Jul 19, 2011

Copland: Appalachian Spring (CD review)

Also, William Schuman: A Free Song; Leo Sowerby: The Canticle of the Sun. Carlos Kalmar, Grant Park Orchestra and Chorus. Cedille CDR 90000 125.

Titled The Pulitzer Project, this 2011 album from Cedille Records features three compositions that won Pulitzer Prizes in the mid Forties, two of them world première recordings. Yes, I know what you're thinking: How is it possible that record companies haven't recorded two Pulitzer Prize-winning pieces of music before now? Well, frankly, as good as they are, they aren't highly accessible, and I can only suppose that most record companies weren't sure they'd sell. Indeed, it may be why Cedille chose to include Copland's Appalachian Spring along with them to ensure the disc's success.

Surprisingly, perhaps, given that the Pulitzer committee has been handing out awards since 1917, they only started giving prizes for music in 1943. The criterion is "for a distinguished musical composition by an American that has had its first performance or recording in the United States during the year." That first year, 1943, they awarded the prize to William Schuman (1910-1992) for his brief, thirteen-minute, two-movement work A Free Song, which begins the program.

Schuman wrote A Free Song for orchestra and chorus, basing it on a poem, "Drum Taps," by American poet Walt Whitman. A press release for the music's original publication announced that "grace and charm are crowded out by the impact of granite-like blocks of dissonant harmony and sharp-edged counterpoint." With publicity like that, it's no wonder no one recorded the music until now.

It's not as bad as it seems, though, and under Maestro Carlos Kalmar's deft direction, some of that sharp edge feels diminished. While it is still not an easy piece of music to live with, it makes a strong, if brief, curtain raiser, acting as a kind of overture to the rest of the program.

The centerpiece of the album is Appalachian Spring by Aaron Copland (1900-1990), a piece that won the Pulitzer in 1945. It's familiar enough for most of you probably to own several different recordings of several different versions of it. It's available in its complete, original chamber version, complete orchestral version, and popular suite, which is what we get here. My own favorite recordings have been those by Michael Tilson Thomas (RCA), Leonard Slatkin (EMI), Leonard Bernstein (DG), Antal Dorati (Decca), and, most of all, by the composer himself (Sony). However, this new recording by Carlos Kalmar fits in nicely with the best of them. Among the adjectives I wrote down as I was listening were graceful, easygoing, gentle, smooth, light, folksy, breezy, charming, amiable, cozy, and neighborly. It's quite the moving interpretation, and, as I say, places it among the best readings available.

The final work on the program is The Canticle of the Sun by Leo Sowerby (1895-1968), the piece winning the prize in 1946. Sowerby based his eleven-movement suite for orchestra and chorus on English writer Matthew Arnold's translation of the St. Francis of Assisi poem. Its orchestral prelude adopts a rather lofty tone, followed by an equally grandiose entry from the chorus. The mood lightens considerably as it goes along, although it tends to alternate august, sweeping sections with soft, serene, flowing ones, and not a few hectic, stormy ones in between. Kalmar probably does what he can with the music, but it may not appeal to every listener despite some lovely passages.

Cedille recorded the music "in concert at the Harris Theater for Music and Dance in Millennium Park, Chicago, June 25 and 26, 2010." I didn't really like the thought of that "in concert" business because even though live performances can sound fine, they often don't sound as good as they might have sounded in the studio or without an audience. In the case of this Cedille recording, it is good, but it is not quite as good as I'd liked.

First, it sounds fairly close up, probably to minimize audience noise. It does its job in this regard quite well. Along with the absence of any annoying applause, the miking picks up little or no distracting audience commotion. Second, it sounds big, widely spread out, and slightly forward. There are times when it also sounds a bit thin and hard compared to Cedille's best work, occasionally favoring the upper midrange. However, a wide dynamic range and some solid impact help to add needed realism to the occasion.

JJP
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Meet the Staff

Meet the Staff
John J. Puccio, Founder and Contributor

Understand, I'm just an everyday guy reacting to something I love. And I've been doing it for a very long time, my appreciation for classical music starting with the musical excerpts on the Big Jon and Sparkie radio show in the early Fifties and the purchase of my first recording, The 101 Strings Play the Classics, around 1956. In the late Sixties I began teaching high school English and Film Studies as well as becoming interested in hi-fi, my audio ambitions graduating me from a pair of AR-3 speakers to the Fulton J's recommended by The Stereophile's J. Gordon Holt. In the early Seventies, I began writing for a number of audio magazines, including Audio Excellence, Audio Forum, The Boston Audio Society Speaker, The American Record Guide, and from 1976 until 2008, The $ensible Sound, for which I served as Classical Music Editor.

Today, I'm retired from teaching and use a pair of bi-amped VMPS RM40s loudspeakers for my listening. In addition to writing for the Classical Candor blog, I served as the Movie Review Editor for the Web site Movie Metropolis (formerly DVDTown) from 1997-2013. Music and movies. Life couldn't be better.

Karl Nehring, Editor and Contributor

For nearly 30 years I was the editor of The $ensible Sound magazine and a regular contributor to both its equipment and recordings review pages. I would not presume to present myself as some sort of expert on music, but I have a deep love for and appreciation of many types of music, "classical" especially, and have listened to thousands of recordings over the years, many of which still line the walls of my listening room (and occasionally spill onto the furniture and floor, much to the chagrin of my long-suffering wife). I have always taken the approach as a reviewer that what I am trying to do is simply to point out to readers that I have come across a recording that I have found of interest, a recording that I think they might appreciate my having pointed out to them. I suppose that sounds a bit simple-minded, but I know I appreciate reading reviews by others that do the same for me — point out recordings that they think I might enjoy.

For readers who might be wondering about what kind of system I am using to do my listening, I should probably point out that I do a LOT of music listening and employ a variety of means to do so in a variety of environments, as I would imagine many music lovers also do. Starting at the more grandiose end of the scale, the system in which I do my most serious listening comprises Marantz CD 6007 and Onkyo CD 7030 CD players, NAD C 658 streaming preamp/DAC, Legacy Audio PowerBloc2 amplifier, and a pair of Legacy Audio Focus SE loudspeakers. I occasionally do some listening through pair of Sennheiser 560S headphones. I miss the excellent ELS Studio sound system in our 2016 Acura RDX (now my wife's daily driver) on which I had ripped more than a hundred favorite CDs to the hard drive, so now when driving my 2024 Honda CRV Sport L Hybrid, I stream music from my phone through its adequate but hardly outstanding factory system. For more casual listening at home when I am not in my listening room, I often stream music through a Roku Streambar Pro system (soundbar plus four surround speakers and a 10" sealed subwoofer) that has surprisingly nice sound for such a diminutive physical presence and reasonable price. Finally, at the least grandiose end of the scale, I have an Ultimate Ears Wonderboom II Bluetooth speaker and a pair of Google Pro Earbuds for those occasions where I am somewhere by myself without a sound system but in desperate need of a musical fix. I just can’t imagine life without music and I am humbly grateful for the technologies that enable us to enjoy it in so many wonderful ways.

William (Bill) Heck, Webmaster and Contributor

Among my early childhood memories are those of listening to my mother playing records (some even 78 rpm ones!) of both classical music and jazz tunes. I suppose that her love of music was transmitted genetically, and my interest was sustained by years of playing in rock bands – until I realized that this was no way to make a living. The interest in classical music was rekindled in grad school when the university FM station serving as background music for studying happened to play the Brahms First Symphony. As the work came to an end, it struck me forcibly that this was the most beautiful thing I had ever heard, and from that point on, I never looked back. This revelation was to the detriment of my studies, as I subsequently spent way too much time simply listening, but music has remained a significant part of my life. These days, although I still can tell a trumpet from a bassoon and a quarter note from a treble clef, I have to admit that I remain a nonexpert. But I do love music in general and classical music in particular, and I enjoy sharing both information and opinions about it.

The audiophile bug bit about the same time that I returned to classical music. I’ve gone through plenty of equipment, brands from Audio Research to Yamaha, and the best of it has opened new audio insights. Along the way, I reviewed components, and occasionally recordings, for The $ensible Sound magazine. Most recently I’ve moved to my “ultimate system” consisting of a BlueSound Node streamer, an ancient Toshiba multi-format disk player serving as a CD transport, Legacy Wavelet II DAC/preamp/crossover, dual Legacy PowerBloc2 amps, and Legacy Signature SE speakers (biamped), all connected with decently made, no-frills cables. With the arrival of CD and higher resolution streaming, that is now the source for most of my listening.

Ryan Ross, Contributor

I started listening to and studying classical music in earnest nearly three decades ago. This interest grew naturally out of my training as a pianist. I am now a musicologist by profession, specializing in British and other symphonic music of the 19th and 20th centuries. My scholarly work has been published in major music journals, as well as in other outlets. Current research focuses include twentieth-century symphonic historiography, and the music of Jean Sibelius, Ralph Vaughan Williams, and Malcolm Arnold.

I am honored to contribute writings to Classical Candor. In an age where the classical recording industry is being subjected to such profound pressures and changes, it is more important than ever for those of us steeped in this cultural tradition to continue to foster its love and exposure. I hope that my readers can find value, no matter how modest, in what I offer here.


Bryan Geyer, Technical Analyst

I initially embraced classical music in 1954 when I mistuned my car radio and heard the Heifetz recording of Mendelssohn's Violin Concerto. That inspired me to board the new "hi-fi" DIY bandwagon. In 1957 I joined one of the pioneer semiconductor makers and spent the next 32 years marketing transistors and microcircuits to military contractors. Home audio DIY projects remained a personal passion until 1989 when we created our own new photography equipment company. I later (2012) revived my interest in two channel audio when we "downsized" our life and determined that mini-monitors + paired subwoofers were a great way to mate fine music with the space constraints of condo living.

Visitors that view my technical papers on this site may wonder why they appear here, rather than on a site that features audio equipment reviews. My reason is that I tried the latter, and prefer to publish for people who actually want to listen to music; not to equipment. My focus is in describing what's technically beneficial to assure that the sound of the system will accurately replicate the source input signal (i. e. exhibit high accuracy) without inordinate cost and complexity. Conversely, most of the audiophiles of today strive to achieve sound that's euphonic, i.e. be personally satisfying. In essence, audiophiles seek sound that's consistent with their desire; the music is simply a test signal.

Mission Statement

It is the goal of Classical Candor to promote the enjoyment of classical music. Other forms of music come and go--minuets, waltzes, ragtime, blues, jazz, bebop, country-western, rock-'n'-roll, heavy metal, rap, and the rest--but classical music has been around for hundreds of years and will continue to be around for hundreds more. It's no accident that every major city in the world has one or more symphony orchestras.

When I was young, I heard it said that only intellectuals could appreciate classical music, that it required dedicated concentration to appreciate. Nonsense. I'm no intellectual, and I've always loved classical music. Anyone who's ever seen and enjoyed Disney's Fantasia or a Looney Tunes cartoon playing Rossini's William Tell Overture or Liszt's Hungarian Rhapsody No. 2 can attest to the power and joy of classical music, and that's just about everybody.

So, if Classical Candor can expand one's awareness of classical music and bring more joy to one's life, more power to it. It's done its job. --John J. Puccio

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"Their Master's Voice" by Michael Sowa

"Their Master's Voice" by Michael Sowa