Ed Zubrow:

>My guess is that it was by an American twentieth century composer.  Wanting
>to know how close (or more like how far-off) my ears were I wrote to WBGH.
>They kindly responded that it was Mennin's Symphony #5 [Eastman-Rochester
>Orch./Howard Hanson] on Mercury 432 755.
>
>Well, I never heard of him.  So I'm in the same boat of not knowing how I
>did? How did I do?

Very well.  Right on the money.  Peter Mennin was considered one of the
bright lights of the postwar American symphonists.  He was President of
Juilliard for a while.  I saw my college confer an honorary doctorate
on him (he briefly attended for a year or less), my guess is over the
objections of the composition faculty.  His composing career was one of
many caught between the rock of the postwar avant-garde and the hard place
of mossback audiences.  He died relatively young (1923-83).  His brother,
Louis Mennini, was also a composer.

Steve Schwartz