IVES • BARBER • HARRIS • THOMSON • COWELL • CARTER • GLASS : From The Steeples And The Mountains (The London Gabrieli Brass Ensemble · Christopher Larkin) (1992) FLAC (tracks), lossless

 ‘Fascinating … the most interesting and enterprising brass collection I have yet encountered … first rate, and very realistic recording … the brass playing throughout is vividly expert and the recording is splendidly real’ (Gramophone)

‘From the very opening track the London Gabrieli Brass Ensemble demands close attention. All say something that makes you want to listen’ (BBC Music Magazine)

‘A real gem of a disc. The performances are excellent … This was both an education and an entertainment’ (Classic CD)

‘Performances are ideal. The British have given us a thoroughly American disc of extraordinary beauty; for which, many thanks!’ (Fanfare, USA)
Reviews

Charles Ives–    From The Steeples And The Mountains 4:24
Samuel Barber–    Mutations From Bach (For Brass Choir And Timpani) 5:41
Roy Harris–    Chorale For Organ And Brass 12:49
Virgil Thomson    Family Portrait (For Brass Quintet)(11:29)
Henry Cowell–    Grinnell Fanfare 3:05
Henry Cowell–    Tall Tale 4:19
Henry Cowell    Hymn And Fuguing Tune No 12 (For Three Horns) (4:27)
Henry Cowell–    Rondo 4:45
Philip Glass    Brass Sextet (7:27)
Carl Ruggles–    Angels (For Muted Brass)3:06
Elliott Carter–    A Fantasy About Purcell's Fantasia Upon One Note 3:15
Charles Ives–    Processional: Let There Be Light 2:42

Ensemble – The London Gabrieli Brass Ensemble
Conductor – Christopher Larkin

BERNSTEIN • SCHUMAN • IVES • RUGGERI • COPLAND • BARBER • COWELL : American Festival (Lukas Foss · Milwaukee Symphony Orchestra) (1984) FLAC (tracks+.cue), lossless

Leonard Bernstein
Overture To "Candide" – 4:27
William Schuman
Newsreel    (7:06)
Charles Ives
The Unanswered Question – 5:39
Roger Ruggeri
If... Then – 3:30
Aaron Copland
Fanfare For The Common Man - 3:52
Variations On A Shaker Melody From The Ballet Appalachian Spring –  3:30
Samuel Barber
Adagio For Strings 9:44
Henry Cowell
Saturday Night At The Firehouse – 5:03
Charles Ives
The Circus Band March - 2:05

Orchestra – Milwaukee Symphony Orchestra
Conductor – Lukas Foss

BARBER · KORNGOLD · WALTON : Violin Concertos (James Ehnes · Vancouver Symphony Orchestra · Bramwell Tovey) (2006) APE (image+.cue), lossless

 

 Violinist James Ehnes unites with the Vancouver Symphony Orchestra under the direction of Bramwell Tovey for this noteworthy collection of concertos by Korngold, Barber, and Walton. Ehnes' sound seems to be especially well suited for these three works, each demanding rich, fluid tone; stellar technique; and exceptional sensitivity and musicality.
Aficionados of classic movies may recognize portions of the Korngold concerto as the composer lifted several of the melodies from his favorite film scores. There are parts of the concerto that still sound as if it was created for the screen instead of the concert hall, especially the orchestral tuttis. It is nonetheless an entertaining work and Ehnes' interpretation is both engaging and solicitous. The Barber concerto is filled with lush, lugubrious playing. The second movement especially, with its extensive passages on the G and D strings, puts the listener awash in the violin's sound. The third movement, while well executed, is a bit on the slow side until the final push to the end. Like Korngold, Walton is another composer leading somewhat of a double life between film composition and music specifically for the concert hall, but Walton does not reuse materials from his film scores. Unlike the Barber, Walton's Presto movement is quite energetic and almost diabolical -- a very satisfying performance. The Vancouver Symphony Orchestra also deserves kudos for this recording. The accompanying sound is quite sensitive to the needs of the soloist; orchestral tuttis are rich, powerful, and consummate. Mike D. Brownell  

BRITTEN | BARBER – Piano Concertos · Nocturnes (Elizabeth Joy Roe) 24bits-96Hz | FLAC (tracks), lossless

The piano concertos of Benjamin Britten (begun in 1938, finished in 1945) and Samuel Barber (1960-1962) make a strong pairing, and the place of each in the repertory is probably stronger than 50 years ago when academicism held such sway. Korean American pianist Elizabeth Joy Roe, prior to this release better known as half of the thoroughly enjoyable Anderson and Roe piano duo, delivers ambitious and largely successful performances. The two works have some heft to them, with Britten's virtuoso work infused with the sharp, nervous quality of its time of genesis just before World War II, and Barber's extraordinarily difficult writing complemented by a grand attempt to combine serialist structures with his basic late Romantic aesthetic (and the work remains one of the few to pull this off). The program is not well served by the album graphics, which one might liken to Vogue magazine ads if Vogue would not have done a much better job with them. But Roe's performance of the Barber, for which she replaced the work's ailing dedicatee, John Browning, in a 2003 concert, is especially strong: vigorous, meltingly beautiful in the slow movement, and confident in the treacherous finale. The Britten has a sort of minatory edge that Roe gets less successfully, but recompense is more than given by the two solo-piano Nocturnes, one by each composer, that close out the program; the one by Barber, an homage to John Field, is absolutely entrancing in Roe's hands. The one real disincentive is mushy sound from Decca, although London's Cadogan Hall was a reasonable choice of venue. A recommended performance of two concertos emerging as among the greatest of the 20th century in their genre. James Manheim    Tracklist + Credits :
 

XIAYIN WANG – American Piano Concertos (2013) FLAC (tracks), lossless

Chinese pianist Xiayin Wang emerged as something of a specialist in American music with her spectacular recording of Earl Wild's Gershwin fantasias in 2010, and she continues to amass a strong track record with this Chandos release, nicely recorded at the Royal Concert Hall in Glasgow. It's interesting how novel the trio of piano concertos by Gershwin, Copland, and Barber are as a program, for they all have a great deal to say to each other, and each finds its way between jazz and modernistic influences. Given that you get here a Chinese pianist teaming with Scottish musicians, with not an American in sight, it's safe to say that the music is beginning to get the respect it deserves. Wang's performances of the Barber Piano Concerto, Op. 38, is wonderful. With clean, delicate passagework in the upper registers, she finds the composer's characteristic lyricism in this sometimes thorny score, and in the modernistic jazz of Copland's Piano Concerto, composed in 1926, is very nearly as good, tough and rhythmically brash. The weakest performance of the three, oddly enough in view of Wang's stellar work in Gershwin-related material previously, is the Gershwin Piano Concerto in F (not F major as the packaging and booklet have it here); there is nothing to object to, but the performance lacks the contained jazz energy that makes great readings of the piece work. The restraint may come from the Royal Scottish National Orchestra under Peter Oundjian, who are peppy throughout but are not confirmed Gershwin interpreters. This is, however, a revelatory program, very well performed. James Manheim  Tracklist + Credits :

IVES: Concord Sonata; BARBER: Piano Sonata (Marc-André Hamelin) (2004) FLAC (tracks+.cue), lossless

This 2004 Hyperion recording is actually Marc-André Hamelin's second traversal through Ives' Concord Sonata; his initial venture being among the first of his commercial recordings, made back in 1988 for New World Records. Back in the days of LPs, you were lucky to get two new "Concords" in the course of a decade; Hamelin's was at least the third new recording of the sonata in 2004. No two recordings of the "Concord" are quite the same, not even Hamelin's two, for in comparison to the New World, the Hyperion is shorter overall by about a minute, shorter in each movement except "Thoreau," which is a shade longer.

At a total time of 42:54, this is one of the faster recordings of the "Concord," and to some degree faster is better, as Ives himself played it pretty fast, judging from his own fragmentary recordings of this work. No one, however, has quite gotten the "Concord" down to the zippy 38 minutes that John Kirkpatrick delivered on his Grammy-winning, and long unavailable, 1968 recording for CBS. Some recorded performances of the "Concord" have taken in excess of 50 minutes, a bit too slow, but it gives the reader an idea of how widely a performance can range in terms of time.

But timings and other details aside, this Hamelin recording of the "Concord" is just about the best one, ever -- certainly it's the finest since Gilbert Kalish recorded the work for Nonesuch back in 1977. What works so well is that Hamelin has an excellent sense of the score's ebb and flow and an ability to project the shape of Ives' craggy, uneven phrases. Hamelin has been playing the work a long time, and the technical struggle is over, leaving Hamelin able to refine details of interpretation that are often discouraged by the sheer effort of having to get through Ives' score. The filler is a totally oddball choice, the Piano Sonata Op. 26 of Samuel Barber. But it makes sense -- Hamelin plays the Barber with the same confidence and authority to which he brings the Ives, and it is clear that these two "great American piano sonatas" can inhabit the same house, even though in life the composers would've been unable to enter the same room. This disc is likewise distinguished with excellent liner notes by Jed Distler; this Hyperion release is a winner and is enthusiastically recommended to anyone interested in either work. by Uncle Dave Lewis  
Tracklist :
Sonata No. 2: Concord, Mass., 1840-60, for piano (& optional viola, flute), S. 88 (K. 3A2) (42:54)
Charles Ives
1     Emerson. Slowly 15:40
2     Hawthorne. Very fast 10:18
3     The Alcotts 5:17
4     Thoreau. Starting slowly and quietly 11:45
Sonata for piano, Op. 26 (19:15)
Samuel Barber
5     Allegro energico 7:13
6     Allegro vivace e leggiero 1:59
7     Adagio mesto 5:22
8     Fuga. Allegro con spirito 4:40
Credits :
Illustration [Front Illustration: 'Shrewsbury River, New Jersey, 1859' (Detail)] – John Frederick Kensett
Piano – Marc-André Hamelin

JEANNE BRAXTRESSER : Chamber Music for Flute by Devienne, Dring, Copland, Gaubert & Barber (2006) FLAC (image+.cue), lossless

PAUL BARNES - The American Virtuoso (2008) FLAC (image+.cue), lossless

The jury is still out on Philip Glass' transformation of minimalism into a radically populist language, but his later works continue to be widely performed, and, perhaps more important, to inspire innovative programming strategies. This disc by American pianist and Glass specialist Paul Barnes, released on the Glass-oriented Orange Mountain Music label, avoids the tendency to program Glass with his fellow minimalists. Instead he is juxtaposed with two very different composers, neither of whom has much to do with minimalism -- and it turns out that he fits quite well with both. The opening work, Glass' Piano Concerto No. 2 (After Lewis and Clark), has been transcribed for solo piano by Barnes himself. The transcription arguably improves the work, adding a layer of contrasts to the splashy, high-energy tonal color fields of its outer movements. But the real news is that the program places Glass more firmly within the American tradition. Barnes moves smoothly from Glass to the music of twentieth century American music's great conservative, Samuel Barber, with muscular performances of two short pieces and the Beethovenian Piano Sonata, Op. 26; he emphasizes the big blocks of sound in Barber's music and seems to suggest that Barber avoided atavism through an injection of the kind of pure kinetic force that would eventually fascinate Glass. The finale, consisting of a pair of short pieces by Joan Tower, goes in a different direction, focusing on the fact that Tower and Glass share a predilection for the use of small musical cells and a liking for organic metaphors, even if their attitudes toward simplicity and complexity are very different. More broadly, Barnes' disc is one of a group of recent releases that attempts to imagine programs of contemporary, and often specifically contemporary American, music that would please general classical audiences anywhere, something that is more likely to be achieved through imaginative retrospectives that make sense than by wholesale attempts to invent a new musical language. Barnes' big, Lisztian sound adds something to the proceedings on its own. Especially recommended not only to Glass fans, but also to those involved in any way with concert programming, and not only for the piano. by James Manheim 

PETER LAWSON - American Piano Sonatas

Pianist Peter Lawson cultivates a full and resonant sonority and wide dynamic range that suits the rugged registral valleys mapped by Carter and Copland in their respective sonatas. He lavishes similar care over the delicate harmonic twists throughout Griffes' Sonata and lovingly tends the spacious, transcendent lyricism Charles Ives spins when he's not bashing out good dissonances like a man. Listen, for instance, to Lawson's sustained calm and delicately placed "celesta" notes midway through Ives' Three Page Sonata, or to his twinkling dispatch of the Copland Sonata's zesty middle movement. Lawson sustains the slow movement of Roger Sessions' gnarly Second Sonata as eloquently as Robert Helps' more texturally differentiated live recording (CRI), and offers a cogent, somewhat reserved foil to Charles Rosen's more amply engineered and dramatically colored Elliott Carter Sonata (Bridge).  by Jed Distler
Traklist
1.  Sonata for Piano in E flat minor, Op. 26 by Samuel Barber 
 Length: 19 Minutes 46 Secs. 
Performer:  Peter Lawson (Piano) 
Period: 20th Century 
Written: 1949; USA 
  Date of Recording: 1989 
Venue:  EMI Abbey Road Studio no 1, London, UK 

 2.  Sonata for Piano "Three Page" by Charles Ives 
 Performer:  Peter Lawson (Piano) 
Period: 20th Century 
Written: 1905; USA 
  Date of Recording: 1989 
Venue:  EMI Abbey Road Studio no 1, London, UK 
Length: 7 Minutes 16 Secs. 

3.  Sonata for Piano no 2 by Roger Sessions 

Performer:  Peter Lawson (Piano) 
Period: 20th Century 
Written: 1946; USA 
  Date of Recording: 1991 
Venue:  EMI Abbey Road Studio no 1, London, UK 
Length: 15 Minutes 15 Secs. 

4.  Sonata for Piano no 1 by Charles Ives 

Performer:  Peter Lawson (Piano) 
Period: 20th Century 
Written: 1901-1909; USA 
  Date of Recording: 1991 
Venue:  EMI Abbey Road Studio no 1, London, UK 
Length: 39 Minutes 18 Secs. 

5.  Sonata for Piano in G major by Aaron Copland 

Performer:  Peter Lawson (Piano) 
Period: 20th Century 
Written: 1920-1921; USA 
  Date of Recording: 1989 
Venue:  EMI Abbey Road Studio no 1, London, UK 
Length: 23 Minutes 43 Secs. 

 6.  Sonata for Piano by Elliott Carter 

Performer:  Peter Lawson (Piano) 
Period: 20th Century 
Written: 1945-1946; USA 
  Date of Recording: 1989 
Venue:  EMI Abbey Road Studio no 1, London, UK 
Length: 24 Minutes 11 Secs. 

 7.  Sonata for Piano by Charles T. Griffes 

Length: 17 Minutes 25 Secs. 
Performer:  Peter Lawson (Piano) 
Period: 20th Century 
Written: 1917-1918; USA 
  Date of Recording: 1991 
Venue:  EMI Abbey Road Studio no 1, London, UK 

PETER LAWSON - American Piano Sonatas

 [1991] Virgin [2CD] FLAC /  scans