Paul Hindemith: When Lilacs Last in the Dooryard Bloom'd (A Requiem for Those We Love)

William Stone (Performer), Paul Hindemith (Composer), Robert Shaw (Conductor), Jan DeGaetani (Performer), Atlanta Symphony Orchestra & Chorus (Orchestra) | Format: Audio CD

Product Details

• Performer: William Stone, Jan DeGaetani
• Orchestra: Atlanta Symphony Orchestra & Chorus
• Conductor: Robert Shaw
• Composer: Paul Hindemith
• Audio CD (April 23, 2002)
• Number of Discs: 1
• Label: Telarc
• ASIN: B000003CTZ
• Also Available in: Audio CD  |  MP3 Download
• Average Customer Review: 4.7 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (6 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #38,252 in Music (See Top 100 in Music)

Editorial Reviews

Made in USA. cd is free of scratches. Hardly used. May be some handling wear to the cd case.

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

28 of 30 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars A recording for the ages, December 19, 2000

By 

Samer T Ismail "SF & classical music fan" (Danbury, CT) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: Paul Hindemith: When Lilacs Last in the Dooryard Bloom'd (A Requiem for Those We Love) (Audio CD)

Robert Shaw knew "Lilacs" better than anyone--not only has he performed it more than anyone else, it was he who commissioned Hindemith to write the work in 1945 following the death of President Roosevelt.

I had the chance to hear Robert Shaw lead the Yale Glee Club in a performance of "Lilacs" in 1996, on the 50th anniversary of the work's completion (Hindemith was a music professor at Yale at the time). I was blown away from the very opening, played over a four-minute pedal point, and held with rapt attention to the very end.

This disk captured all the emotion of that performance; Stone and De Gaetani give extraordinarily warm and expressive performances, and the Atlanta Symphony Chorus, as always, is flawless. Shaw captures all the nuances of the work, from the menacing Orchestral Introduction, to the exquisite "Death Carol" ("Come, lovely and soothing Death"), to the 'sunset'-like finale ("Lilac and star and bird . . .").

This disk is a must-have for fans of Shaw or Hindemith. I recommend it highly.

12 of 12 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars A perfect compostion and recording, September 17, 2005

By 

Critic at large (East Coast USA) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Paul Hindemith: When Lilacs Last in the Dooryard Bloom'd (A Requiem for Those We Love) (Audio CD)

Robert Shaw was one of the greats of choral music, that goes without saying. Even if some of his recordings sound a bit "dated" to some ears, he was an important pioneer of American music.

The vocalists, Stone and de Gaetani, are without a doubt ideally suited to this work. They clearly grasped the poetry of Whitman and the wonderful music of Hindemith, and wove them into wonderful vocal art.

Hindemith, in my opinion a vastly underrated composer, spreads his wings and shows his overall musical talent in this requiem. Not just as the "German academician", but as a sensitive artist. He combined the genius of the German tradtion he represented as a refugee from Europe with the American genius of Whitman. In doing so, he created powerful art during some of the darkest days of the 20th century.

This recording is highly recommended. I've listened to it dozens of times and it never fails to impact me emotionally.

4 of 4 people found the following review helpful:

3.0 out of 5 stars Somebody Else Record It, Please!, May 24, 2008

By 

Giordano Bruno (Wherever I am, I am.) - See all my reviews
(HALL OF FAME REVIEWER)    (TOP 1000 REVIEWER)   

This review is from: Paul Hindemith: When Lilacs Last in the Dooryard Bloom'd (A Requiem for Those We Love) (Audio CD)

Abraham Lincoln's funeral may well have been the greatest and most heart-felt pageant of mourning in American history. The funeral train from Washington to Springfield, Illinois, stopped and exhibited the catafalque and casket in town after town, with huge lines of mourners, 100,000 at some stops, waiting to express their grief.

One mourner, Walt Whitman, wrote a poem to express his feelings of devastation. That poem, "When Lilacs Last in the Dooryard Bloom'd", is my choice for the most powerful elegy in English, ever. Paul Hindemith set the poem to music at the end of World War II, and included in his setting a Jewish folksong. There's no reasonable doubt that he intended to extend the meaning of Whitman's poem to include mourning for all of modern history. It's a piece of music so moving that it shouldn't be performed for mere entertainment.

When it is performed, however, it should be done superbly, and this recording by Robert Shaw and the Atlanta Symphony is far from superb. For one thing, the diction is awful; the words can't be understood. The muddiness of the chorus and the Wagnerian sostenuto of Shaw's conducting turn the dirge into a drudge. There's only one other recent performance available on CD, by a German orchestra and chorus singing in German, and yet the impact of the words is stronger in that performance. Please, somebody! Give this monument of literature and music the performance it deserves!