{"id":1965,"date":"2021-02-02T23:04:50","date_gmt":"2021-02-03T04:04:50","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/uq\/?p=1965"},"modified":"2021-02-02T23:04:55","modified_gmt":"2021-02-03T04:04:55","slug":"a-unique-addition-to-the-whitman-repertoire","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/uq\/2021\/02\/a-unique-addition-to-the-whitman-repertoire.html","title":{"rendered":"A &#8220;Unique Addition&#8221; to the Whitman Repertoire"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<figure class=\"wp-block-embed is-type-video is-provider-youtube wp-block-embed-youtube wp-embed-aspect-16-9 wp-has-aspect-ratio\"><div class=\"wp-block-embed__wrapper\">\n<iframe loading=\"lazy\" title=\"Excerpts from Bernard Herrmann&#039;s \u201cWhitman\u201d\" width=\"500\" height=\"281\" src=\"https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/embed\/3XM6wpfTv7c?feature=oembed\" frameborder=\"0\" allow=\"accelerometer; autoplay; clipboard-write; encrypted-media; gyroscope; picture-in-picture; web-share\" referrerpolicy=\"strict-origin-when-cross-origin\" allowfullscreen><\/iframe>\n<\/div><\/figure>\n\n\n\n<p>When\u00a0<strong><a href=\"http:\/\/www.postclassical.com\">PostClassical Ensemble<\/a><\/strong> undertook our\u00a0<a href=\"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/uq\/2020\/10\/bernard-herrmanns-whitman-a-subversive-yet-inspirational-entertainment-for-today.html\"><strong>world premiere recording<\/strong> <\/a>of the 1944 radio play\u00a0<em>Whitman<\/em>, we did so in the conviction that Bernard Herrmann\u2019s score was a Whitman setting of such distinction that the result was more than a radio play. Rather, we had stumbled upon a sngular addition to the symphonic repertoire of \u201cmelodramas\u201d \u2013 compositions for music plus the spoken word.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>The latest (and longest)\u00a0<strong><a href=\"https:\/\/classicalvoiceamerica.org\/2021\/01\/31\/sans-celluloid-bernard-hermann-as-radio-composer\/\">review<\/a><\/strong> of our new CD, by Jack Sullivan, agrees. Sullivan\u2019s opinion matters here, because he is the author of important books dealing with Herrmann (<em>Hithcock&#8217;s Music<\/em>) and Whitman (<em>New World<\/em> <em>Symphonies<\/em>) both.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Writing in&nbsp;<em>Classical Voice North America<\/em>, he says:<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>\u201c<em>Whitman<\/em> is a \u2018big discovery\u2019 fully worth of resurrection as a concert work . . . a unique addition to a huge, ever-growing body of Whitman settings, from the high Victorianism of Hubert Parry during Whitman\u2019s lifetime to the bluesy hipness of Leonard Bernstein in the mid-20<sup>th<\/sup>century. . . .<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>\u201cThe flexibility of Whitman\u2019s rhythm, the intimacy of his first-person voice, and the universality of his content have always been a draw for composers even though he was once denounced as profoundly unmusical (a \u2018ninth-rate poet,\u2019 in the words of Ezra Pound). Whitman assumed his connection to music to be self-evident. He was an opera critic for the&nbsp;<em>Brooklyn Eagle<\/em> before he was a poet, and his poems are packed with musical references . . . He regarded music as the \u2018truest,\u2019 most organic, and most inspiring art.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>As Sullivan also observes, \u201c<em>Whitman<\/em> looks forward to a reaffirmation of American ideals in the wake of Fascism, a world where &#8216;tyrants tremble&#8217; rather than bully.&#8221; Whitman\u2019s present-day relevance, preaching an inclusive America, is scarcely less apparent \u2013 and was a core topic in the PCE\u2019s <a href=\"https:\/\/www.postclassical.com\/more-than-music\">\u201c<strong>More than Music<\/strong>\u201d<\/a> film\u00a0<strong><a href=\"https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/watch?v=yTPWJWLKSy8\"><em>Beyond \u201cPsycho\u201d<\/em><\/a><\/strong><em><a href=\"https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/watch?v=yTPWJWLKSy8\">\u2013<\/a> The Musical Genius of Bernard Herrmann.<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Not the least gratifying aspect of Sullivan\u2019s review is its American provenance. So little classical-music journalism remains in the US that it was a foregone conclusion that our all-American CD \u2013 celebrating Herrmann, Whitman, and the radio drama writer\/producer Norman Corwin \u2013 would mainly be reviewed abroad. And so it has been. Particularly gratifying was this encomium from <em>Scherzo, <\/em>Spain\u2019s leading classical-music magazine: \u201cEach new album by PostClassical Ensemble and its director, \u00c1ngel Gil-Ord\u00f3\u00f1ez, is both a surprise and a discovery. The deserved result of investigating beyond the predictable. And this new album of theirs is not an exception, but the joyful confirmation of that.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>When\u00a0PostClassical Ensemble undertook our\u00a0world premiere recording of the 1944 radio play\u00a0Whitman, we did so in the conviction that Bernard Herrmann\u2019s score was a Whitman setting of such distinction that the result was more than a radio play. Rather, we had stumbled upon a sngular addition to the symphonic repertoire of \u201cmelodramas\u201d \u2013 compositions for music [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_genesis_hide_title":false,"_genesis_hide_breadcrumbs":false,"_genesis_hide_singular_image":false,"_genesis_hide_footer_widgets":false,"_genesis_custom_body_class":"","_genesis_custom_post_class":"","_genesis_layout":"","jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":{"0":"post-1965","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","6":"category-uncategorized","7":"entry"},"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p2QLHN-vH","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/uq\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1965","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/uq\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/uq\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/uq\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/uq\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1965"}],"version-history":[{"count":4,"href":"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/uq\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1965\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1969,"href":"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/uq\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1965\/revisions\/1969"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/uq\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1965"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/uq\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1965"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/uq\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1965"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}