Hanson's "Romantic" - The First Recording

Howard Hanson

The most popular work by Nebraska-born Howard Hanson (1896-1981) is his Second Symphony of 1930, long a favorite with youth and amateur orchestras because it is apparently relatively easy to bring off a convincing performance by such ensembles. Perhaps this is fitting, given Hanson's status as a musical educator; after all, he transformed the Eastman School of Music into one of America's top music schools during his 40 years as its director. But his Second Symphony actually was commissioned by the Boston Symphony, for its 50th anniversary. Ten years later, in 1940, Victor's first two sets featuring American symphonies simultaneously hit the record shops. The BSO's contribution wasn't Hanson's - it was the Third Symphony by Roy Harris. Hanson himself led his Eastman-Rochester orchestra in the symphony he had written for Boston:

Hanson: Symphony No. 2, Op. 30 ("Romantic")
Eastman-Rochester Symphony Orchestra conducted by Howard Hanson
Recorded May 11, 1939
Victor Musical Masterpiece set AM-648, four 78-rpm records
Link (FLAC files, 86.64 MB)
Link (MP3 files, 55.94 MB)

Hanson was to record the "Romantic" Symphony twice more, in 1952 for Columbia, and in 1958 for Mercury. This Victor recording is not only his first recording of the work, but his first recording of anything. I've compiled a list, from Michael Gray's Classical Discography, of Hanson's Victor sessions from 1939-42, and the 58 issued sides they produced, in order by matrix number:

May 11, 1939:

CS-035859/66 Hanson: Symphony No. 2 "Romantic"  (15865/8 [M-648])
BS-035867 Charles Vardell: Joe Clark Steps Out  (2059-A)
BS-035868 Still: Afro-American Symphony - Scherzo  (2059-B)
CS-035869/70 MacDowell: "Indian" Suite - Dirge  (15567 [in M-608])
CS-035871/2 Chadwick: Symphonic Sketches - Jubilee  (15566 [in M-608])
BS-035873/4 Sowerby: Comes Autumn Time  (2058)
CS-035875/6 Paine: Oedipus Tyrannus - Prelude  (15568 [in M-608])
CS-035877 Griffes: The White Peacock  (15569-A [in M-608])
CS-035878 Kent Kennan: Night Soliloquy  (15569-B [in M-608])

April 29 & 30, 1940:

CS-048819/22 Hanson: Merry Mount Suite  (17795/6 [M-781])
BS-048823 Robert Braine: Pavane - El Greco  (2112-A)
BS-048824 Robert Braine: Habañera - Lazy Cigarette  (2112-B)
CS-048825 Wayne Barlow: Rhapsody - The Winter's Past  (18101-B [in M-802])
CS-048826 Bernard Rogers: Soliloquy  (18101-A [in M-802])
CS-048827/32 Copland: Music for the Theatre  (17688/90 [M-744])
CS-048833 Burrill Phillips: American Dance  (18102-A [in M-802])
CS-048834 Homer Keller: Serenade  (18102-B [in M-802])

May 9 & 10, 1941:

CS-065310/4 Hanson: The Lament for Beowulf  (11-8114/6-A [in M-889])
CS-065315 Spencer Norton: Dance Suite - Prologue  (11-8116-B [in M-889])
CS-065316/21 Loeffler: A Pagan Poem  (18479/81 [M-876])

May 7 & 8, 1942:

CS-075100/5 Hanson: Symphony No. 1 "Nordic"  (11-8623/5 [M-973])
CS-075109 Charles Skilton: Suite Primeval - War Dance  (11-8302-A)
CS-075113/4 Griffes: Poem for Flute and Orchestra  (11-8349)
CS-075115 Skilton: Suite Primeval - Sunrise Dance  (11-8302-B)

(All the 1941-42 recordings except the Skilton can be accessed here.)

Hanson had two sessions for Columbia, one in 1950, the other in 1952, producing a total of five works (among them, Wallingford Riegger's Third Symphony). Four days after the second Columbia session, he began the fruitful association with Mercury that would continue until 1965.

Two More American "Thirds"

Cover design by Robert Selnick

I've written in the past about the phenomenon of the Great American Third Symphony, particularly in respect to Copland and Roy Harris, and here on this LP are two more contenders. I confess that I had never heard any of the music of Wallingford Riegger (1885-1961) before I found this record. What little I knew about him - that his mature style was essentially atonal - didn't make me eager to seek him out. I've never particularly cared for atonality, and all the atonal works I like - such as Schoenberg's Pierrot Lunaire and Serenade, and most of Alban Berg's music - I like resolutely in spite of the atonality. Well, I was quite blown away by Riegger's Third Symphony, an atonal work with freshness and great rhythmic vitality, and I'm sorry I took so long to make Riegger's acquaintance. It's astonishing to me that this great symphony has never received a recording subsequent to this Naumberg Foundation-funded one of 1952:

Wallingford Riegger: Symphony No. 3, Op. 42
Eastman-Rochester Symphony Orchestra conducted by Howard Hanson
Recorded April 30, 1952
Side 1 of Columbia Masterworks ML-4902, one LP record
Link (FLAC files, 71.62 MB)
Link (MP3 files, 44.13 MB)

Quite unusual repertoire, too, for Howard Hanson to conduct - he tended to favor more conservative styles among his numerous recordings of American works. But his advocacy for Riegger is quite persuasive in this, one of his few Columbia recordings with the Eastman orchestra. By the time it was released in 1955, he was already a fixture at Mercury, and I suspect that the issue was delayed because there was nothing else "in the can" conducted by Hanson to pair it with. The Mennin symphony, conducted by Mitropoulos, was recorded two years later:

Peter Mennin: Symphony No. 3 (1946)
New York Philharmonic conducted by Dimitri Mitropoulos
Recorded February 1, 1954
Side 2 of Columbia Masterworks ML-4902, one LP record
Link (FLAC files, 63.24 MB)
Link (MP3 files, 38.04 MB)

I'm sorry to say that I can't summon as much enthusiasm for this work as for the Riegger, although I recognize the importance of Peter Mennin (1923-1989) as a symphonist (he was another in that long list of those who wrote nine, although I think he suppressed the first one). But I hear too many echoes of Vaughan Williams' inimitable Fourth Symphony in Mennin's first movement for comfort. Still, it's good solid music, quite impressive for a 23-year-old youngster, and of course it gets a superb performance from Mitropoulos and his orchestra.

Both of these recordings were reissued around 1970 by Composers Recordings, Inc., but unfortunately with fake stereo effect added. I would hope that they removed this for the CD reissues they made, but it's a moot point in any case, since CRI went bankrupt some ten years ago.

Hanson and Piston by Hanson

Just in time for the Fourth of July, a couple of Pulitzer Prize-winning symphonies which are utterly different from each other, and therefore complement each other nicely.  Piston's, which received the 1948 Pulitzer, is yet another of those "Great American Third Symphonies" (a phenomenon started by Roy Harris, and continued by William Schuman and Aaron Copland) and seems to me one of the finest of his eight, with a spiky scherzo that makes one regret he didn't write more symphonies with scherzos (only Nos. 4 and 6 also have them), which fits into an overall slow-fast-slow-fast four movement pattern of the type that had been recently been popularized by Shostakovich and Prokofiev in their Fifth Symphonies.  Hanson's Fourth, the 1944 Pulitzer winner, has the exact opposite pattern, and is cast as an orchestral Requiem "In Memory of my beloved Father." (Had he taken the idea from Britten's "Sinfonia da Requiem"?)  The Sibelian echoes are very strong here, but even so this strikes me as the finest of Hanson's symphonies among those that I've heard (which is all of them except Nos. 5 and 7), and of course the performance is authoritative.

Piston: Symphony No. 3 (1947)
Hanson: Symphony No. 4 (1943)
Eastman Rochester Orchestra conducted by Howard Hanson
Recorded May 11, 1954 (Piston) and May 11-13, 1953 (Hanson)
Mercury Golden Imports SRI-75107, one LP record
Link (FLAC files, 141.32 MB)
Link (MP3 files, 64.8 MB)

This LP is a reissue from the late 1970s, one of about 150 reissues pressed by Philips in the Netherlands of Mercury Living Presence material.  It was, unfortunately, "enhanced" with fake stereo, even though this had become passé by the 70s, and naturally I have "monoed" it back again in this transfer.  As far as I am aware, neither of these recordings has ever appeared on CD; they were not part of the slew of Mercury Living Presence CD reissues produced in the 1990s, although they certainly should have been.

Griffes: Poem for Flute and Orchestra

Here is something that will delight flute fans and fans of American music: the first-ever recording of the impressionistic Poem for Flute and Orchestra, composed in 1918 by Charles Tomlinson Griffes (1884-1920), who is pictured above.  It is played, magnificently, by Joseph Mariano (1911-2007), Professor of Flute at the Eastman School of Music from 1935 to 1974, with Eastman's director, Howard Hanson, leading the Eastman-Rochester Symphony Orchestra.  This is from a somewhat battered copy of Victor 11-8349, recorded May 8, 1942 - and not helped by the fact that it was pressed during World War II in recycled shellac!  But the beauty of the performance, I think, makes up for the less-than-perfect sound.

Link (FLAC file, 23.26 MB)
Link (MP3 file, 10.2 MB)

Arguably, no other man ever did more for the cause of American classical music than Howard Hanson, who once estimated that over 2,000 works by 500 American composers (including, of course, himself) were premiered in Rochester during his 40-year tenure as director of the Eastman School.  Earlier I posted to RMCR several of Hanson's early Victor recordings with the Eastman-Rochester Orchestra, including two of his own works.  These are still available for download.  The details:

Howard Hanson: The Lament for Beowulf, Op. 25

with the Eastman School Choir
Recorded May 7, 1941

and

Spencer Norton: Prologue from Dance Suite
Recorded May 9, 1941

Victor set DM-889, three 78-rpm records
Link (FLAC files, 52.27 MB)

Link (MP3 files, 25.72 MB)

Howard Hanson: Symphony No. 1 in E minor, Op. 21 ("Nordic")
Recorded May 7, 1942

Victor set DM-973, three 78-rpm records
Link (FLAC files, 65.99 MB)

Link (MP3 files, 29.36 MB)

Charles Martin Loeffler: A Pagan Poem, Op. 14 (after Virgil)

Piano obbligato: Irene Gedney; English horn: Richard Swingly
Recorded May 10, 1941

Victor set DM-876, three 78-rpm records
Link (FLAC file, 56.21 MB)

Link (MP3 file, 27.85 MB)