Peace symphony for presidential candidate

'When one is in one's twenties, one tends to see things in perhaps too simple a way. At the time I was very attracted to the peaceful aspects of Christianity - Dona nobis pacem, "turn the other cheek", and so forth. The United States was mired in the war in Vietnam and many churches were active in rallies and other projects of the Peace Movement. I somehow overlooked the history of the inquisition and crusades, and hardly anticipated the trend of very recent history towards church support of capital punishment and various military endeavours. Thus the "Mass without Singers" was for me an anti-war statement, and I chose George McGovern as my dedicatee, believing that his tremendous loss in the 1972 election, his campaign had given legitimacy to the cause of peace' - writes Arnold Rosner in the notes for the new Naxos CD of his post-romantic Symphony No. 5 'Missa sine Cantoribus super Salve regina' from 1973 played by the National Radio Symphony Orchestra of Ukraine conducted by John McLaughlin Williams.

The first ever recording of Rosner's "Mass without singers" is the latest release in Naxos' American Classics series, a project that is making a large amount of previously unrecorded and unfashionable music available. Ignore the condescending views of today's music pontiffs whose attitude has parallels in the Catholic Church's long history of prohibiting translations of the Bible to prevent the masses from making their own religous judgements. Low cost CDs from Naxos and others are disruptive technology in the tradition of the movable-type printing that made translated Bibles widely available and triggered the Reformation.

Forget whether Rosner's Mass is 'cool' or 'uncool' or first or third-rate. It deserves to be heard so listeners can make their own judgement. The coupling on this excellent CD is Nicolas Flagello's 1957 Missa Sinfonica. Flagello was a great artist, both in music and paint. Read more about him here.
Image credit medaloffreedom.com. 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 errors to - overgrownpath at hotmail dot co dot uk

Elgar - as much or as little as you require

The Dream of Gerontius and the two symphonies are Edward Elgar's masterpieces. But in this his 150th anniversary year, these works are missing completely from the BBC Proms, the self-styled 'world's greatest classical music festival'. Yet the same festival finds space for even more 'third pressing Mahler' (not my words) after last year's abundant crop.

But over in Annandale-on-Hudson, New York, the Bard Music Festival (photo above) manages to include both The Dream of Gerontius and the E flat Symphony to huge acclaim, as part of a visionary celebration of Elgar's music.

Elgar once said "There is music in the air, music all around us, the world is full of it and you simply take as much as you require." Clearly upstate New Yorkers require more of it than London concert goers.

Now read about Elgar carrying on Beethoven's business.
Header photo shows the stunning Frank Gehry designed Fisher Centre for the Performing Arts at Bard College, NY. Photo credit Bard.edu. 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