Howard Hanson: Symphonies Nos. 3 & 6; Fantasy Variations on a Theme of Youth

Hanson's music is now getting the attention that it deserves after being largely ignored for most of his life. This is a great album showcasing some of his best works, especially the beautiful Symphony No. 3, which he wrote while vacationing on Bold Island off the coast of Maine.Hanson's romantic style was not in vogue with the music critics during the period when he composed most of his music, thus not much was recorded until recently. The Seattle Symphony and Gerard Schwartz have recorded a number of Hanson's works and I highly recommend them.

enjoyable

Of Delos’ five volumes dedicated to the orchestral music of Howard Hanson, and particularly his symphonies, the 3rd and 6th are by and far my favorite, making this recording an easy recommendation.Opposed to his first two symphonies, which are cinematic and tread the line of being overbearingly saccharine, the third and sixth provide the listener a complete experience of the symphonic form. There is a struggle throughout that gives a feeling of arrival, and the variety from beginning to end is diverse yet cohesive.Hanson’s love of horn features and sweeping Romantic strings aside fine tune writing is still apparent. His music is always approachable, but I hear hints beyond mere majesty and grandiosity and an excellent throughline from these works as a whole.In addition, the Fantasy Variations on a Theme of Youth for piano and orchestra is offered as a pairing. I really like Hanson’s way with concertante music, his Piano Concerto in Volume 4 on Delos is a treasure. That and his love of theme and variations really make this a sparkling, appealing work, but still one of strife and adventure. Carol Rosenberger’s piano is quite fine too!As with Symphonies 1 & 2, the Nordic and Romantic, Gerard Schwarz and Seattle are warm and inspiring. The Delos sonics are excellent and Schwarz elicits a robust tone for Hanson’s works. It doesn’t hurt that this is the only place to find Symphony 6 on record.Symphony 3, however, can be found led by Howard Hanson himself  on Mercury  with his own Eastman group. More telling though, is a recording by Serge Koussevitsky, remastered  by Dutton  Laboratories, that speaks to the relationship between Hanson and the lauded Boston conductor.Behind these, Schwarz and Seattle are still a treasure to me in works that affect me greatly. Schwarz’s five volumes have since been compiled together  on Delos  and reissued separately  on Naxos , so those may be preferable than the individual originals. Highly Recommended!

In music, the twentieth-century was an era of experimentation and trying to create something new for the sake of creating something new. Wagner unleashed the bounds of chromaticism during the latter half of the nineteeth-century, followed by the ambiguity of Debussy's whole-tone scale during the oughts, to full serialism by Schoenberg during the 1920's. By the 1930's, it all had been done and tonal music was discouraged (interestingly, this same trend followed in the jazz realm and met it's peak in the 1960's with Eric Dolphy).I entered college in 1986 to major in music composition, but switched my major to education so I'd have a steady income, and eventually completed my MA in composition in 2003. Even then, tonal music was highly discouraged amongst my professors. I completely understood that atonalism can serve a purpose in a musical work and shouldn't be avoided; however, I've always been of the philosophy that music should be written for others to listen to and if the listener doesn't enjoy it, what's the point? Back when I was working on my MA, my composition teacher told me to create a 12-tone piece, I created a tone row in which the notes created harmony and not dissonance. He was not happy. He told me to either "comform to the system or get out of the program." I guess I'm a rebel in this sense because writing music for music's sake doesn't thrill me.How does this "soapbox" introduction tie into the CD I'm reviewing? Howard Hanson has often been discredited because he bucked the wave of his contemporaries. He wrote what he felt and what the public's ears would enjoy. Hanson composes wide, sweeping melodies that develop into incredible works of art. Technically, his pieces are immensely challenging, if not daunting. Intellectually, his music is on par with that of Bernstein, Webern, and Prokofieff; however, he's not studied along with those individuals because his music didn't make an impact with the historians. It was like that of Rachmaninoff or Respighi, also phenomenal composers.This CD was my introduction into Hanson's music; it includes two symphonies and one solo, piano and orchestra. I was so impressed with the music that I picked up the other four CD's in the series. The Seattle Symphony does a superb job of performing and Gerard Schwarz gives an outstanding interpretation of all three works. The CD is recorded DDD and offers a crystal-clear sound and wide dynamic range.If you enjoy late-romantic works, this is a great place to learn about Hanson's style - you will not be disappointed. Another one of my favorites is his "Lament for Beowulf," also recorded by Gerard Schwarz and the Seattle Symphony. Happy listening.

The Gerard Schwarz recordings of the music of Howard Hanson are excellent .

Superb disc of symphonies of what was regarded as the American Sibelius, well worth hearing.

Perfect