Customer Reviews

Henry Kimball Hadley: Symphony No. 4, The Ocean, and The Culprit Fay

5 star:		(7)
4 star:		(0)
3 star:		(1)
2 star:		(1)
1 star:		(0)

 

 

I've just come back to this disc after listening to and reviewing Edward MacDowell's two orchestral suites on Naxos 8.559075, and I'm more impressed than ever with Hadley's symphonic accomplishments represented on the current CD. While the most impressive music here comes in "The Culprit Fay," a tone poem based on a long poem by the American Joseph Rodman Drake, all three works are fine and deserve a hearing.

"The Culprit Fay" reminds me a bit of Granville Bantock's "Pierrot of the Minute," though as I recall, Bantock's piece is a little airier, less Germanically weighty than Hadley's. Still there is enough of spooky spiritualism about "The Culprit Fay," starting with the ghostly little violin figure that opens the work and returns as a sort of motto, to make this a worthy companion to the musical fairy worlds of Mendelssohn, Humperdinck, et al. Wonderful use of the orchestra as well.

That can also be said of "The Ocean," an evocation of the sea that starts with a kind of Wagnerian drama and earnestness that recalls Vaughn Williams' "Sea Symphony," and then settles down to quiet evocations of the sea at rest that might have been outakes for "La Mer." In all, a worthy companion to the musical literature of the sea by Rimsky, Glazounov, Rachmaninov, Sibelius, and many others.

The symphony strikes me as not quite in the league of the other pieces, though it's full of character too. Protraying the four points of the globe, it starts with an evocation of the icy North that is starkly dramatic. The second movement is full of faux Orientalisms that WON'T make you think of Rimsky. (Another reviewer mentioned Ketelby, who is a better fit.) The third movement takes us to our own sunny Southland, which Hadley characterizes through cakewalks and other jazzy utterances--fun. The last movement is an impulsive and upbeat one, protraying the promise of the American West, featuring episodes of Native American music complete with tribal drums. All I can say is, where are the cowboys?

Written in 1919, the symphony is a little too naive, given what was happening in the musical world at the time, but then it is chock full of truly fine melodies and is orchestrated with such great skill that the sum of the whole is certainly more than that of its parts. Like me, you'll probably come away admiring rather than cavilling about particulars.

The performances by John M. Williams, who is making a name for himself as revivifier of older American music, are splendid one and all. He navigates the Ukrainian orchestra through the Americanisms of the symphony with great success, and they play all the music with conviction. Add to that a sound recording that is one of the finest in Naxos' American music series, and you have a truly winning disc.

Henry K. Hadley was an important figure in America's musical life during the first decades of the 20th century. He was one of the first American conductors and composers to be recognized in Europe, where he conducted in Berlin, London, and Warsaw. His first opera, "Safie" premiered in Germany. He was the first conductor of the San Francisco Symphony, and the first American composer to conduct his own opera, "Cleopatra's Night", at the Metropolitan Opera. The opera was a success, and was revived the following year, and given a radio broadcast in 1929. Mahler conducted Hadley's works, and Richard Strauss once said that he was the only American to really know the orchestra! It is sad that so much of his music, including all his 8 operas, lie unrecorded. So "bravo" to Naxos for introducing this lovely music to modern listeners!

The finest work on this disc is the opening work--the symphonic poem "The Ocean", from 1921. This is an exhilerating work, with a transcendant, etherial ending. His earlier work, "The Culprit Fay" is also lovely, with much imagination in the orchestral writing.

The symphony is also attractive, if not quite as emotionally compelling as the others.

John McLaughlin Williams is an exciting conductor, and the orchestra plays beautifully. The sound is also excellent.

Here's hoping Naxos will give us more Hadley! How about "Cleopatra's Night"?...Please? I read that after playing this music for the first time, the Ukrainian orchestra members were much impressed, and asked Williams, "Is he famous in America?" My answer to their question? He should be.

I'd heard the name of Henry Hadley (1871-1937) and remembered that John Tasker Howard, in his landmark 'Our American Music' made the sly comment that his music was 'so agreeable that people like to hear it. And that is a great deal in these days.' But I'd never heard a note of his music as far as I could recall. In addition to being a prolific composer, Hadley was a busy man as conductor (Seattle and San Francisco Symphonies, associate conductor of the New York Philharmonic), music organizer (he was instrumental in the early days of what became the Berkshire Music Center [Tanglewood]) and all-round proselytizer for American music. He was the first American to conduct the Berlin Philharmonic. He had an opera commissioned by the Metropolitan ('Cleopatra's Night,' a one-acter that was quickly forgotten).

Here we have three orchestral pieces dating from the early years of the last century, all of them descriptive in the manner of 'tone poems' à la Liszt, Strauss or Dukas. 'The Ocean' is a fifteen minute musical depiction of the sea from 1920, inspired by poetry of Louis K. Anspacher, another once celebrated artist whose work has disappeared from our collective consciousness. It portrays a sea storm as well as the glassy stillness of a becalmed sea. It builds to a Straussian climax before ending with a brief and serene coda. The program notes quote extensively from Anspacher's 'Ocean Ode,' and provide a program of sorts. 'The Culprit Fay' is another quarter-hour tone poem based on a poem, this time the early 19th century American poet, Joseph Rodman Drake's eponymous paean to the mighty Hudson River. Written in 1908, the music, which tells the story of a male water fairy who makes the mistake of falling in love with a mortal woman, is rather more impressionistic than 'The Ocean' and sounds at times like Dukas. It displays Hadley's mastery of French-influenced orchestration and is really quite effective. There was a time when it was quite popular with American orchestras, we're told.

Although a true symphony, Hadley's Fourth Symphony (1911), is also descriptive. Each of the four movements is named for a direction. 'North' protrays winter weather and there is a blizzard every bit as stark as the wintry music of Sibelius, say. It begins with a solemn chorale in the brass before bursting forth with a wild and wicked storm, all crafted skillfully. 'East' abounds with Orientalisms reminiscent of Ketèlbey, but sounding a good bit more authentic. Granted, the materials sound rather more like what we later came to hear in film music, but we must remember that Hadley was writing a good twenty-five years before that sort of music was common in our movie theaters. (A side note: Hadley is credited with writing the very first synchronized film score, for 'When a Man Loves,' in 1926.) 'South' obviously refers to the American South, and this scherzo is my favorite of the four 'directions' primarily because it is an expert and early use of ragtime rhythms in concert music. Plus, it swings! 'West' also seems to be describing an American region, the wide-open spaces of our Western states. It abounds with Elgarian nobilmente and Straussian instrumental brilliance allied with some use of what sound to be Native American melodies. It is interesting that our modern conception of Western music exemplified by the open harmonies of Copland has no place here, but the music still manages to convey the grandeur of the region.

This release is a part of the increasingly valuable 'American Classics' series. It matters not that the orchestra involved is the Ukraine National Symphony Orchestra; under John McLaughlin Williams's expert direction they play with conviction, suavity and rhythmic point. I don't think an American orchestra could have done it any better. The informative notes are by the CD's (and the American Classics') producers, Victor and Marina Ledin. Lifelike sound.

TT=69 mins.

Scott Morrison

This isn't music on the level of Beethoven, but it's well worth listening to. In America's change of critical taste from romanticism to modernism a lot of worthy music has been unjustly swept aside. In textbooks you start out with 18th C. hymn tunes, then straight to the post WWII era, with a detour to Gershwin and Copland. There was a time when American composers strove to write rich and elaborate concert music, and Hadley is a first rate example.

The Ocean is a third-rate conflation of the kinds of tone poetry you expect from Bax and Ravel. That description is not as bad as it sounds; "third-rate" is surprisingly decent when the corresponding "first-rate" has been defined as something totally awesome. Unimportant, but evocative, entertaining, and very pretty. (Has there ever been a tone poem about a body of water that fails at any of those last three things?)

The Culprit Fay is an inconsequential bit of banality saved by cute orchestration and general pandering niceness.

The Symphony is... well... bad. North is an overwrought, repetitive lesson in how to fail to evoke your supposed subject matter. East is like North, but fares a bit better due to the snappier pace and reduced self-importance. South is like a 5-paragraph "hamburger" essay on ragtime. West veers between fluttery lightness and dubious regality, and is punctuated by these ridiculous "Indian" passages that show the ethnic sensitivity of an early John Wayne movie.

Even though I'm in general agreement with the two-star review that preceded me, I think three stars are in order due to this being possibly the only recording of The Ocean that will ever exist. I also see some value in having at least one really crappy symphony in a classical collection for demonstration purposes.

The playing and recording live up to the Naxos name honorably.

This is definitely one of the gems of Naxos's American classics; wonderful music whose neglect is well neigh inexplicable. Well, I am not going to claim that it is particularly original or adventuresome, but music that is as well crafted, full-blooded and melodically replete as this does at least deserve a place in the repertoire. The Massachusetts-born Hadley (1871-1937) studied with Chadwick and in Vienna, and his music is strongly influenced by European contemporaneous models, being generally wistfully late romantic, colorful and atmospheric.

The Ocean, dating from 1920-21, is an evocative seascape, gloriously orchestrated, influenced by impressionism but tempered by the kind of autumnal late-romanticism one finds in, say, Zemlinsky. The Culprit Fay on the other hand, from 1908, is more firmly romantic, reminiscent to a certain extent of d'Indy and Franck but perhaps more so Mendelssohn - I found this to be the weakest work on the disk, even though it is still eminently worth hearing.

The fourth symphony dates from 1911 and is firmly rooted in a high romantic tonal language (Dvorak is often brought to mind). Its four movements are titled North, East, South and West and, predictably, North is a chilly and dramatic depiction of the arctic, East draws on the kind of orientalism that I guess was popular at the time, South is a vibrant evocation of the smells, sights and sounds of the American south with touches of ragtime and spirituals, and West is music of open spaces using Native American rhythms and melodies. Yes, the music might sound a little campy from this description, but I assure you that this is superb music of memorable themes, vivid colors and magnificent scoring, always inventive and skillfully put together.

The performances are excellent, committed; red-blooded and muscular, and the sound is fresh and crisp. This is really an excellent issue, and one can only hope that Naxos explores Hadley's music further - the booklet notes hint at some large-scale choral and orchestral works that supposedly show the composer at his very best. Might it be too much to hope for?

First of all, the conductor is not that John Williams, or the other John Williams, he is John McLaughlin Williams and he is excellent. This is lush monumental music which reminds me of Dohnanyi or Atterberg. It's 160 proof romantic era white lightning, served by a conductor of color.

I can't get enough. The best is the Symphony in D minor. It rollicks it's way to all four cardinal points. That this composition has fallen from the repertoire is a crime.

For whatever it's worth, I LOVE THIS SYMPHONY. Very melodic and very well recorded. BUY IT!!!

I agree with "a music fan" about the quality of the performance and of the sound (so two stars there) and of the superiority of the two tone poems to the Symphony, but I'm afraid that's where it ends.
The tone poems are superior, more original pieces of music, but only compared to the Symphony. Comparing "Culprit Fay" with Mendelssohn and "The Sea" with Rimsky or Sibelius is either misleading and fanciful or else a nice piece of post-modern, deconstructionist whimsy.

By the time the symphony's opening notes come along, you'll have decided "third rank" on the basis of the tone poems but for me, (and of course, taste can only be personal) the Symphony is far far worse and far more trite than "music fan" allows - somewhere around 10th rank. I found it downright embarrassing as music, - pure kitsch with lots of brass to make it sound important. And the "Indian" sections? I didnt know whether to laugh or groan.

I picked this up for £1.79, about $3US, and still regard it as a complete waste of money which has been put into the "sell" pile after only one play. At that price, I can experiment, but if you're thinking of paying full price, even full super-budget price - dont!