Sessions Symphony

During the '50's and early '60's Mercury recorded some of the lesser known American composers. This particular selection which I originally had on a mono-LP is one of my favorites, and probably the best of Colin McPhee's compositions. Roger Sessions' "The Black Maskers" is also an excellant little heard American Classic. As a bonus the CD includes Virgil Thomson's "Symphony On A Hymn Tune" which was not on the LP.

Music Director Manfred Honeck and the Pittsburgh Symphony Orchestra, with Reference Recordings, are pleased to announce the release of a new recording in superb audiophile, pairing Tchaikovsky’s iconic Symphony No. 4 with the world premiere of leading American composer Jonathan Leshnoff’s Double Concerto for Clarinet and Bassoon, featuring the orchestra’s own Michael Rusinek, Principal Clarinet, and Nancy Goeres, Principal Bassoon. This HIGHRESAUDIO release was recorded in Heinz Hall for the Performing Arts, the acoustically outstanding and historic home of the orchestra.

Though it lacks a first movement, the 1944 Karajan Bruckner Eighth is both a notable performance and an astonishing piece of engineering. The finale, which was recorded in the studios of Berlin Radio in September 1944 in experimental 'two channel' sound, has occasionally been available on LP or CD, though never in such spectacular sound. For what we have here, as I understand it, is not the reproduction of a rough dubbing of the original mastertape but a transfer from the 30ips mastertape itself, part of a recently released hoard of tapes the Russians confiscated after the fall of Berlin in 1945. As for the second and third movements, recorded in mono towards the end of June 1944, these have never previously been released.

As the notes to this welcome release make clear Stokowski had never conducted The Four Seasons before the Phase Four series of LPs of which this is so engaging an example. He, soloist Hugh Bean and the New Philharmonia went to the BBC’s Maida Vale studios and taped it for later broadcast (in the end it wasn’t until 1968 that it hit the airwaves), recording it the following day. The late Hugh Bean has recalled that it was in the can in one session – Stokowski remaining the professional to his batonless fingertips.

Szell's performance is again of quite a different order, one of the very finest ever put on disc, white hot even beyond Bernstein's. The late John Culshaw, producer at the sessions in Walthamstow Assembly Hall in 1962, used to enjoy telling the story of winding up an already angry George Szell. That inspired tyrant of a conductor was furious at the start of the session to find that many players were not the same as those who had just given the concert performance with him. When he came back to listen to the first playback Culshaw deliberately kept the controls rather low, making the result seem dull. That prompted Szell, back on the podium, to unleash a force in the subsequent takes that has to be heard to be believed.

The Perpetual Diet, the body representing the imperial estates of the Holy Roman Empire of the German Nation, held its sessions in Regensburg from 1663 to 1806. Since the princes hardly continued to appear in person but instead sent representatives, this assembly became what was in very large measure a congress of envoys. Festive music not only constantly formed part of the ceremonial accompanying the diet but also quite naturally played a role at social functions and in the theater. Beginning in 1748 the court chapel of the Prince of Thurn and Taxis was responsible for the presentation of the musical program.

English Tone Pictures by Sir John Barbirolli - Side One features two very gifted composers in John Ireland and Arnold Bax, Band 1 features John Ireland (1879-1962) who is described as one of the most gifted composers of the English 'Renaissance'. Arnold Bax confessed himself a brazen romantic; yet his romanticism was as much intellectual as purely emotional, and though his music is full of personal feeling he was not an emotionally self indulgent composer.

David Foster is a Canadian musician, record producer, composer, songwriter, and arranger. He has been a producer for notable musical artists including Christina Aguilera, Andrea Bocelli, Toni Braxton, Michael Bublé, Chicago, Natalie Cole, The Corrs, Céline Dion, Jackie Evancho, Kenny G, Josh Groban, Whitney Houston, Jennifer Lopez, Seal, Rod Stewart, Madonna, Barbra Streisand, and Westlife. During the '80s, '90s, and early 2000s, David Foster was among the most commercially successful producers and composers in all of popular music. Foster has won 16 Grammy Awards from 47 nominations.