Customer Reviews

Appalachian Spring Suite / Symphony 3

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These are amazing performances of, admittedly, two of my favorite composers. As much as I treasure the Charlton Heston, and James Earl Jones recordings of "A Lincoln Portrait", Melvyn Douglas is nothing short of electrifying. Dutton's trasfers from 78 sources are miraculous. This CD belongs in any serious collection of American concert music, and it absolutely transcends the rather narrow classification of "historic recordings". Snap one up before they're gone forever (again).

If like me you got started listening to Aaron Copland through Spike Lee's generous quotes from AC in the Denzel Washington basketball film HE GOT GAME, you've been trying to find the extended mix of Appalachian Spring, not merely the snatches we get to hear in the film or on the soundtrack LP. This recording of 40s versions of Copland's Appalachian Spring and also his Lincoln Portrait are stunning. Here the great actor Melvyn Douglas, who starred in the nihilist-themed film BEING THERE and the enchanting Lubitsch romance NINOTCHKA with Greta Garbo, is given lines to speak, actual quotes from Abraham Lincoln's letters and speeches, and Lincoln is the MAN!

As for Melvyn Douglas, well, we all remember him as Paul Newman's tyrannical Pops from HUD, but here his voice thunders from speaker to speaker inspiring and charming and chasing down the instruments under Serge Koussevitzky's sterling direction. The brasses sound a little tinny on the third item, the symphony no 3 of Hanson. That's all right, you won't be playing that anyway, not that much, as long as you can hear the whole ballet score of Appalachian Spring and listen to the dulcet sentiments of A LINCOLN PORTRAIT.