The PostClassical Ensemble of Washington, D.C., and conductor Angel Gil-Ordóñez emphasize underrepresented American music in the orchestra's programming. That might not apply in general to Bernard Herrmann, whom almost all filmgoers encounter at one time or another, but it certainly does to the three works the group recorded here. The highlight is Whitman (1944), which here receives its world premiere and had to be reconstructed. This is music for a radio play, a genre in which Herrmann worked several times, including with ...
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The PostClassical Ensemble of Washington, D.C., and conductor Angel Gil-Ordóñez emphasize underrepresented American music in the orchestra's programming. That might not apply in general to Bernard Herrmann, whom almost all filmgoers encounter at one time or another, but it certainly does to the three works the group recorded here. The highlight is Whitman (1944), which here receives its world premiere and had to be reconstructed. This is music for a radio play, a genre in which Herrmann worked several times, including with Orson Welles. With a text by Norman Corwin, it's a fascinating experiment. It consists of texts from Walt Whitman's Leaves of Grass , unaltered but brought into dialogue with three figures: a stranger, a child, and a radio announcer recounting the events of the U.S. invasion of France during World War II, to which Whitman's words had direct continuing relevance. The play remains haunting, and not least because of Herrmann's contribution. The traits of Herrmann's later film...
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