Leonard Bernstein: Overture to “Candide”; Elie Siegmeister: Western Suite; Morton Gould: American Salute; Vaclav Nelhybel: Etude Symphonique – Utah Symphony Orchestra /Maurice Abravanel; Ferde Grofé: Grand Canyon Suite – Morton Gould and His Orchestra

KHCD-2011-099 (STEREO) – Americana – Leonard Bernstein: Overture to “Candide”; Elie Siegmeister: Western Suite; Morton Gould: American Salute; Vaclav Nelhybel: Etude Symphonique – Utah Symphony Orchestra /Maurice Abravanel; Ferde Grofé: Grand Canyon Suite – Morton Gould and His Orchestra – Maurice Abravanel recorded extensively with his Utah Symphony Orchestra, and Vox/Turnabout produced many fine recordings of that ensemble during the 70s. This particular Turnabout LP was never  released on CD (from what research I have done to date). It’s a fine collection of familiar (Bernstein & Gould) and not so familiar (Siegmeister & Nelhybel) works by American composers, nicely recorded (no credit for production is listed, but more than likely it is the Elite Recordings team Marc Aubort and Joanna Nickrenz who produced the recording). The Grofé was a “sonic spectacular” recorded in 1960 by RCA, and some subtle gimmickery was used to highlight or color some passages , but in the end it served the music very well. The Turnabout LP used for this transcription was a late pressing, purple label disc; the Grofé was a Quintessence LP reissue of the RCA recording. Click here for an MP3 sample.

Thanks for checking in – more to come! Cheers – Curt Timmons

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