Customer Reviews

Converse: The Mystic Trumpeter; Flivver Ten Million; Endymion's Narrative

5 star:		(3)
4 star:		(2)
3 star:		(0)
2 star:		(0)
1 star:		(0)

 

 

When I bought this I had no idea what to expect. Happily, this has become one of my favorite disks in a 5000+ cd collection. This is powerful, heady stuff. The Mystic Trumpeter is superb -- why don't orchestras play this? It holds its own against R. Strauss, Liszt, and any other tone poem writer you can think of. It is played to the hilt by the Buffalo orchestra and its fine conductor. The recorded sound is sensational. The other two works are almost as entertaining. Buy this! Maybe that will encourage Naxos to record more scintillating music from this composer.

This recording is a joy from beginning to end. Not only are all three compositions highly effective and interesting, the interpretations by Maestra Falletta and the Buffalo forces are spectacular. The only question I have is why a few measures of music were cut from the final pages of the Endymion's Narrative? They are there on my recording by the Louisville Orchestra. But that's the only minor quibble with this otherwise exemplary program, and it thoroughly outclasses all previous recordings of these scores. Let's have more music by Converse and his contemporaries!

After hearing an interview with JoAnne Falletta with brief exerpts from this CD on NPR last Sunday, I ran right out and bought it. Converse composed lush, romantic, Wagnerian/Straussian music in the early 20th Century U.S., and if you like that type of music, (and I do!), this is a real feast. Although the music is thoroughly grounded in Europe, it also clearly breathes American air. And the homages to Strauss, and more strikingly, Wagner, are often quite surprizing, even revelatory. Perhaps more importantly, unlike say, Szymanowski or Scriabin, Converse avoided slavish imitation. At a slight distance, the sound is gorgeous, but close up on the headphones there are frequent, irritating noises. Perhaps the recording was miked very closely and picked up a lot of the page-turning, or maybe my disc has a manufacturing defect. In any case though, this music is well worth hearing and having.

I really enjoy rummaging through the bargain bins at Amazon's MP3 site. Every once in a while you come across a gem you were completely unaware of. I'm afraid I hadn't heard of Frederick Converse before, but this is really terrific music, and at a price of $2.67 for the complete MP3 album download, it's a great deal too.

Most of this music is clearly late Romantic; there is no pretense of modernity as we think of it today. But within the Romantic tone poem tradition, these are pretty wonderful works. It's a shame they don't get more attention. This is all programmatic music, with practically literal, scene-by-scene narrative breakdowns. The first and last tracks are from 1904 and 1901, respectively -- well before Richard Strauss completed his similarly programmatic magnum opus, the "Alpine Symphony". I didn't know we had an American composer so far ahead of the curve in that area.

Frederick Converse composed operas as well, and he wrote the first American opera ever produced by the Met. But it seems his orchestral music is most remembered today. The first track, the 20-minute "Mystic Trumpeter", is inspired by and takes its name from a poem in Walt Whitman's collection "Leaves of Grass". It has five sections that offer a musical interpretation of all but one stanza of the poem.

The last track "Endymion's Narrative" is likewise based on poetry -- this time a portion of "Endymion" by John Keats. The music depicts the internal spiritual struggle of the Endymion character in music, including a hopeful-sounding interlude in which the character is being comforted by his sister.

The middle track, "Flivver Ten Million", is a bit different. Written much later, in 1927, it is a post-Romantic work about the ten millionth Ford automobile to roll off the assembly line. (Apparently, "flivver" was an early slang for Ford cars.) The composition was inspired by "Pacific 231", the famous train tone poem by Arthur Honegger. It includes gimmicks like honking horns and musical wind machines. It is an enjoyable romp through vehicular sonic sensations.

The quality of the sound is very good even in MP3. I noticed no glitches listening with a pair of nice headphones. Bitrates are in the 225-230 Kbps range. Note that if you get the MP3 download version of this album, it's a very good idea to head over to the Naxos site and pick up the liner notes too, which are available there at no charge. Highly recommended!

Most people today would not know the name Frederick Converse, and if they did, they would know only the name, despite the fact he was the first American to write an opera presented by the Metropolitan Opera. Most musical histories start American music with Charles Ives, and simply ignore everyone before that time.

As the Naxos American Classics series is proving, we are missing some true gems. The Converse recording is a case in point. What if an American wrote tone poems in the style of Richard Strauss? That's what Converse basically did - his tone poems Mystic Trumpeter (based on Walt Whitman) and Endymion's Narrative sound right up Strauss' vein with their lush orchestration and late Romantic harmonies.

Converse does have an individual personality, as Flivver Ten Million proves. An ode to automobiles, this work has honking car horns and a droll sense of humor. Conductor JoAnne Falletta really understands these pieces and the Buffalo Philharmonic tears into them. Occasionally I would like to have heard a larger string section tackle these lush works - hence the four stars - but that's my only criticism.

I really did not know what to expect when I bought this CD, but it has quickly become a favorite. If you like late Romantic music, an unexpected but delightful surprise awaits you.