William Schuman

* Credendum (Article of Faith)
* Concerto for Piano and Orchestra
* Symphony No. 4

John McCabe, piano; Albany Symphony Orchestra/David Alan Miller
Albany TROY566 TT: 64:54

Summary for the Busy Executive: Three sports.

William Schuman belongs to the second generation (Thomson, Copland,
Sessions, and Harris partly comprise the first) of American Moderns,
having studied with Roy Harris among others.  Extremely prominent in
his own day both as a composer and an arts administrator (probably one
of the most powerful in the country; among other things, he ran Lincoln
Center), Schuman's star has dimmed a bit.  Outside of his New England
Triptych, there's no "hit" in his catalogue.  I remember watching the
Kennedy Honors program and wondering, as I saw the composer with the
medal hanging from his neck, what on earth they would play.  Predictably,
they played excerpts from the New England Triptych, and I would bet
dollars to doughnuts that very few people in attendance that night
knew what they listened to.

Not that I sneer at the New England Triptych, but it's not the core of
Schuman's achievement, his cycle of nine acknowledged symphonies -- in
the composer's words, "eccentrically labeled from two to ten." To these
I would add his violin, piano, and viola concerti, several fugitive
orchestral works, his five string quartets, and a mountain of superb,
highly individual choral music.

Schuman began his piano concerto in the late Thirties.  Rosalyn Tureck
and Daniel Saidenberg premiered a revised version in 1942 in New York.
Then apparently Schuman forgot about it.  It took a 1976 Vox/Turnabout
recording with Gary Steigerwalt and conductor David Epstein to remind
him of the piece.  I'd describe it as hard-core neoclassic.  To me, it
represents a kind of "road not taken" in Schuman's output.  It sounds
little like the symphonies, for instance -- more like something by Piston
in one of his more aggressive moods.  It's in three movements: a neoclassic
jazzy allegro, a slow movement, and quick toccata.  All the movements
are extremely strong and memorable.  Even though it stands slightly to
the side of the main line of his output, it remains one of my favorite
Schumans.  Against all odds, I actually own all three recordings:
Tureck, Steigerwalt, and McCabe.  None entirely satisfies.  The Tureck,
unfortunately, has terrible sound -- so terrible, I can't overlook it
to get to the quality of the performance.  The Steigerwalt, to put it
mildly, is really rough -- with smeared runs, probably missed notes,
and lack of focus in the slow movement.  The McCabe, with better sound,
shines in the slow movement, but the outer movements are stiff, as if
everyone plays too careful.  The jazz inflections of the first movement
just aren't there, and it plods.

Credendum appeared in the Fifties, a United Nations commission (this
gives you some idea of Schuman's prestige at the time).  It's a marvelous
work -- almost a one-movement symphony in three large sections.  It
reminds me a little bit of Harris's method of "continual variation"
(Schuman studied with Harris).  Compared to Harris's symphonies or
Schuman's own, however, it's a little loose, architecturally speaking.
However, it's also dramatic and intense as all get-out.  Compared to the
classic Ormandy performance (Albany TROY276), Miller elicits far more
detail from the score, and, of course, the sound exceeds by several
counties, if not states, the Fifties mono (even cleaned up for digital
transfer).  Ormandy isn't chopped liver, and he delivers great momentum.
However, Miller gives you a better idea of what this work is about.

The Symphony No. 4, from the early Forties, cemented Schuman's reputation
after the fanfare that greeted his breakout Third.  It's unusual in that
it shows the influence of Copland (just about everywhere at the time in
"hard" modern American music), normally missing from Schuman's work.
This may be due partly to Schuman's submission of the score to Copland
for constructive criticism.  I should add, however, that Schuman didn't
take from the "popular" Copland of the big ballets, but from the avant-garde
part of the older man's catalogue: notably, the Short Symphony.  This
comes out mostly rhythmically, and almost entirely in the first movement,
with syncopations straight out of the Copland work and not at all
characteristic of Schuman.

The first movement begins, however, as pure Schuman.  A solo english
horn and solo bass sing a slow duet as the rest of the orchestra gradually
joins in to ratchet up the tension.  The sound is Schuman's "skyscraper
and steel," found in many other works -- for example, George Washington
Bridge for band -- filled with upward leaps of major sevenths (eg, C-B)
and minor ninths (eg, C-Db') that cut through the texture like shards
of glass.  The rhetorical structure is "simmer-and-erupt," and halfway
through an allegro bursts out.  Copland appears most obviously here.
The quick music, a nervous quasi-fugato, gradually gives way to a long
counter-melody which eventually takes over.  The slow second movement
begins, not surprisingly, as a lament but quickly becomes very elusive.
The music continually transforms, and the mood with it.  It's a beautiful
thing -- and immediately so -- but I needed to listen to it several times
before I began to find the structural handle.  The finale begins with
almost a throwaway idea -- it passes so quickly -- which turns out to
have great importance to the course of the movement.  This is the most
identifiably Schuman music in the symphony, but it's hardly run-of-the-mill
-- basically, two fugues, the first mainly for winds and brass, the
second mainly for strings.  Gradually, a long tune in the horns appears
against the fugue, and it turns out not only that the tune comes from
the opening "throwaway," but that the two fugal subjects plus the
counter-tune comprise the entire opening idea.  Wow.

All of this would mean very little, had not Schuman written exhilarating
music.  As it stands, the architecture gives you a fuller picture of the
quality of the composer's mind.  Music, after all, is something made,
and Schuman makes it better than most.  Miller's recording competes with
one from Jorge Mester and the Louisville Orchestra (Albany TROY027-2).
Compared to the Miler, the Mester sounds like a read-through, stiff,
monochromatic, and careful.  Miller improves on the earlier performance
in every way -- more subtlety, more detail, more color, sharper rhythm,
a firm grasp on the musical structure, more life.  For my money, Miller
stands at the head of young American conductors, at least in American
music (I haven't heard him in anything else).  Furthermore, the recorded
sound astonishes all by itself, with a clarity and depth to the sonic
image I've seldom encountered.  One of those new-fangled Super-Audio
CDs.  Judging by this result, I doubt this is a gimmick or fad.  So,
mostly wonderful performances (except for the piano concerto; unsatisfactory
though it is, for me the Steigerwalt account comes out ahead) in great
sound.  Who could ask for anything more?

Steve Schwartz