Ed Zubrow wrote about his recent acquaintance with Mennin's Fifth Symphony.
I also heard Mennin #5 on NPR recently- the Baltimore station- so it must
be making the rounds.  Like Ed, I am largely unfamiliar with his oeuvre,
but I found the performance quite captivating.  Peter Mennin was president
of Juilliard for many years, and died about 20 years ago.  Jim Svejda, in
his "Insiders Guide to Classical Recordings" suggests a CD, Delos 3164,
as his preferred recording of Mennin's music.  The CD, by the Seattle
Symphony, contains his symphonies #3 and #7, along with his Concertato for
Orchestra.  Svejda had this to say:

   "...  His music is also remarkably free of humor and charm, nor is
   it especially sensual or colorful in any conventional way; his
   orchestration, while skillful and efficient, deliberately avoids any
   color or effect that might get in the way of the musical argument.
   Rugged, virile, intellectually uncompromising, Mennin's art, at its
   best, has a driven energy and concentrated power unique in American
   music.  The three works in this Delos recording offer an ideal
   introduction to Mennin's challenging and rewarding world, from the
   austere power of the Third Symphony- the composer's Eastman School
   of Music doctoral dissertation that established his reputation in
   the late 1940's- through the rigorous complexities of the "Variation
   Symphony", written for George Szell and the Cleveland Orchestra.
   Although both have been recorded before, the Schwartz easily outstrips
   the previous recordings by Mitropolous and Martinon ...  An equally
   compelling version of the Concertato, "Moby Dick"- which has little
   direct connection to the Melville novel- makes an already extremely
   attractive package even more so."

Larry Sherwood
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