|
Peter Mennin: Symphony No. 5 and Symphony No. 6 | 
 enlarge | Artists: Mennin, Miller, Albany So
Label: Albany Records
Category: Music
List Price: $17.98
Buy New: $11.44
You Save: $6.54 (36%)
New (21) Used (5) from $11.44
Rating:  3 reviews
Sales Rank: 355544
Media: Audio CD
Discs: 1
Shipping Weight (lbs): 0.2
Dimensions (in): 5.6 x 5 x 0.5
UPC: 034061026020
EAN: 0034061026020
ASIN: B0000049RF
Release Date: September 16, 1997
Availability: Usually ships in 1-2 business days
Condition: Brand new. Shipped from the UK by Airmail direct to 5 airports in the United States. Delivery takes approximately 5 working days from posting - we're frequently faster than a lot of US based sellers.
| |
| Tracks:
| • | Concertato, 'Moby Dick' | | • | Symphony No. 5: I. = 126 | | • | Symphony No. 5: II. Canto | | • | Symphony No. 5: III. Allegro Tempestuoso | | • | Fantasia For String Orchestra: I. Canzona | | • | Fantasia For String Orchestra: II. Toccata | | • | Symphony No. 6: I. Maestoso: Allegro | | • | Symphony No. 6: II. Grave | | • | Symphony No. 6: III. Allegro vivace |
|
| Similar Items:
|
| Editorial Reviews:
Amazon.com
Mennin (1923-1983) wrote a kind of American music that was part of no school or modernistic trend. His symphonies and large-scale orchestral music tend to be polyphonic. This way he can incorporate any impulse that will serve the music. His Concertato, Moby Dick, of 1952 builds like a Renaissance choral work of flowing melody clusters, intermingled with the kind of contrapuntal energy found in Hindemith. Mennin's symphonies, though, are genuine masterpieces, even if the latter ones are broadly atonal and practically unplayable. Symphonies 5 and 6, though, should be better-known than they are. We need more of this man's music. --Paul Cook
|
| Customer Reviews:
 Four Splendid Works by Peter Mennin June 7, 2001
Thomas F. Bertonneau (Oswego, NY United States)
8 out of 8 found this review helpful
The farther that we move from them, the more peculiar and distorted the judgments of America's mid-twentieth century musical mandarins appear. In the single five-year period after World War II, a bevy of American composers reached maturity who wrote in a powerful but accessible idiom that gave elegant expression to the ethos of a great industrial nation at its pinnacle of energy. In addition to Roy Harris and William Schuman, who had debuted slightly earlier, one could count Paul Creston, Walter Piston, David Diamond, Nicolas Flagello, Elie Siegmeister, Norman dello Joio, and Peter Mennin. (To curtail the list arbitrarily.) The seductions of serialism - an Austro-German import - would see the work of these men pushed into undeserved obscurity, as a compositional "lingua franca" based on a misunderstanding of Schoenberg became obligatory in the schools of music. If you weren't "avant-garde," it followed that history had passed you by and made you irrelevant. Schuman and Mennin went into conservatory administration; they all struggled to keep their voices heard, but during their lifetimes it was a vain effort. Let's deal with Mennin, a prodigy whose Third Symphony was performed by the New York Philharmonic before it was accepted as the basis of his doctorate at Eastman Rochester. I admire Schuman but I have always thought Mennin a better symphonist. Schuman's symphonies often strike me as static - this is especially true of the later ones. Mennin's symphonies on the other hand always "travel." One has an immediate sense of direction and drama. The Fifth Symphony (1950) illustrates the point: Its First Movement (1/4=126) charges forward with powerful fanfares in a Hindemithian toccata; the slow Canto takes the form of a passacaglia mostly in strings and woodwinds; the concluding Allegro Tempestuoso is another exercise in rapid counterpoint and fugue. At less than thirty minutes, the Fifth's sinewy gestures make it seem big rather than brief. The Albany Symphony under David Alan Miller puts on a terrific performance, easily outdoing Howard Hanson's vintage account on Mercury. The Sixth Symphony (1953), written for Robert Whitney and the Louisville Orchestra, uses the same three-movement formula. (If it ain't broke, don't fix it.) The First Movement has a slow, rather Hansonesque introduction (Maestoso) that gives way to a muscular Allegro. The slow central movement (Grave) has a modal flavor. Like the other composers of Italian ancestry (Creston, Flagello, Giannini), Mennin preferred the modal to the tempered scales. The Finale (Allegro Vivace) reworks material from the First Movement in a busy moto perpetuo style. Mennin's writing for the brasses is really spectacular. The disc includes two other works by Mennin: The "Concertato" after Melville's "Moby Dick" (1952) and the Fantasia for String Orchestra (1946). The "Concertato" is a one-movement symphony about ten minutes in duration, something like one of Samuel Barber's "Essays" for orchestra, but harder-edged. The Fantasia, in two movements, invokes Renaissance polyphony, which Mennin assiduously mined. The alternative recording of the "Concertato" is under Gerard Schwarz on Delos, coupled with the Third and Seventh Symphonies. But Miller's is the only current listing for the important Sixth Symphony. With Creston on Naxos, Piston on Delos, and a host of other American symphonists of the same vintage once again available, the edict of previous musical wisdom seems to have been happily reversed. I give this disc my highest recommendation.
 Gran disco! July 25, 2000
Francisco J. Munoz (Santa Cruz, Bolivia)
2 out of 2 found this review helpful
Hermoso disco el que nos entrega Albany de musica de Peter Mennin. David Alan Miller es uno de los directores jovenes que mas graba musica de Norteamerica, lo cual es un gran merito pues nos da a los melomanos la posibilidad de escuchar obras que de otra manera no estarian en catalogo.La lectura de Miller es vigorosa y demuestra el prefecto entendimiento de la musica que interpreta, no es por nada que ha recibido varios premios por sus interpretaciones de autores americanos. Lo mas lindo del programa es la Quinta Sinfonia y el segundo movimiento de la Sexta (Grave). De todos modos a mi gusto de la Quinta tenemos en catalogo otra version que me satisface mas, es la de Howard Hanson en Mercury. El sonido del disco es muy bueno, pero no tan extraordinario como afirma el critico anterior. Recomendado.
Very good new versions, spectacularly recorded September 22, 1999
4 out of 4 found this review helpful
Great to see this under-represented composer receiving another modern recording. Full marks again for this to the excellent Albany label. The performances appear to be expert and alert, and also able to build the tensions inherent in the symphonies. The recording quality sounds quite spectacular on my system - superb even by Albany's standards, although the fine acoustic of the Troy Savings Bank Hall certainly helps. I'm not an audiophile for the sake of it, but if I was, I would consider this to be a demo recording.
|
|
|
|
 | |
