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Howard Hanson (1896 - 1981)

Organ Concerto

Label: Naxos, 8.559251
Year: 2006

Performers:

Jacqueline Pollauf - harp
Joseph Jackson - organ
Doris Hall-Gulati - clarinet
Holly Blake - bassoon
Gabriela Imreh - piano
Andrew Bolotowsky - flute
Adriana Linares - viola
Jonathan Blumenfeld - oboe

Philadelphia Virtuosi Chamber Orchestra

Daniel Spalding - conductor

Tracklist:

Concerto for organ, harp & strings in C, Op 22/3
Nymphs and Satyr, ballet
Fantasy Variations on a Theme of Youth, Op. 40
Serenade for flute, harp & strings, Op. 35
Summer Seascape no 2 for Viola and Strings
Pastorale for oboe & piano (or harp & strings), Op. 38

Recording hasn’t been unkind to the legacy of Howard Hanson, and his own recordings as conductor of other composers’ music continues to stay in print and to thrive. However, when it comes to Hanson’s own work, recording has not been exceptionally generous as it has to some of his contemporaries (for example, Copland or George Gershwin); the vast majority of recordings devoted to Hanson concentrate on one work, his Symphony No. 2 "Romantic," Op. 30. With Naxos American Classics’ Howard Hanson: Organ Concerto we finally encounter an all-Hanson collection that afford some depth to his orchestral oeuvre, and these pieces are all exceptionally fantastic offerings to boot.

This selection features Hanson’s early Concerto for Organ, Harp and Strings, Op. 22/3 (1926), his Serenade for Flute, Harp and Strings Op. 35 (1945), the Fantasy Variations on a Theme of Youth for Piano and Strings (1951 and his Pastorale for Oboe, Harp and Strings (1948-1949) and the obscure Summer Seascape No. 2 for Viola and Strings (1965). Although scored in a concerted vein, all of these works are cast in an episodic, single movement format, and all but the Organ Concerto run less than 12 minutes in length. Rather than pressing Hanson’s own one-time orchestra, the Eastman-Rochester Symphony Orchestra into the service of these unfamiliar works, Naxos has located a superb foil for them in the Philadelphia Virtuosi Chamber Orchestra under Daniel Spalding. There is an excellent lineup of soloists involved as well, including Spalding’s betrothed Gabriela Imreh in the Fantasy Variations and exciting young violist Adriana Linares in the Serenade. The only multi-movement work presented is the very late Hanson composition Nymph and Satyr Ballet Suite (1979) which features Doris Hall-Gulatt in a superb solo part for the clarinet.

Hanson’s music is multi-faceted and rich with resplendent beauty; the oft-repeated observation he never departed from his "unashamedly romantic idiom" limits one’s perception as to how much variety there is in Hanson. There are textures in the Nymph and Satyr Ballet Suite that bring to mind Philip Glass although in 1979 it’s hard to say whether one was aware of what the other was doing musically. The Organ Concerto is the total opposite of, say, that by Poulenc as the organ builds into the orchestral texture and matches it, rather than stands apart from it. All of the other pieces speak very eloquently for themselves, and are certainly easy to listen to, even for the first time. Naxos American Classics’ Howard Hanson: Organ Concerto makes clear that Hanson didn’t hang onto his romantic musical vocabulary because he was a conservative – Hanson did so as he knew what combination of his "13 herbs and spices" made the chicken taste right, and didn’t want anything else to spoil the recipe. Naxos’s recording is warm, up close and the Philadelphia Virtuosi Chamber Orchestra sound like a bigger band than they are, the mark of any great chamber orchestra.

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