Ferde Grofé; Aaron Copland - Grand Canyon Suite; Billy the Kid (Antal Doráti; David Zinman)

Information

Composer: Ferde Grofé; Aaron Copland

• (01-05) Grofé - Grand Canyon Suite
• (06-13) Copland - Billy the Kid, complete ballet
• (14)      Copland - El salón Mexicó

Detroit Symphony Orchestra
Antal Doráti, conductor (1-5)

Baltimore Symphony Orchestra
David Zinman, conductor (6-14)

Recording Date: 1982, 1993
Compilation: 2012
Label: Decca
https://www.deccaclassics.com/us/cat/4785156

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Review

"Antal Doráti was 76 years old when he made his Gershwin and Grofé record for Decca, but these performances have all the cocky swagger of youth. They are also stunningly well recorded and played to the nines by the Detroit Symphony Orchestra, of which Doráti had been music director for about five years by the time these tracks were recorded."

"..."

"The brilliance of the recorded sound is also very much in evidence in the famous Cloudburst that concludes Ferde Grofé's Grand Canyon Suite. This music is painted in primary colours, and demands committed execution and vivid sound to make an impact. It receives both here. The deft Detroit percussion and brass cut through the swell of strings and the woodwind squall to spectacular effect. The earlier movements of Grofé's tuneful, Broadway-influenced score are equally well served. Cooing French horns evoke sunrise and in the first movement of the suite and sunset in the fourth. Doráti's dynamic control gives the second movement, The Painted Desert, an air of movie mystery and the depiction of a clip-clopping, hee-hawing donkey carrying a singing cowboy in the central third movement, On the Trail, is priceless."

-- Tim Perry, MusicWeb International

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"No doubts about the musical integrity of Zinman's Billy the Kid. The sound of those lonely falling thirds aspiring to lengthen their reach to Copland's familiar fourths and fifths is a sound as well attuned to the wide open prairies as anything in his music. Cowboy songs come and go. The quiet nocturne underscoring ''The card game at night'' (Bury me not on the lone prairie) is a special moment here, the solo trumpet straight out of the quiet city into the OK Corral. So, too, the slow waltz before Billy's capture (Come wrangle yer bronco): wistful bassoon, solo trombone, swaying string basses—cradle song for a tough guy. I need hardly say how good the Argo sound is. When it comes to a showdown—and I'm thinking of bass-drum bucking broncos as well as gunfight rim-shots—you are right in the line of fire."

-- Edward Seckerson, Gramophone

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Ferde Grofé (March 27, 1892 – April 3, 1972) was an American composer, arranger, pianist and instrumentalist. Grofé studied in Leipzig, Germany, and became proficient on a wide range of instruments including piano, violin, viola, baritone horn, alto horn and cornet. His most memorable arrangement is that of George Gershwin's Rhapsody in Blue, which established Grofé's reputation among jazz musicians. In addition to being an arranger, Grofé composed a large number of works in a variety of styles, commonly in symphonic jazz. He is best known for his composition of the Grand Canyon Suite (1931).
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ferde_Grof%C3%A9

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Aaron Copland (November 14, 1900 – December 2, 1990) was an American composer, composition teacher, writer, and later in his career a conductor. His works are consider by many to be the sound of American music, evoking the vast American landscape and pioneer spirit. He is best known for the works he wrote in the 1930s and 1940s in a deliberately accessible style, such as the ballets Appalachian Spring, Billy the Kid and Rodeo, and his Third Symphony. In addition to his famous ballets and orchestral works, he produced music in many other genres including chamber music, vocal works, opera and film scores.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Aaron_Copland

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Antal Doráti (9 April 1906 – 13 November 1988) was a Hungarian-born conductor and composer who became a naturalized American citizen in 1943. He studied at the Franz Liszt Academy with Zoltán Kodály and Leo Weiner for composition, and Béla Bartók for piano. He made his conducting debut in 1924, and over the course of his career, made over 600 recordings, mostly for Mercury Records. Doráti was especially well known for his recordings of Tchaikovsky's music. Other prominent composers in Doráti's recording career are Béla Bartók and Igor Stravinsky. He lived to make digital recordings, for English Decca Records.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Antal_Dor%C3%A1ti

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David Zinman (born 9 July 1936 in New York City, United States) is an American conductor and violinist. Zinman studied at the Oberlin Conservatory, the University of Minnesota and at Tanglewood, before working Pierre Monteux from 1958 to 1964. He has been Music Director of the Rotterdam Philharmonic (1979-82), Rochester Philharmonic (1974-85), Baltimore Symphony (1985-98) and Tonhalle Orchester Zürich (1995-2014). Zinman also was music director of the Aspen Music Festival and School (1998-2010), where he founded and directed its American Academy of Conducting.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/David_Zinman

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