William Schuman: Symphonies Nos. 3 and 8, Symphony for Strings
New York Philharmonic, Leonard Bernstein, conductor (Sony Classical)
Schuman: In Praise of Shahn, To Thee Old Cause; Barber: Adagio for Strings, Violin Concerto
Isaac Stern, violin; New York Philharmonic, Bernstein, conductor (Sony Classical)
Schuman: Symphony No. 6; Walter Piston: Symphony No. 4; Roy Harris: Symphony No. 7 Philadelphia Orchestra, Eugene Ormandy, conductor (Albany)
At a time when no prominent American composers are writing symphonies and orchestral works that so open-heartedly proclaim their Americanness, it’s good to be reminded of a time when they were. William Schuman, who left us with 10 symphonies (the first two were withdrawn) before his death in 1992, made as important a contribution to the genre as any native composer. The four Schuman symphonies reissued by Sony and Albany should do much to boost the reputation of a major figure whose tradition-anchored music fell out of fashion amid the academic-modernist vogue of the ’60s and ’70s.
The dazzling colors of Schuman’s orchestration, the originality of his formal and harmonic structures, the crackling vitality of his rhythms–all are to be found in his Third Symphony (1941), part of a “holy trinity” of American Thirds to which Copland and Harris also contributed masterpieces. This is the best place to begin exploring Schuman’s output, particularly now that Sony has conveniently released on a single CD all three of the Schuman symphonies recorded by his staunchest champion, Leonard Bernstein. Of the two recordings Lenny left of this score, Sony’s is the one to have. The equally accessible string symphony (No. 5) and the grittier, eloquent Symphony No. 8 round out the disc.
More Schuman-by-Bernstein, the elegiac “To Thee Old Cause” (a quasi-oboe concerto inspired by the deaths of Martin Luther King Jr. and Robert Kennedy) and the intense, emotive “In Praise of Shahn” (an homage to artist Ben Shahn) also figures in the first batch of releases in Sony’s new midprice “Bernstein Century” series, coupled with Isaac Stern’s classic 1964 recording of the Samuel Barber Violin Concerto and Barber’s Adagio for Strings. The remasterings score noticeably freshen the original LP sound. The liner notes are inexcusably skimpy.
Also not to be missed is the Albany disc, part of its “American Archives Series,” devoted to other major American symphonies dating from 1948 to 1952–Schuman’s Sixth, Piston’s Fourth and Harris’ Seventh–in recordings that originally appeared on Columbia. Each score is impressively made and impressively performed by Eugene Ormandy and his Philadelphians, while the monaural sound is perfectly listenable. The annotations are thorough, although the picture identified as Walter Piston’s on the booklet cover is clearly not Piston.
