William Schuman: In Praise of Shahn / Aaron Copland: Connotations / Roger Sessions: Suite from "The Black Maskers" - The Juilliard Orchestra

William Schuman (Performer), Aaron Copland (Composer), Roger Sessions (Composer), Otto-Werner Mueller (Composer), Sixten Ehrling (Conductor), Paul Zukofsky (Conductor), The Juilliard Orchestra (Conductor, Orchestra) | Format: Audio CD

Product Details

• Performer: William Schuman
• Orchestra: The Juilliard Orchestra
• Conductor: Sixten Ehrling, Paul Zukofsky, The Juilliard Orchestra
• Composer: Aaron Copland, Roger Sessions, Otto-Werner Mueller
• Audio CD (December 8, 1992)
• Number of Discs: 1
• Label: New World Records
• ASIN: B0000030EA
• In-Print Editions: MP3 Download
• Average Customer Review: 4.0 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (1 customer review)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #454,927 in Music (See Top 100 in Music)

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

4.0 out of 5 stars Heady Stuff, September 5, 2010

By 

Peter P. Fuchs (Washington, DC) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: William Schuman: In Praise of Shahn / Aaron Copland: Connotations / Roger Sessions: Suite from "The Black Maskers" - The Juilliard Orchestra (Audio CD)

This is really a very remarkable CD, especially for the first two items. Otto Mueller carves out the In Praise of Shahn from musical granite. There is a heady and severe coldness to the music which is masterful and invigorating. It doesn't remind me of Ben Shahn's art very much at all -- it seems cut from the same cloth as Schuman's Eighth symphony -- but maybe it is like Shahn's uncompromising intellectual stance in matters political. The Copland Connotations is projected with a kind of outrageous breadth for such, to my ears, genius miserliness in late Copland's music. In a way this is the same Copland of the Piano Variations and Piano Fantasy, But it is pared down. Sixten Ehrling's reading hits the aesthetic bulls-eye for this more spare, but somehow still unavoidably romantic music. I believe that Bernstein premiered the piece, and though I have never heard his performance of it, if such exists, I am quite sure I would not like it nearly as much.