At long last, SONY Classical has reissued the Bernstein recording of
Harold Shapero's Symphony for Classical Orchestra as part of their
Bernstein Century Series, SMK 60725.  (Originally a Columbia LP, ML4889,
and later reissued on CRI, this is one of the first recordings Bernstein
ever made and, for that matter one of the first works Bernstein ever
conducted.) In yesterday's New York Times, Anthony Tommasini recounts the
history of this work, and it made a bit of a splash in the press a few
years ago when Andre Previn took it up and recorded it for New World.
There is a chapter about it in _Harvard Composers: Essays on Walter Piston
and His Students,_by Howard Pollack (Scarecrow, 1992).  (Shapero's other
teachers included Slonimsky, Krenek, Hindemith and Nadia Boulanger.)

If I have a favorite musical work, this is it.  And Bernstein's may be its
definitive performance; certainly it is the one I prefer, in spite of its
vintage age, for reasons Tommasini articulates better than I've ever been
able to, having to do with rhythmic articulation and the coherence of the
entire work.  Since I discovered this symphony by chance in a public
library about thirty five years ago I have been carrying a torch for it.
It was once on a Schwann Basic Record Collection list, but more often than
not a recording of it has been hard to find, over the years.  (I treasure
a copy found in a New York used record store that I was told was from the
collection of the inventor of the LP.)

What do I like about it? It is one of the most exciting symphonies ever
written.  (Tommasini quotes Alan Rich as declaring it "the greatest
American symphony." I would not quarrel with that.) It has tremendous
rhythmic drive, with clear orchestral and harmonic textures, sometimes
pungent harmonies, some syncopation, strong melodic inventiveness and
contrapuntal interest--as well as a wonderful trumpet obbligato.  It has
both exuberance and lyricism.  It goes on, as someone said of the Schubert
Great C Major Symphony, at heavenly length.  (I have never dared compare
these works before, but I don't mind doing so.  The Shapero is also
reminiscent of Beethoven's Seventh, especially in the headlong momentum of
the finale.  Stravinsky's Symphony in C may come to mind also, if you know
it.)

Why isn't this work part of the standard repertoire? Partly because it
is difficult to perform; partly because it was composed at the end of the
neoclassical period, with all the musical politics that implies and, aside
from his early associations with Bernstein, partly because the composer has
never been part of any musical establishment; partly because Shapero never
did what composers like William Schuman and Alan Hovhanness did in the
face of scorn and neglect--forge on while letting the torpedoes be damned.
The result of all this--and there is more that could be said--is that in
effect, this wonderful symphony is Shapero's "ONE WORK," as he said to me
after a program in Jordan Hall, Boston around the time his symphony was
reissued by CRI.  (He has written others, of course, but I couldn't really
argue with him--none can touch this one.) People have problems with that
kind of output; they want to discuss a composer's whole oeuvre.  But, so
what? This work is big enough to stand by itself.

My advice?  GET THIS DISC!

Jim Tobin