The greatest American symphony?

The comment below was posted on a recent article. It deserves to be run as a separate post, and I've added the photo and some links to paths that are well worth following.


Pliable, I would love to see the BBC Proms program Paul Creston's (above) Symphony No.2, which is IMO the greatest American Symphony. Just by a hair though, because there are so many that are great! Peter Mennin's 7th also comes to mind as does Nicolas Flagello's 1st. The above along with Aaron Copland's 3rd would be my leading choices for any symphony based American program. Then maybe Walter Piston no.6, George Frederick McKay's Symphony for Seattle, and a whole bunch more. I'm sure Garth and I could go on all day like this.While they're at it, why not call me to do them? I've wanted to do a Prom since like forever! - John McLaughlin Williams

If you want to hear music by the composers mentioned above John's discography includes several CDs of music by Nicolas Flagello and George Frederick McKay.
Photo credit Paul Creston Collection UKMC. Any copyrighted material on these pages is included as "fair use", for the purpose of study, review or critical analysis only, and will be removed at the request of copyright owner(s). Report broken links, missing images and other errors to - overgrownpath at hotmail dot co dot uk

Comments

Hucbald said…
I'm ashamed to say I've never heard any of those symphonies... and I'm an American musician. I need to go through another listening phase, obviously.

Recent popular posts

Crouching composer, hidden dragon

The Berlin Philharmonic's darkest hour

Who am I?

Philippa Schuyler - genius or genetic experiment?

Why cats hate Mahler symphonies

Nada Brahma - Sound is God

There is no right reaction to great music

Classical music's biggest problem is that no one cares

Music and Alzheimer's

David Munrow - Early Music's Pied Piper