Symphony's American music speaks to the heart

Betty Tyler

Jun. 2, 2009 (McClatchy-Tribune Regional News delivered by Newstex) -- REDLANDS -- The Redlands Symphony Orchestra presented a wreath of musical flowers in observance of Memorial Day -- the real Memorial Day, Saturday, May 30.

The concert of "American Masters" was a fitting tribute for the day once known as Decoration Day, the day people decorated the graves of Civil War soldiers with flowers.

Fitting because the music was all-American and expressed not only some of the deeper emotions associated with Memorial Day but also the freedom Americans have fought for and the joy that might be found in "the land of the free."

American music comes in many flavors, from the Americana of well-known patriotic and folk tunes to music that may have no particularly American sound but was written by Americans. The line between American and Americana is sometimes very thin, said Jon Robertson, music director of the Redlands Symphony.

Robertson began the concert on the Americana side of the line, conducting Morton Gould's "American Salute." That short piece is a stirring set of orchestral variations on "When Johnny Comes Marching Home," a tune popular during the Civil War.

According to James Keays' program notes, Gould wrote "American Salute" for a radio broadcast during World War II. He keeps the Civil War "Johnny" easily recognizable, but sets him marching next to a GI in Europe or the Pacific in his treatment of the music.

Nearly 70 years after American Johnnys went marching into World War II, Gould's music

still stirs a mixture of proud patriotism and a longing for all the Johnnys to come marching safely home again.

The last two pieces on the program did not quote Civil War songs, but they are distinctly American in their own ways.

One was Aaron Copland's suite for orchestra of music from the ballet "Appalachian Spring." The other was three dance episodes from Leonard Bernstein's "On the Town."

Copland's music has its own distinctly wide-open sound. Once you have gotten acquainted with a piece or two, you cannot confuse his music with anyone else's. And the Copland sound says "America."

"Appalachian Spring" is ballet music Copland wrote for Martha Graham in the 1940s.

According to Keays' program notes, it was Graham who put the title "Appalachian Spring" to the ballet, taking it from a line in a poem by Hart Crane. The poem itself had nothing to do with the ballet, she said. She just liked the title.

Beware the power of words, especially when stirred into a piece of music. Ever since this music was married to the title "Appalachian Spring," its melodies, harmonies, rhythms and tone qualities have brought images of the Appalachians and springtime to listeners' minds.

It happens even after they have learned the composer did not know the ballet title when he wrote the music, Copland said in his autobiography.

Saturday night I tried to hear something other than what I imagine the Appalachians look and feel like in the spring. It is not easy.

Then I gave in and simply enjoyed the sweeping color of the music, especially the varied treatment of the Shaker tune "Simple Gifts" near the end.

The dance episodes from Bernstein's "On the Town" are a gift of a different color -- the American color of jazz.

The story of "On the Town" is of three sailors on a 24-hour leave in New York City, and the music gives a vivid, jazzy impression of the Big Apple.

This was the only piece on the program I think I had not heard before, though I have heard plenty of Bernstein's music. It was fun to meet another cousin in the Bernstein canon.

And for me, as a pianist (though not playing so much or often as I'd like nowadays), it was fun to see that the Bernstein, Copland and Gould all include a piano in the orchestra. I should have known they did, but the piano parts are not prominent enough to hit you in the face in a recording. They're just part of the overall orchestral color.

Recordings are wonderful. They allow us to hear so much more music than our Civil War ancestors could. But you do not get all the nuances and excitement in a recording that you can hear and see in a live performance.

Saturday's Redlands Symphony concert had the excitement, the tone color -- red, white and blue and all the other shades of the musical rainbow -- that are not quite the same even on the most expertly made CD. It is something like the difference between grabbing Johnny from that marching-home-again parade to give him a hug and getting a text message from Johnny from his Army base in Afghanistan.

The least American-sounding piece on the program was Howard Hanson's "Symphony No. 2, 'Romantic.' " It is American music because Hanson, who was director of the Eastman School of Music in Rochester, N.Y., for 40 years, was American.

It's also a gift of beauty.

Though the 1930 symphony became Hanson's best-known work, I confess I had not heard it until I stumbled across it on a radio broadcast about 10 years ago. It grabbed me, and I went out and bought a recording of it soon after that.

That is exactly what Robertson told the audience they would do after they heard the Redlands Symphony performance.

The Hanson symphony was not groundbreaking, avant-garde music in its time. As a composer, Hanson was "conservative to the core," according to Keays' program notes. Hanson wrote "from the heart," Robertson said, and his second symphony speaks to the heart.

Unlike "Appalachian Spring," the Hanson symphony has no descriptive title attached to it, nor a ballet with a story.

There are no words to lead the listener in one direction or another other than Hanson's description of the music, quoted in the program notes, as "an escape from the rather bitter type of modern musical realism aiming to be) young in spirit, lyrical, and romantic in temperament, and simple and direct in expression."

I had not read those words until Saturday night, but when I first heard the Hanson symphony, I felt in parts of it as if I was seeing summers of my childhood in the late 1950s and early 1960s, remembering the emotional color of them as much sunnier and idyllic than it could possibly have been.

Along with that wash of childhood summer and tree-lined streets there is a poignancy in the music that makes the heart ache for that impossible innocence.

There is drama in the music, too, but it is the sunshine that sticks with me.

Saturday night was the first time I had heard the Hanson symphony in a live performance, and it, like the other music on the program, it was more in a live performance than it could be in a recording. It has an even stronger grip on my heart now than it did before.

Bravo to the Redlands Symphony Orchestra for a richly colored sampler of American music. And bravo and brava to the soloists within the orchestra -- there were many -- for their ornamental stitches that made the 20th-century American sampler even more beautiful.

It was a satisfying finale to the symphony's 2008-2009 season.

The Redlands Symphony Orchestra's next season begins Oct. 10 with a concert of music by Weber, Mendelssohn and Dvorak. Before that is the annual Symphony Gala, the orchestra's major fundraiser.

Those who want to continue the magic of live orchestral music for Saturday evening audiences and school outreach programs are encouraged to check out the fun Saturday, June 6, at the symphony's "Dancing With the Stars" gala at the University of Redlands Orton Center.

The black-tie-optional evening includes dinner, show, dancing and live and silent auctions. Information: (909) 748-8018.

E-mail News Editor Betty Tyler at btyler@redlandsdailyfacts.com

Newstex ID: 35469334