Iowa or California?

The Music Man himself composed these two symphonies. While the famous musical sets itself in Meredith Willson's home state of Iowa, his symphonies are a tribute to his adulthood in California.

Like other Hollywood and Broadway composers, his concert music bears some similarities to the stage. I hear some jazz, a light Latin influence, but the lyricism is old-fashioned Romanticism.

None of this bothers me, though. The works are structured well, and if they aren't the most memorable, they make for more than pleasant listening.

The liner notes intimate there are many, many more scores of Willson's concert music laying around somewhere, waiting to be performed or recorded. Unfortunately, Naxos' American Classics series stopped at one entry; at least so far...

A review from 2020

Naxos’ American Classics Series was a breath of fresh air when it first appeared in the late 90’s, especially since every dusty niche of British literature was being explored by Hyperion and Chandos since the 70’s & 80’s. While I don’t find every American Naxos release a lost gem, a lot of it is hard on the ears, their advocacy for new American music, such as that by Michael Daugherty, as well as respected full surveys of Sousa, Bernstein, and Copland, amongst explorations of a veritable host of unknown composers and compositions, has been interesting at least. Naxos must be nearing 500 entries in the American Series by now, especially considering their acquisition of Gerard Schwarz’s catalog from Delos, leftovers from Marco Polo, and their line of Jewish American music, and it is all quite fun to explore.

Meredith Willson, the darling of small-town Iowa and famed composer of The Music Man, apparently has quite the orchestral repertoire hidden somewhere, although Naxos never revisited Willson after this early entry in their American Classics series (around Vol. 30). His two symphonies, about 30-40 minutes each, form a love letter to various aspects of California. Written in his salad days between the World Wars, Willson’s symphonies are glamorous, tuneful works that show the finest of Old-Hollywood Romanticism, much along the lines of Victor Herbert or Howard Hanson, more favourite Naxos American composers. Thus, the music presented here are engagingly approachable, far from the dissonance-tinged works you normally see coming out of this Naxos series.

The first movement of Symphony 1 is an excellent microcosm of the entire disc. Those low, trenchant, menacingly moving bass lines that keep returning could be taken directly from a film score or old cartoon short, yet they also sound like some of those early swinging jazz lines from Duke Ellington; the brass is punchy, the strings are turgidly Romantic, and it is all quite entertaining. That carries over to the various moods of each movement and the inclusion of saxophone remove it from the mainstream classical scene of mid-century America. Symphony 2 plays in much the same manner, with little flecks of Spanish flair, even if it is not as thoroughly developed as the first.

The early orchestral releases of Naxos’ American Classics Series tended to feature Eastern-European orchestras, those led by Ted Kuchar, Keith Brion, McLaughlin Williams, and so it is here with the Moscow Symphony Orchestra under American conductor William T. Stromberg, a film music enthusiast. Naxos’ sound could be a little blousy, but it is OK here. Unfortunately, Moscow’s winds and brass aren’t the tightest in execution or tuning, nor are the strings richly garlanded, but thankfully for these rare Willson symphonies, Stromberg’s enthusiasm keeps this music up and running without fail. Climaxes are well timed by Stromberg, and he doesn’t allow the inbetween bits to dawdle, so this is overall more successful to my mind, despite Moscow’s over-booked recording calendar for Naxos around this time.

You just won’t find Meredith Willson’s Symphony 1 & 2 anywhere else on record, so I won’t come down too hard on the rough occasionalities from the Moscow SO under Stromberg, for this music is a treat. It is only unfortunate that no one has had the gumption to continue to explore Willson’s orchestral music since these late-90’s performances.

 Listen on YouTube

Works
Symphony 1 'A Symphony of San Francisco' (38.35)
Symphony 2 'The Missions of California' (31.47)

Ensemble
Moscow Symphony Orchestra
William T. Stromberg, conductor

Label: Naxos
Year: 1999
Total Timing: 70.38

 

Colorful, lively symphonies from The Music Man himself!

I urge everyone to explore the American Classics Series. Gems like this one are ripe for the plucking.

If I were you, I would grab this one. I'm not you, though...

 

 

Find more Willson recordings HERE!