Robert Ward's Symphony No. 1; Alexei Haieff's Piano Concerto

Here are two fine mid-century works by two of the leading composers of the time, Robert Ward (1917-2013) and Alexei Haieff (1914-1994).

Robert Ward

Ward has appeared here before with his Third Symphony; today's work was his first effort in that form. This is the first time that I have featured one of Haieff's compositions on the blog.

Ward, born in Cleveland, attended the Eastman School as an undergraduate. His First Symphony dates from 1941, when he was a graduate student at Juilliard. It is a relatively brief, tonal but dramatic work, showing his early mastery.

Alexei Haieff

Haieff was born in Russia and came to the U.S. in 1931. He was a Juilliard student later in that decade, then went to Paris for work with Nadia Boulanger. He composed his piano concerto in 1947-48 while at the American Academy in Rome. It received its premiere in 1952 with Leo Smit as the soloist and Stokowski conducting.

This recording, made even before the premiere in October 1951, also features the excellent Smit. The conductor is Walter Hendl; discographer Michael Gray identifies the "American Recording Society Symphony" as the Vienna Symphony, which ARS often engaged for these sessions. Gray does not have a listing for the Ward symphony; however, it was likely recorded at about the same time, perhaps in 1951, when its conductor, Dean Dixon, was leading other ARS performances with the Vienna Symphony.

The orchestral work is very good for such unfamiliar scores, and the recordings are well balanced. The cover is unsigned, but appears to be by Peter Piening, a commercial artist who did much work for ARS.

Douglas Moore's Symphony in A

I had a request for more music from the American Recording Society, so I chose this performance of Douglas Moore's Symphony in A. It's the first recording of the work, and was one of the first releases in the ARS catalog.

Moore's symphony originally was issued by itself on a 10-inch LP. My transfer comes from a slightly later 12-inch LP reissue, where Moore's composition was coupled with Randall Thompson's Symphony No. 2. The Thompson work also originally appeared on a 10-inch disc, which I posted back in 2012. That transfer is still available, so I have not included it here.

Douglas Moore

Moore was a longtime Columbia University professor who was and is known primarily for his operas, notably The Devil and Daniel Webster (1938) and The Ballad of Baby Doe (1956). His Giants in the Earth won the Pulitzer Prize in 1951, when this present LP was recorded. The Symphony in A is dedicated to the memory of Stephen Vincent Benét, the librettist for The Devil and Daniel Webster (which is based on a Benét short story).

10-inch LP cover

The Thompson and Moore symphonies were the fourth and fifth issues from the American Recording Society, established in 1951 by the Alice Ditson Fund. Since its founding in 1940, the Fund has supported performances of music by American composers. The ARS catalog was largely devoted to conservative orchestral works, of which the Moore work is a prime example.

The earliest ARS recordings were conducted by the expatriate American Dean Dixon. Here, he leads a capable performance by the "American Recording Society Orchestra," which, according to discographer Michael Gray, is actually the Vienna Symphony. The sound, emanating from what sounds like a small hall, is relatively good.

The Moore symphony has been recorded four times, including a CRI release and a much more recent Albany Records issue.

The cover of the 12-inch LP at top was designed by Peter Piening, a notable commercial artist of the time. He worked on many other ARS LPs, including the Virgil Thomson-Otto Luening, Howard Swanson-David Diamond, John Powell-Daniel Gregory Mason and Leo Sowerby records that have appeared on this blog.

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Howard Swanson and David Diamond

Here is an early 10-inch LP in the American Recording Society (ARS) series mainly devoted to contemporary composers. It presents the first recordings of important works by Howard Swanson (1907-78) and David Diamond (1915-2005), both introduced by Dimitri Mitropoulos.

Swanson's Short Symphony, composed in 1948, was premiered by Mitropoulos with the New York Philharmonic in 1950. Here, the attractive work is performed by an orchestra directed by Dean Dixon. It is likely one of the Viennese ensembles that were busy in the recording studios throughout the 1950s.

Whatever their identity, the orchestra plays well for Dixon, particularly in the beautiful slow movement.

Howard Swanson

This circa 1952 recording was quickly succeeded by a Vanguard LP with Vienna State Opera Orchestra under Franz Litschauer, a reading I have not heard.

ARS followed up on this Swanson composition with another LP that included his Seven Songs, along with works by Roger Goeb and Ben Weber. I have that album and will transfer it later, along with a recording of Swanson's "Night Music" conducted by Mitropoulos.

David Diamond, 1955

David Diamond's Rounds for String Orchestra is possibly his best known work, commissioned by Mitropoulos when the conductor was still in his 20s. The ARS recording is, I believe, its first, and would be soon be joined by competing versions led by Vladimir Golschmann and Izler Solomon. The ARS recording is conducted by the underrated Walter Hendl, leading what is likely another Viennese orchestra.

The music is fascinating, with the formal structure providing ample opportunity for both extraordinary lyricism and exhilarating orchestral virtuosity.

The sound is very good. [Note (June 2023): this recording has been newly enhanced by ambient stereo.]

John Powell and Daniel Gregory Mason, Plus Reups

Composer John Powell is one of the most interesting and at the same time notorious figures in American music. This early American Recording Society LP presents his most famous composition, the Rhapsodie Nègre, which anticipated the so-called “concert jazz” movement by several years.

John Powell in 1916

A few words of background from Powell scholar Stephanie Doktor: “In 1918, Virginia-born composer and concert pianist John Powell premiered his Rhapsodie Nègre - a symphonic composition designed to blend both the ‘primitive’ and ‘childlike’ qualities of the Negro. The rhapsody was but one of the many compositions Powell rooted in the melodic and harmonic structures of black American music.”

Doktor goes on to say that “Powell was on the cusp of America’s burgeoning modernist concert tradition, just before he developed a distinctly anti-modernist stance. More broadly, I argue that the concert jazz vogue, which Powell presciently advanced six years before George Gershwin’s Rhapsody in Blue, reflects musical modernism’s indebtedness to conceptions of black sound.”

Nevertheless, Powell was a virulent racist. “Four years later [i.e., after the premiere of Rhapsodie Nègre], Powell launched a white supremacist campaign to preserve the Anglo-Saxon race in law and in music. Powell and his political allies helped pass the Racial Integrity Act of 1924, which prohibited miscegenation [in Virginia].”

Daniel Gregory Mason

By that time, Powell had come to believe that his music should be inspired by Anglo-Saxon folk music, a view he shared with his friend and associate, the New Englander Daniel Gregory Mason, who composed the other work on this 10-inch LP, the Chanticleer overture.

An article by David Z. Kushner, which also provides much more background on Powell, notes, “By 1920, Mason, too, was pontificating about the need to recognize the Anglo-Saxon virtues that he juxtaposes to the ‘Jewish infection in our music.’” Regardless of this rhetoric, none of this is apparent in Chanticleer, an attractive piece inspired by Thoreau’s Walden.

Dean Dixon leads the accomplished performances, with the Vienna Symphony (here in the guise of the ARS Orchestra) perhaps happier with the Powell than the Mason, in which the ensemble sounds thin (as it often did in these ARS sessions). Oddly, the soloist in the Powell work is uncredited. I don’t believe it was Dixon, who as far as I know was not a pianist.

The Mason recording is from March 1951 – at least the indispensable discographer Michael Gray lists a Mason session for that time with Dixon, although he says the work is Chronochromie rather than Chanticleer, evidentally confusing Mason for Messiaen (which probably would not have pleased the former). The Powell session is likely from about the same time. The download includes the Doktor and Kushner articles referenced above.

Reups

I had a request to reupload another ARS disc, the first recording of Ives’s Three Places in New England, coupled with Robert McBride’s amusing Violin Concerto, with the excellent soloist Maurice Wilk. Walter Hendl conducts. This has been remastered, and now has much better sound.

Another new remastered reupload is the result of a request on another site – Artur Rodzinski’s fine recording of Prokofiev’s Symphony No.5, with the superb Philharmonic-Symphony Orchestra of New York.

Links to all items are in the comments.

Two Recordings of Hanson's Symphony No. 4

Looking through my collection the other day, I came across a 10-inch LP containing a rendition of Howard Hanson's Symphony No. 4, and thought it might be a good candidate for this blog. So I started transferring it, only to realize that the orchestral playing was appalling - scrappy and scrawny, although conductor Dean Dixon and the anonymous ensemble still produced a punchy and heartfelt traversal of a fine work that was Hanson's memorial for his father.

Howard Hanson

Had Hanson himself recorded it, I wondered? Back to the stacks I went, finally finding his own version by accident - it was filed nearby under the composer of the other work on the disc, Roy Harris. Looking at the cover, I knew immediately that I had already had a go at the record and offered it here, four years ago!

So I've decided to present both versions at this time, and you can choose your favorite. I believe the Dixon edition came first; Hanson may have recorded his later in self-defense. Gramphone reviewed the composer-directed LP in early 1953, suggesting a circa 1952 recording date.

The recording quality of both is reasonably good. The Hanson-Harris album is newly remastered.

Randall Thompson's Second Symphony

Looking at the cover, you might expect this record to dance band music that would make you want to get up and do the Lindy hop.

Well, not exactly. Randall Thompson's 1931 Symphony No. 2 is not something that you would find in the Paul Whiteman book. It is a relatively conventional symphony, although it makes use of simple materials - even simplistic, in the case of the first movement. Thompson, one of the leading American composers for many years, is today much better known for his choral works than his symphonic efforts.

Randall Thompson

The performance is a good one, led by the American conductor Dean Dixon with what is probably a Viennese orchestra. This was among the first issues by the American Recording Society, a non-profit organization that was set up in 1951 by the Alice Ditson Fund to promote American music. This recording is now rebalanced and enhanced with ambient stereo to counteract the bony acoustic.

Dean Dixon

Virgil Thomson and Otto Luening

Here is one of the early LPs issued by the American Recording Society, which started as a non-profit with a grant from the Ditson Fund to record works by American composers.

The first side of this album is devoted to what I believe is the initial recording of Virgil Thomson's The River. Thomson has appeared here previously with one of his lesser-known works, the ballet Filling Station. The River, one of the composer's best known works, is a suite derived from the music from Pare Lorentz's 1938 documentary on the Mississippi. Thomson was perfectly suited for the documentary approach and its subject, with his use of simple forms and popular songs, and his tendency to remain just a bit removed from his source material, commenting on it with gentle irony. (One of the key motifs in the first piece is The Bear Went Over the Mountain; I imagine Thomson found this droll.) The combination of his music, Lorentz's Whitmanesque narration and the images became one of the definitive statements of late Depression Americana. The music itself was a major influence on Aaron Copland, heard most directly in Copland's score for the documentary The City.

While Thomson's music for The River is well known, the Otto Luening works herein are not. These days Luening is remembered as a pioneer of electronic music, but these orchestral pieces have little to do with those works. The Prelude on a Hymn Tune makes use of source material from William Billings, an early American composer. It was common for composers in the first half of the 20th century to base a work on a theme by composer of an earlier day. Luening pointedly made use of a theme by an American composer. The other works on the record, Two Symphonic Interludes, are from 1935. (I believe the Prelude is from the same period.) All this music is accessible and accomplished, but not memorable in the way that Thomson's work is.

These performances were recorded in 1953. The "American Recording Society Orchestra" was a Viennese group, probably the Vienna Symphony, and they play the music convincingly. The Thomson is conducted by Walter Hendl, mostly known among record collectors as an accompanist, and the Luening works are led by Dean Dixon, the interesting American conductor who mostly worked in Europe. My friend Fred of the blog Random Classics has been on a one-man crusade to get more notice and recognition for Dixon, so this post goes out to him. Also in the download is a 1952 article on Dixon from The Critic, an NAACP publication.

As mentioned above, the American Recording Society was a non-profit. It was established in 1951, with the works to be chosen by an advisory board that included Luening. The ARS was a record club of sorts; after you signed up, each month you would be offered a new recording. The Society advertised heavily in magazines; the ad below (click to enlarge) is from the January 7, 1952 issue of Life. I think I have that Piston second symphony recording around here somewhere.