Morton Gould's music is sometimes called crossover, but that ignores the fact that he was doing his thing well before that word had ever been used. The music here dates from the 1930s and early 1940s, and in fact, it predates and may have influenced the work of better-known crossover figures. It is likely that Leonard Bernstein, for example, knew the three Symphonettes well when he began composing On the Town. (Gould coined the word "symphonette" as an American analogue to the Italian "sinfonietta" but later regretted it as ...
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Morton Gould's music is sometimes called crossover, but that ignores the fact that he was doing his thing well before that word had ever been used. The music here dates from the 1930s and early 1940s, and in fact, it predates and may have influenced the work of better-known crossover figures. It is likely that Leonard Bernstein, for example, knew the three Symphonettes well when he began composing On the Town. (Gould coined the word "symphonette" as an American analogue to the Italian "sinfonietta" but later regretted it as the thrift-shop-standard Longines Symphonette box sets flooded the land.) They seem simple, but in their elegant, compact fusions of sonata form with popular rhythms, they most assuredly are not. The Symphonettes were often recorded in their day, but lately, recordings have been sparse, and this outing from the ORF Vienna Radio Symphony Orchestra under Arthur Fagen is welcome even if it lacks the rhythmic zip of the likes of Felix Slatkin and other figures from the mid-century...
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