Walter Piston’s lovely Fourth Symphony certainly deserves greater exposure than it gets, and there’s no reason why it shouldn’t be popular. It begins with a lovely, pastoral opening that leads to a rambunctious scherzo with some elegant waltz music interludes. The slow movement is one of the composer’s finest: it builds to a superb climax of Brucknerian intensity, while the amiable finale closes the work in high spirits. Really, what’s not to like? This is the work’s only stereo recording (Ormandy’s is screechy mono, but wonderful all the same), and it’s a very fine one. Schwarz keeps rhythms crisp in the fast movements, and phrases the “Comtemplativo” very broadly and affectingly, with some excellent solo work from the winds of the Seattle Symphony.
The couplings are also very well done, the Capriccio’s naturally dry string textures and bracing harmonic idiom providing an excellent stylistic foil to the solo harp. Three New England Sketches, one of Piston’s very few “titled” works, also has impressive atmosphere, though Slatkin’s out of print version on RCA was better still. No matter: these are fine performances very well recorded, and deserve your attention. Thanks to Naxos for keeping them in the catalog (and to the Seattle Symphony, which understood the necessity of not leaving the master tapes to molder in some closet or basement storage room once Delos deleted the original issues). [7/15/2003]
