1.Bernard Rogers - The Winter's Past  -  Rhapsody for Oboe and Strings
2.Wayne Barlow - Soliloquy for Flute and String Orchestra
3.Aaron Copland - Quiet City for Trumpet, English Horn and String Orchestra
4.Kent Kennan - Night Soliloquy for Flute and String Orchestra
5.Homer Keller - Serenade for Clarinet and Strings
6.Howard Hanson - Serenade for Flute, Strings and Harp
7.Howard Hanson -  Pastorale for Oboe, Strings and Harp

Robert Sprenkle (oboe)
Joseph Mariano (flute)
William Osseck (clarinet)
Sidney Mear (trumpet)
Richard Swingley (English horn)
Eastman-Rochester Symphony Orchestra
Howard Hanson – conductor

Over the years, Mercury's archives became a unique depository, especially for compositions by American composers recorded nowhere else.

Kent Kennan, an Eastman School graduate, spent most of his life teaching, but he was an active composer earlier in his career and near the end of his life. He wrote a few widely used instructional books.

Homer Keller was another product of the Eastman School. He wrote three symphonies and spent much time teaching.

Bernard Rogers was head of Eastman's composition department for several decades.

Wayne Barlow earned undergraduate, master's and doctoral degrees from Eastman, then taught there for many years. "The Winter's Past" is also known as "The Winter's Passed" - either makes sense.

The recordings were made in October 1952 and May 1953.

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1 	1. Andante Lamentando 	9:59
2 	2. Andante Tranquillo 	7:52
3 	3. Tempo Scherzando 	5:45
4 	4. Largamente E Pesante 	9:36
	-
5 	Elegy In Memory Of My Friend Serge Koussevitsky Op. 44 	11:21
6 	The Lament For Beowulf 	17:38

Eastman School Of Music Chorus (tracks: 6)
Eastman-Rochester Orchestra
Howard Hanson – conductor

When I first started collecting classical CDs, I only had a few Mercury Living Presence (MLP) titles. In my quest to get the absolute best, or at least a definitive recording, of the major works of the standard repertoire, MLP discs rarely topped the critics' lists. In fact, only three MLP recordings have been earmarked as "Essential Recordings" by Amazon.com -- Tchaikovsky's 1812 Overture, Byron Janis performing Rachmaninov's 2nd & 3rd Piano Concertos, and Yehudi Menuhin performing Bartok's 2nd Violin Concerto, all three with Antal Dorati as conductor. It is also safe to say that three other titles are equally essential for their historical value alone. They are Tchaikovsky's Swan Lake by Dorati (the first recording of the complete ballet), Janis performing Liszt's Piano Concertos (the first recordings made in the Soviet Union by American technicians, musical staff and equipment), and Kubelik's Chicago Symphony performance of Pictures at an Exhibition (one of, if not the single best mono recording ever, and the one that led the New York Times critic to coin the phrase "Living Presence," from which the label named its series). But how does a CD line go from having a half-dozen must have recordings, to being this reviewer's all-time favorite classical label?

The answer: consistently magical performances, captured in brilliant golden-age stereo sound, that offer a slightly different take on your typical interpretation of the great works. Of course, MLP also went to great lengths to feature music by more obscure composers, particularly contemporary Americans. While Dorati, and to a lesser extent Paray, recorded these lesser known works, Howard Hanson was their champion. Hanson was also quite the composer himself and there are three MLP discs that demonstrate this, including this disc of his magical Symphony No. 3, Elegy (for Koussevitzsky), and Lament for Beowulf. Maybe that is why collectors prize these recordings, because they are a breath of fresh air in a homogenized world of listening. Of course, collectors love a challenge too, and MLP CDs are becoming increasingly hard to find. It has taken years for me to finally find all of the MLP CDs released to date, and unfortunately I don't think there will be any new releases forthcoming. So collectors, and even those who aspire to be, should pick up as many Mercury Living Presence discs as possible now, before they all die. --- Michael Brad Richman, amazon.com

The Third Symphony’s ruminative expectation is crowned by starkly crushing brass statements seemingly descriptive of some Nordic tempest. The trudging and rushing forward momentum (5:40) is explosive and propulsive. Hanson superbly sustains, accents and goads the progress of the music. He also insists on some mice dynamic contrasts. Sibelius 2 can be heard in those dynamic pizzicato ‘rushes’ from the violins. In the second movement softly chanting woodwind gently launches one of those long string melodies related to that in the Second Symphony. In the third movement there are echoes of Sibelius 3 in the chipper writing for woodwind. This mixed with shadows of Sibelius 1 and the folk ‘stomp’ we hear in Peterson-Berger and later in the symphonies of Hilding Rosenberg. The finale is strident, gripping, raw, dark and sinuously Nordic.

The Koussevitsky Elegy is the most sincere and indomitably built of all the works included here. He owed much to Koussevitsky including the commission for both the second symphony and the piano concerto. Koussevitsky also recorded the Third Symphony on 78s and this has been reissued on Dutton in their Essential Archive series CDEA5021.

The Lament for Beowulf dates from Hanson’s days in Rome and his studies with Respighi. It is amongst his most potently brooding works. It carries all his irresistible fingerprints: long-spun themes, gruff brass punctuation, Holstian insistence from the drums, taciturn majesty and string ostinati with brass punch-syncopated above. At 13:19 there is a delirious counterpoint rising to majesty and at 1630 a Neptune-like evocation of eternity fades into mystery. -- Rob Barnett, musicweb-international.com

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Hanson - Symphony No.1 in E minor, Op.21 "Nordic"
1.1. Andante solenne - Allegro con	11:32	
2.2. Andante teneramente, con semplicita	5:44	 
3.3. Allegro con fuoco		9:24	 

Hanson - Symphony No.2, Op.30 "Romantic"
4.1. Adagio - Allegro moderato		13:59	
5.2. Andante con tenerezza		6:36	 
6.3. Allegro con brio		7:20	 

7. Hanson: Song of Democracy		12:04

Eastman Rochester School Of Music Chorus 
Eastman-Rochester Orchestra
Howard Hanson – conductor

Was it really almost thirty years ago that I first heard the music of Howard Hanson? A friend had taped a miscellaneous BBC Radio 3 programme of American music. It was broadcast one Sunday in 1971-2. Apart from including Griffes’ Pleasure Dome there was also the middle movement of Hanson's Romantic. It was the first time I had heard any Hanson. In due course I got the Charles Gerhardt LP of the whole Romantic Symphony. Then having started my first qualified job I threw caution to the winds and ordered via the then Crotchet Records mail order a batch of USA LPs selected from a Schwann catalogue I had picked up in a jazz specialist shop in Plymouth. That bulky parcel came by surface mail from the USA (I seem to recall the name ‘Harlequin Records’ as Crotchet’s US suppliers). It included some fascinating Hanson, Piston, Schuman, Hovhaness, Harris and Randall Thompson. The Hanson was the Mercury LP of the first two symphonies - the same two tapes as appear here. I played that LP to death and came to know the Nordic complete with one or two clicks and groove skips as if those blemishes were integral parts of the music. I was, and remain, a resolute Sibelian; the music of Hanson has some Sibelian resonance with a Tchaikovskian pungency. It is highly emotional and emotive music. If you know the history of favourite works by Sibelius, Nielsen, Peterson-Berger and others it should come as no surprise that the Nordic was actually written in Rome where he was studying with Respighi. It was premiered by the Augusteo Orchestra, with the composer conducting, on 30 May 1923. The recording here was made 35 years later. It positively throbs with soulful Scandinavian feeling. Hanson is no dawdler and keeps the pressure on his players who respond with the alacrity of an orchestra that has grown up under Hanson's shaping hands. The precision of the final 'crump' of the Nordic is deeply impressive.

The Second Symphony is in the grand romantic manner with melodic material to match. Just listen to the horn 'fall' at 4:31 and the easy-does-it solo that follows. This is Hollywood before the grand Rózsa, Herrmann and Korngold scores were written. Here the accent is even more Sibelian. Hanson wrote a gift of a tune in the first movement and matched it in the tender balm of the andante con tenerezza. The strings glow with a Hollywood sheen - ample in tone with only a feint suggestion of ‘dated-ness’. The plungingly bright allegro con brio is well named with darting winds, commanding brass (00.49) all grippingly exciting (3.20). The reprise of the great theme from the first movement appears at 5:20 and is a spectacularly moving moment.

Only Charles Gerhardt (now on Chesky) has excelled the composer in the Romantic although Kenneth Montgomery (Arte Nova) is I think very fine even when taken at the almost parodied distended pace he adopts. Schwarz and Slatkin each have their own strengths but lack the belligerent passion the composer brings.

The Song of Democracy sidles modestly in. The singing is well coached and marvellously clear. The wild dance of 3.23 must have been in Hanson’s mind for the scherzo elements of the Sixth Symphony. There are some Waltonian triumphalisms (3:52) and memorable moments include the opulent and increasingly urgent chiming obbligato at 10.03. If we flinch and wince in the face of the sincere sentiments on display here then let us also recall works such as Ireland's These Things Shall Be and wonder if we have become too knowing ... too cynical. --- Rob Barnett, musicweb-international.com

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