William Grant Still: Afro-American Symphony, Amy Beach: Gaelic Symphony

Here is a superb CD- two classic American Symphonies in famous sterling performances from the Library of Congress archives. William Grant Still's most celebrated work, the African-American Symphony of 1930, blends negro spirituals with glittering orchestrations to form a work of great character and individuality. As Howard Hanson stated, " William Grant Still brought to American music a new voice, a voice filled with lovely melodies and gorgeous harmonies, insidious rhythms, and dazzling colors." Amy Beach's "Gaelic" Symphony of 1934 is likewise a work that appeals to both mind and heart, seamlessly incorporating Irish folk tunes into its late-Romantic world. These prestigious recordings have been newly re-mastered, giving these already impressive releases new detail and beauty. Album Description

Still and Beach Together: The Smart Thing and the Dumb Thing

Okay, the people who put together this CD didn't have a bad idea to begin with. Ask any decent musician about who gets slighted as a serious composer and he/she will probably say African Americans are not taken seriously and neither are women. So why not take two important works, one by an African American and one by a woman, on one CD? They couldn't have made a better decision. Both Still and Beach are great lyricists. Their symphonies are top notch and deserve to be better known. So far it seems like a good decision all round.
But now comes a slight problem. Beach's symphony is about 50 minutes long and Still's symphony is also very long. They both won't fit on one CD. So the solution becomes to slice and dice the lesser known of these two works, Beach's Gaelic Symphony, and that was a tragic mistake, especially since this particular recording of the Afro-American Symphony is so well done. The only real solution, as I see it is to get the works on two CD's. Fortunately, there are three other recordings of Still's symphony and one other recording, much more substantial, of Beach's to choose from. So this CD gets three stars from me for the superb performance of the quirky and bluesy Afro-American Symphony and none for the Beach which I will now have to get on the other CD. The guys who thought this whole thing up should have thought of that in the first place. Now that would have been really smart. November 7, 2001

Beach Symphony nr. 2 Structurally Gutted

If you are looking for a good copy of Beach's Symphony nr. 2 "Gaelic", well this rendition has some fine moments, but it's physically missing a lot. Literally. There are five cuts in this rendition that amount to 65 pages removed out of a 220 page score. This pares a 45 to 50 minute work down to an anorexic 35 minutes. I was angry to have found this to have been the case; these details are normally mentioned nowhere upon the CD case. The cuts made are as follows: 1. The entire recapitulation of the first movement is excised. This amounts to 24 pages out of 77 pages of score. 2. Nine pages of the third movement are excised. The movement seems to be in an unusual rondo form with two structural climaxes; the second climax is omitted and about half the material between the climaxes is omitted. This comprises the entire portion in E major, the bridge-like section after it, and a bass clarinet solo section. 3. Ten pages of the development section (about half of it) of the last movement are excised. 4. Twenty pages of the recapitulation section (most of it) of the last movement are excised. 5. Two pages of the coda of the last movement are excised.

Omitting an optional repeat is one thing. Even cutting out a page or two of material on some argument of extraneousness given the performance costs...while not tolerable it is understandable. But the above cuts amount to gutting the symphony's structure. July 23, 2001

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