium 2000 Symphony Orchestra
James Orent, conductor

American Rhapsody #1
Modesto Symphony Orchestra
Michael Krajewski, conductor

The Wizard of Menlo Park
An Address on Thomas Edison for Narrator and Orchestra
Alivin Epstein, actor
Cliff Schorer text

Fanfare for the New Millineum
Old South Brass

Heroic Entry
Old South Brass

Hymn of Praise
Old South Brass

My Country Phillipines
Lauron Ildefonso, flute
Boston Pops Orchestra
John Williams, conductor

I'm Glad there is you.

Music of Radie Britain
(http://library.music.indiana.edu/collections/britain/play.gif)

From the collection of Karl Miller





Lament
organist and violinist not known
this work is not in her bio-bibliography

Lasso of Time (1940)
Chorus and ensemble unknown

Lotusland (1972)
David Vanni, tenor/violinist, cellist, and pianist unknown

Nocturn(sic) (1934)
Studio Orchestra Broadcast on KFI Radio (Hollywood)

Nocturn (1934)
Amarillo Symphony Orchestra
A Clyde Roller
[22 February, 1955]

Pastorale for Two Pianos (1939)
pianists unknown

Prelude to a Drama (1928)
Burbank Symphony Orchestra
Leo Damani
[9 October 1949]

Prison(Lament) (1935)
Richard Czerwonky, violin
John Wiederhorn, piano
[5 November 1935]

Saturnale (1939)
United States Air Force Orchestra
Col. George Howard
[19 Feb 1957]

Canyon (1939)
Eastman-Rochester Symphony Orchestra
Howard Hanson
[23 October 1945]

Serenade (1942)
Sigrid von Eicke, soprano
pianist unknown

Solitudine [ Italian version of Stillness]{1940]
Wendell Noble, baritone
Pianist unknown


Southern Symphony (1935) III Rhumbando
Chicago Philharmonic Orchestra
Richard Czerwonky
[24 June 1940]

Stillness
Wendell Noble, baritone
pianist unknown

Suite for Strings (1940)
Nostaliga
Serenade
Consecration
Rochester Philharmonic Orchestra
Howard Hanson
[23 October 1945]

Cactus Rhapsody (1953)
United States Air Force Symphony Orchestra
Captain John F. Yesulatis
[4 April 1960]

Cosmic Mist Symphony (1962)
In the Beginning
Nebula
Nuclear Fission
University of Houston Symphony Orchestra
A. Clyde Roller
[18 APril 1967]

Cowboy Rhapsody(1956)
Amarillo Symphony Orchestra
A. Clyde Roller
[11 April 1956]

Goddess of Inspiration (1948)
Sigrid von Eicke, soprano
unknown pianist.

Heroic Poem(1948)
Atlanta Symphony Orchestra
Henry Sopkin
[11 March 1956]


Composer Biography from the Texas State Historical Association

BRITAIN, RADIE (1899–1994). Radie Britain, one of the most successful Texas-born composers of symphonic music in the twentieth century, was born near Silverton, Texas, on March 17, 1899, the daughter of Edgar Charles and Katie (Ford) Britain. By 1905 the family had moved to a ranch near Clarendon, and Radie studied piano at Clarendon College. Even though the family later moved to Amarillo, Radie remained in Clarendon to finish high school and the music curriculum offered there. After high school she studied one year at Crescent College near Eureka Springs, Arkansas. Her early studies were with European-trained teachers who recognized her superior talents and predicted success for her in the music world. In the fall of 1919 she enrolled at the American Conservatory in Chicago, where she studied piano with Heniot Levy. She completed her B.M. degree in 1921. She then spent a year (1921–22) as music teacher at Clarendon College and set up her own teaching studio in Amarillo (1922–23), saving as much money as possible for a trip to Europe for further study. During the summer of 1922 she studied in Dallas with the organist Pietro Yon.

Britain made her first trip to Europe during the summer of 1923. She settled in Paris, where she studied organ with Marcel Dupré. After another year teaching privately in Amarillo, she set her sights on Germany. She moved to Berlin and studied piano with Adele aus der Ohre (1924), but soon moved to Munich to study with Albert Noelte (1924–26), who encouraged her to pursue composition seriously. She had her first compositions published there and made a successful debut as a composer in May 1926. The death of her younger sister in Amarillo forced Britain to return to the U.S., but she continued studying with Noelte in Chicago (1926–27), where he had moved. Britain herself moved to Chicago permanently to teach with Noelte at Girvin Institute of Music and Allied Arts.

During these years she began to compose orchestral works, the genre that produced her greatest successes. Her training as an organist gave her insights as an orchestrator, and she began to produce a long series of programmatic orchestral works in the tradition of German post-romanticism. Her Heroic Poem (1929) was inspired by Charles Lindbergh's flight and won the Juilliard National Publication Prize in 1930. With the help of her mentor Noelte and encouragement from the Federal Music Project, her works were played by symphony orchestras all over the country during the next decade.

Her first husband, Leslie Edward Moeller, was a Chicago businessman with little interest in his wife's career. They married in June 1930, and Britain's only child, Lerae, was born in 1932. An older woman composer, Amy Beach, made it possible for Britain to spend the summers of 1935 and 1936 at the famed MacDowell Colony. During the 1930s Britain fell in love with the Italian sculptor Edgardo Simone (1889–1949). After divorcing her first husband in 1939 she moved to California and married Simone in 1940. After Simone's death Britain married Theodore Morton, an aviation pioneer, in 1959. Morton died in 1993.

In 1941 Britain settled in Hollywood, where she taught piano and composition and continued a distinguished career as a composer. She is undoubtedly the most honored Texas composer in history. More than fifty of her works received international or national awards. She was given an honorary doctorate by the Musical Arts Conservatory in Amarillo in 1958. Throughout her career she maintained a connection to her native Southwest. One of her first published piano pieces in Munich was Western Suite (1925), and she returned to her roots many times for inspiration and titles. Among her orchestral works are Southern Symphony (1935), Drouth (1939), Paint Horse and Saddle (1947), Cowboy Rhapsody (1956), and Texas (1987). Similar titles can be found in her piano, vocal, and chamber music works.

For decades Radie Britain was associated with the National League of American Pen Women. She wrote numerous articles in magazines and journals. In 1959 she wrote an unpublished autobiographical novel, Bravo, based on her relationship with Edgardo Simone. Her other published writings include Major and Minor Moods (1970), a collection of autobiographical and inspirational short stories; Composer's Corner (1978), a collection of her articles from National Pen Women Magazine; and Ridin' Herd to Writing Symphonies: an Autobiography (1996), a fascinating memoir published posthumously. Britain died on May 23, 1994, in Palm Desert, California.

Collections of Radie Britain's music, published and manuscript, are housed in several locations: the Amarillo Public Library; the American Music Center in New York; the Edwin A. Fleisher Collection of Orchestral Music in Philadelphia; the Moldenhauer Collection at Harvard University; the Texas Composers Collection at the Dolph Briscoe Center for American History, University of Texas at Austin; and the Radie Britain Collection in the UCLA Music Library's Archival Collection. The composer's original music scores, manuscripts, and tapes are at the Indiana University School of Music. The Radie Britain Papers (scrapbooks, letters, programs, notes, newspaper articles, citations, and photos) are housed at the Dolph Briscoe Center for American History, University of Texas at Austin.

Walter Piston: Symphony No. 4

(http://cdn2.newsok.biz/cache/r620-1747fc8b5b7cd63a9c8493b57096a24b.jpg)
from the collection of Karl Miller

Five different interpretations of Walter Piston's Symphony No. 4. 





Los Angeles Philharmonic
Daniel Lewis, conductor
[date unknown]
[/i]
Chicago Symphony Orchestra
Lawrence Foster, conductor
Ravina 1984

New York Philharmonic
Elyakum Shapira, conductor
14 March 1965]

Minnesota Orchestra
Edo de Waart, conductor
[13 Sept. 1991]

Detroit Sympony Orchestra
Neemi Jarvi, conductor
[date unknown]

Music of Gerard Schurmann

(http://www.gerard-schurmann.com/media/gs40ml.jpg)(http://www.gerard-schurmann.com/media/conduct.jpg)
From the collection of Karl Miller




Intro (Composer Interview)

Concerto for Orchestra (Premiere)
Pittsburg Symphony Orchestra
Edo de Waart
[29/30/31 March 1996]

Piano Concerto (1973)
(with paraphrase of the Richard Rodney Benneett PIano Concerto, first movement)
Joaquin Achucawo, piano
BBC Symphony Orchestra
Composer/Conductor

Variants for Orchestra (1971)
Northern SInfonia
Bryden Thomson

Six Studies after Bacon (1968)
Cleveland Orchestra
Lorin Maazel

Concerto for Violin and Orchestra
(with occasional references to Ginastera Violin Concerto)
Ruggero Ricci, violin
Royal Liverpool Philharmonic
Sir Charles Groves
[26 September 1978]

Charles Strouse: Concerto America

(http://www1.pictures.zimbio.com/gi/Charles%2BStrouse%2B7exb4vO5gbVm.jpg)


From the collection of Karl Miller.


Concerto America, for Piano and Orchestra

Jeffrey Siegel, piano
Boston Pops Orchestra
Conductor, Keith Lockhart(?)
[30 June 2002]

Compositions by Lionel Barrymore
(https://bnoirdetour.files.wordpress.com/2015/08/04-lionel-barrymore-key-largo-300x273.jpg?w=660)


From the collection of Karl Miller

Waltz Fantasy
Fugue Fantasia
AFRS Concert Hall Program #270
Leo Damiani
(Likely the Burbank Symphony Orchestra)

In Memoriam: John Barrymore
Philadelphia Orchestra
Eugene Ormandy, conductor
AFRS Philadelphia Symphony Program #14
[15 April 1944]

Prokofiev: Peter and the Wolf
(Lionel Barrymore- narration)
Waltz Fantasy
AFRS Los Angeles Philharmonic Replacing Philadelphia Symphony 15
Los Angeles Philharmonic
Standard Hour Concert at the Hollywood Bowl
[23 July 1944]



Barrymore may not have been one of the all time greats, but WHAT a renaissance man!  Also, I decided to use a still from Key Largo for the picture instead of his role as "Mr. Potter" from "It's a Wonderful Life."  Key Largo is, IMO, one of the greatest movies from the 40s.

SPA Records-- American Life (1954)
(http://i.ebayimg.com/images/g/QecAAOSwd0BVznBw/s-l1600.jpg)
from the collection of Karl Miller

Alex North: Holiday Set

• Sunday Morning
• Journey to Country Scene
• Baseball game
• Pause
• Journey from

[/i]

Sunday in Brooklyn: Eli Siegmeister

• Prospect Park
• Sunday Driver
• Family at Home
• Children's Story
• Coney Island[/i]
  

Music Hall Overture:  Frederick Jacobi

McConkey's Ferry Overture:  George Antheil

Saturday Night at the Firehouse: Henry Cowell

Vienna Philharmonia Orchestra
I. Charles Adler, conductor
Source LP:  SPA Records:  SPA 47



(http://i.ebayimg.com/images/g/YocAAOSwu4BVznB8/s-l1600.jpg)

Please try This:
https://www.youtube.com/results?search_query=robert+hall+lewis

Amy Beach

Any one have any  radio recordings of:


1903:   “Jephtha’s Daughter” for soprano and orchestra
1907:   “The Sea-Fairies” for soprano, contralto, female chorus and orchestra, op. 59
              “The Chambered Nautilius” for soprano, contralto, female chorus and orchestra, op.66
1915:   “Panama Hymn” for voices and orchestra, op. 74
1931:   “Christ in the Universe” for chorus and orchestra, op.132

I understand there were some radio broadcast - performances by the Eastman Symphony in the early 1960s of these pieces.
Thanks

Martha Beck Carragan (1900-1997) was the composer of this music. Her maiden name was Martha Dillard Beck, and she was married once, to the physicist George Howard Carragan (1896-1982). She was an alumna of the Oberlin Conservatory and the American Conservatory of Music. She was a pianist, a music teacher and analyst, and a composer primarily of teaching pieces for young students. In the 1930s she worked closely with Henry Cowell, Ruth Crawford Seeger, and other composers. For many years she was on the faculty of Emma Willard School, Troy, New York, and also taught privately. She founded the Friends of Chamber Music of Troy in 1948, and this organization is still active today presenting six concerts per season by internationally knoiwn chamber groups. The Prelude for Orchestra was composed in 1976 on commission from the Albany Symphony Orchestra and its music director, Julius Hegyi, and was recorded at that time in Troy Music Hall (later known as Troy Savings Bank Music Hall). It is a free composition, and from my personal knowledge was inspired by the vision of a blue sky dotted with clouds, some light and fleecy, some dark and menacing. This contribution is by William Carragan, the son of the composer.

these is an abundance of his things here:
https://www.youtube.com/results?search_query=robert+hall+lewis

Does anyone have a decent recording of Randall Thompson's Symphony No.3 they could upload? I haven't heard a version that wasn't encumbered by crackling, and CD versions seem to be unavailable.

All three symphonies were available as a 2cd set on the Koch label. I've got it on one of my shelves. Isn't it possible to get it for a reasonable price,s/h,via Amazon or ebay?

Yes,   I believe you can find it used on Amazon.  It is the Koch version.    https://www.amazon.com/Thompson-Symphonies-No-2-3/dp/B000001SEA/ref=sr_1_2?ie=UTF8&qid=1501533248&sr=8-2&keywords=randall+thompson+symphony+no+3

its there for 7 bucks!!  cheap!!

The $7 one doesn't ship to Australia, you have to get up into the v expensive copies before you find an international shipper, hence my request.