HOWARD HANSON - Howard Hanson Conducts American Masterworks (2004) 5CD SET / FLAC (image+.cue), lossless

All of the material on the five-CD Mercury set, Howard Hanson Conducts American Masterworks, has been previously released as single discs in exactly the same configuration. Most of the older issues, however, are out of print and are unlikely to return, given the availability of this box set. This is no reason to mourn, for this set is retailing at a bargain basement price, working out to roughly a "five for the price of four" ratio. Some collectors may welcome the added shelf space.

As to the performances themselves, they are all outstanding, with several performances being definitive, such as the Ives Three Places in New England, Barber's Capricorn Concerto, Douglas Moore's Pageant of P.T. Barnum, and many others heard here. Howard Hanson with the Eastman-Rochester Symphony Orchestra was just simply a hard act to follow. Hanson's performances have hardly dated at all sonically, thanks to Mercury Living Presence's pioneering attitude toward sound quality and the careful maintenance accorded the master tapes of these early stereo recordings, which date from 1957 to 1966.

Not all of the pieces heard here are "masterworks" -- one would be hard pressed to apply such an adjective to such pieces as William McCauley's Five Miniatures for Flute and Strings or the greatly enlarged orchestral arrangement of one of Moravian composer Johann Friedrich Peter's six chamber sonatas as a "Sinfonia in G." There are still some excellent Hanson recordings for Mercury Living Presence that have never appeared on CD, presumably because they were made in mono; this would include his superb renderings of Griffes' The Pleasure Dome of Kubla Khan and Sessions' Suite from The Black Maskers. It is unfair, nevertheless, to complain about that which is not present; besides, the new disc does include greatly improved notes, detailing recording dates and locations, microphone setups and includes a well-written, conversational liner by Bill Newman, a producer and engineer who worked on a lot of these sessions. Unless one has already acquired all five of these single discs, the American concert music fancier can hardly afford to pass up Howard Hanson Conducts American Masterworks. by Uncle Dave Lewis  
CD.1
Samuel Barber :    Capricorn Concerto, Op. 21
Flute – Joseph Mariano
Oboe – Robert Sprenkle
Trumpet – Sidney Mear
Walter Piston :    The Incredible Flutist (Ballet Suite)
Flute – Joseph Mariano
Charles Tomlinson Griffes : Poem For Flute And Orchestra
Flute – Joseph Mariano
Kent Kennan : Three Pieces For Orchestra
Trumpet – James Austin
Viola – Francis Tursi
William McCauley : Five Miniatures For Flute And Strings
Flute – Joseph Mariano
William Bergsma    : Gold And the Señor Commandante (Ballet Suite)    
CD.2
Charles Ives : Three Places In New England
Charles Ives : Symphony No. 3 "The Camp Meeting"
William Schuman : New England Triptych (Three Pieces For Orchestrs After William Billings)
Peter Mennin : Symphony No. 5

CD.3
Morton Gould : Spirituals
Morton Gould : Fall River Legend (Ballet Suite)
Samuel Barber : Medea (Ballet Suite)
CD.4
George Whitefield Chadwick : Symphonic Sketches
Edward MacDowell : Suite For Large Orchestra, Op. 42
Johann Friedrich Peter : Sinfonia In G

CD.5
Douglas Moore : Pageant Of P.T. Barnum
John Alden Carpenter : Adventures In A Perambulator    
Bernard Rogers : Once Upon A Time (Five Fairy Tales)
Burrill Phillips : Selections From McGuffey's Reader

Orchestra – Eastman-Rochester Orchestra
Conductor – Howard Hanson