An Urgent Recommendation

I was going to add this to the existing thread on rare repertoire, but I’m so enthusiastic about this disc that I had to write it up separately. I was fortunate enough to pick up the recent DG Originals release of Michael Tilson Thomas conducting three American orchestral works. The works in question are Charles Ives’s Three Places in New England, Carl Ruggles’s Sun-Treader, and Walter Piston’s Second Symphony. What a disc. This is clearly and unequivocally one of the best releases of the year and one of my most prized purchases made this year. The performances are all top-notch, the sound very good if a wee-bit tilted up, and, most importantly, the music is astonishing.

The Ives is well enough known and this is quite simply a great performance; it easily outdoes every version I’ve previously heard. The Ruggles is truly incredible. I really cannot adequately describe what it sounds like other than to paraphrase a description I once read of his music in general: it sounds less like it was composed and more like it was quarried. And then the final work on the disc is a wonder. I have become a fan of Piston’s works as a result of the two releases of some of his music on Naxos – the violin concertos and some chamber music, both very highly recommended – and this work more or less cements him, in my mind at least, as one of the greatest American composers right up there with Ives, Barber, and Carter. The symphony is so good that I am at a loss as to why it has not been recorded more often. The performance is truly special.

Go forth and hear this one.