Fanfare Reviews
from January/February 1999
MOZART Serenade No. 10 in B-Flat, K 361. R. STRAUSS Serenade in E-Flat, op. 7. MILHAUD Suite française • Frederick Fennell, cond; Eastman Wind Ens • MERCURY 434 399-2, analog (71:43)
The recordings Mercury was making in the 1950s and 60s under the masterful supervision of Harold Lawrence were technically as outstanding in their time as some of Telefunken's achievements had been in the 30s. Not just technically either, for they included such gems as a Kubelik/Chicago Symphony performance of the Bartók Music for Strings, Percussion, and Celesta that has perhaps never been equaled in any recording format.
Taken from masters originally recorded in 1958, the present reissue, though expertly enough managed in technical terms, sounds at this distance in time a trifle thin except in one of its three component works, and is not one of the label's--or Frederick Fennell's--most satisfying offerings musically. But the question of comparative recommendations is less difficult than it might appear. If Milhaud's Suite française, a highly successful piece of unpretentious light music with three splendidly raucous quick movements enclosing a pair of ripely nostalgic slower ones, is your principal interest here, and if you are prepared to regard the Strauss and the much more substantial Mozart as bonuses, no hesitation is needed. This is by far the best-sounding recording of the three, with a crisp contribution from assorted percussion instruments, and Fennell leads a suitably uninhibited performance.
His Mozart, however, quite apart from its rather thin sonority, is neither a particularly musical nor a convincingly stylish interpretation. The main part of the first movement is taken at a Molto allegro that is not very molto at all, and several other parts of the work, including the rapturous Adagio, the Adagio segments of the Romanze, and the minore in the variation movement, are sluggish in the extreme. Fennell takes all repeats in the last two movements, but cuts the exposition repeat in the first movement, and does not observe any at all in the first minuet with its two trios. Further, the curious composite bass line he has put together--bringing not only double bass and contrabassoon, but contrabass clarinet too, into the picture--sounds bizarre at times.
That Fennell was no great shakes as a scholar is borne out by a telling error in his note on the single-movement Strauss Serenade: fooled by that old deceiver, the opus number, he assumes that the piece was written after the Suite for Winds, op. 4--but op. 7 actually preceded that work by three years, which is the sort of fact a wind-music specialist of Fennell's eminence might have been expected to be aware of.
Practically all the failings in the Fennell Mozart performance are triumphantly avoided in Philippe Herreweghe's thrilling Parisian version on Harmonia Mundi (coupled with the C-Minor Serenade), which I reviewed enthusiastically in Fanfare 21:1, and which I continue to recommend alongside older versions by Colin Davis on RCA and by Barenboim and Furtwängler--though the latter two are regrettably unlisted in the current catalogs. As for the Strauss, Gerard Oskamp's two-disc set of the composer's works for large wind ensemble on Verdi Classics is as fine a version as I have encountered, with much more Romantic afflatus than the somewhat sober Fennell performance; Gerard Schwarz also has a Delos recording that I haven't yet heard, but what I have heard of his Strauss suggests that his version might well be worth seeking out.
Bernard Jacobson
Copyright © 1999 by Fanfare, Inc. Reprinted by permission from Volume 22, No. 3 (January/February 1999), pages 215-216.
PAGEANT • Jack Stamp, cond; Keystone Wind Ens • CITADEL CTD 88132 (66:12)
BARBER Commando March. PERSICHETTI Pageant. SCHUMAN Newsreel in 5 Shots. J. W. JENKINS American Overture. DELLO JOIO Scenes from "The Louvre". R. R. BENNETT Symphonic Songs. CHANCE Incantation and Dance. WERLE Concertino for 3 Brass and Band. STAMP Cheers!
Here is yet another new release in the Keystone Wind Ensemble's fine series of recordings on Citadel. I must, however, begin with a digression.
As I mentioned in my review of the KWE's most recent disc in the last issue of Fanfare, the 1950s were a "golden age of American band music." It was perhaps Edwin Franko Goldman and his son Richard who, during the early 1940s, began to encourage some of America's most distinguished composers to devote attention to the concert band medium, but it was during the 1950s that the finest works really began to appear. Persichetti's Symphony No. 6 and smaller works, Giannini's Symphony No. 3 and smaller works, Mennin's Canzona, Schuman's George Washington Bridge and Chester Overture, and many other treasures all appeared during this decade. It was in 1952 that Frederick Fennell formed the Eastman Symphonic Wind Ensemble, conceived as a virtuoso group capable of the subtlety, precision, and flexibility of a fine symphony orchestra, and it was just a few years later that Mercury Records initiated its brilliantly produced series of recordings that featured the ESWE in breathtaking performances of first-class repertoire. These recordings provided inspiration, motivation, and a common ideal as a frame of reference for a generation of students in high-school bands throughout the country. Much of the activity involving these bands was coordinated by the Music Educators National Conference, a national organization with individual state divisions that sponsored annual competitions and festivals of hand-picked ensembles. As a participant in this movement during the Kennedy years, I continue to regard that experience as one of the most positive and formative aspects of my adolescence. Although many of those wonderful Eastman recordings are now available on CD, it is a delight to see new versions of some of this music appear, and to encounter a new group on the scene to champion it. I only hope that there is a new generation of listeners to appreciate it as well.
The personal history mentioned above may explain why for me the most exciting piece on this new CD is the American Overture by Joseph Willcox Jenkins--a piece that the ESWE never recorded. All I know about Jenkins appears in the notes to this recording: that he studied with Hanson and Persichetti, was most recently associated with Duquesne University in Pittsburgh, and is now 70 years old. I have never heard any of his other music, but I can say that this American Overture, composed in 1956, and played by me in one of those regional bands just a handful of years later, vividly captures the innocence, enthusiasm, and optimism of adolescence experienced during that period. Although the foregoing remarks indicate plainly that I make no pretense at hearing this piece "objectively," I know perfectly well that it is no immortal masterpiece. On the other hand, despite its utterly conventional formal design, it fulfills the expectations of a five-minute overture ideally, without a moment that is superfluous, awkward, insincere, or lacking in taste. I played this recording for a few friends who do not share my personal background, and they found the piece delightful, so I am hopeful that other listeners will as well.
Vincent Persichetti's significance as a composer is indelibly associated with the blossoming of the wind ensemble medium during the 1950s--indeed, it is hard to imagine one without the other, and it is safe to say that of the many composers who made important contributions to this repertoire, Persichetti's are not only the most musically rewarding but are also the most organically derived outgrowths of the medium itself. In other words, for Persichetti the medium was an essential part of the message. This, though true in a superficial sense of many pedestrian efforts (marches and other utilitarian fodder), is not so true of more substantial, musically ambitious efforts.
Persichetti composed Pageant in 1953, as something of a sequel to the Psalm written the previous year. In a two-part slow-fast design, Pageant is an accessible, warmly exuberant work whose simple directness conceals a formal sophistication that lends the music strength and durability. Listeners interested in exploring the full range of Persichetti's music for winds are directed to any of several excellent performances of his Symphony No. 6, as well as to the all-Persichetti band CD on Harmonia Mundi (HMU 907092), featuring seven works played by the London Symphony winds under the direction of David Amos.
William Schuman's Newsreel in Five Shots dates from 1941, the same year as the popular Third Symphony. Listeners who know the composer chiefly through his grand, hard-edged symphonic canvases are likely to be surprised by this group of five brash and witty sketches that add up to a total of eight minutes. On the other hand, those who know Schuman's music well will hear traces of some of his other "unbuttoned" pieces, such as Holiday Song and The Mighty Casey (which came later).
Samuel Barber is represented by his highly uncharacteristic Commando March, written during the composer's military stint during World War II, a period when he was making a number of "excursions" into relatively alien stylistic territory, with uneven results. The Commando March must be one of America's least macho marches, and used to evoke snickers from us supercilious teenagers. While it is, however, far from top-drawer Barber, it is a very sophisticated little piece, with harmonic subtleties that emerge with particular clarity in this extremely transparent and deft performance.
Robert Russell Bennett is, of course, best known as an arranger of some 300 Broadway musicals. But his most widely performed original music comprises the pieces he wrote for band, especially the Suite of Old American Dances. The Symphonic Songs offered here were composed in 1957 and display the clever and sophisticated treatment of vernacular styles that one might expect. The first section, entitled "Serenade," features some especially nifty rhythmic effects.
Norman Dello Joio's Scenes from "The Louvre" is a suite taken from his Emmy Award-winning score for a 1962 television documentary. Typical of the composer, the music is both innocuous and vacuous, whatever color it has deriving from real or ersatz Renaissance material and French folk tunes.
John Barnes Chance was a composer whose body of work, which emphasized music for winds, was abbreviated by his untimely death in 1972 at the age of 40. Incantation and Dance, composed in 1962, is probably his best-known work. Although its title brings to mind Paul Creston, who composed many works with similar appellations, this piece bears very little resemblance to the music of the elder master, lacking its forceful gestures and bacchanalian kinetic energy. To the contrary, Incantation and Dance is rather subdued, and is scored relatively lightly and transparently, with particularly elaborate and effective use of percussion.
Born in 1929, Floyd Werle is another composer whose reputation centers chiefly around his music for winds. The few pieces of his that have come my way have a dry, impersonal quality that holds little appeal for me. This seven-minute Concertino features a trio of trumpet, trombone, and tuba. The first movement is almost a Kurt Weill paraphrase, the second movement is utterly nondescript, while the concluding "Greek Dance," in the expected seven-beat meter, sounds more like Leonard Bernstein, another enthusiast of septameter.
The disc concludes with conductor Jack Stamp's own brash and vigorous Cheers!, a brief canonic fanfare written in tribute to England's great band music tradition.
Once again the Keystone Wind Ensemble makes an impressive showing--perhaps even more so than its previous disc. I eagerly look forward to further releases of this caliber.
Walter Simmons
Copyright © 1999 by Fanfare, Inc. Reprinted by permission from Volume 22, No. 3 (January/February 1999), pages 314-316.
Home - Favorites - Composers - CD Big List- Reviews - Books - Links - Search - About Us