The Leading Classical Music Label Direct To You

Read reviews, listen to the music, and purchase the COMPACT DISC Piston: Symphonies Nos. 2 and 6

Customer Service Toll Free 866.489.4152

Flash 9 required. Click to download.

Narrow your search
with our Music Browser

Classical Music

        Ballet
        Chamber Music
        Choral
        Concertos
        Film Music
        Folk Legends
        Instrumental
        Musicals
        Opera / Operetta
        Orchestral
        Vocal

Jazz

Jazz Contemporary
Jazz Icons

New Age

Wind Band

World

        Ballad
        Bhuddist
        Chinese Music
        Classical (World)
        Early Music (World)
        Folk
        Gamelan
        Gypsy
        Hindustani
        Jazz (World)
        Klezmer
        Sufi
        Vocal (World)
        World

Special Offers:

Free MP3 Downloads

A Special Offer for Valentines

Catalogs

Internship Opportunities

Celebrating Black History

Masters of American Music

53rd Annual Grammy� Award Winners

Clearance

Penguin Guide

200 Essential Recordings

Recently Released

Upcoming Releases

SACD

DVD

        Ballet DVD
        Classical Concert
        Classical Documentary
        Dance Documentary
        Opera DVD

Audio Books

        Anthologies / Collections
        Arts
        Biographies
        Children's Classics
        Classic Fiction
        Great Epics and Tales
        History
        Junior Classic Fiction
        Junior History
        Literature
        Music Biographies
        Music Education
        Non-Fiction
        Philosophy
        Plays - Others
        Plays - Shakespeare
        Poetry
        Religion
        Samplers
        Sports
        Wine Guide

NaxosDirect Podcasts

Video Librarian Reviews

Labels

Naxos Label

        Naxos American Classics
        Naxos Best Of...
        Naxos Box Sets
        Naxos Cinema Classics
        Naxos Classics
        Naxos DVD
        Naxos DVD-Audio
        Naxos International
        Naxos Jazz
        Naxos Limited Edition
        Naxos Milken Archives
        Naxos Night Music
        Naxos Opera
        Naxos Orchestral
        Naxos Special Release
        Naxos Wind Band Classics
        Naxos World

Composers

Conductors

Ensembles

Orchestras

Choirs

Artists

Instruments

Producers

Piston: Symphonies Nos. 2 and 6

Home

Naxos Label

Naxos American Classics

View large image

$9.99 (COMPACT DISC)

In Stock - Usually ships within 24 hours.

Link to this COMPACT DISC Link to this page

Walter Piston (1894-1976): Symphony No. 2 Symphony No. 6 Walter Piston continues to be virtually damned with faint praise more than a quarter-century after...

Read more about this recording

Walter Piston (1894-1976): Symphony No. 2 Symphony No. 6

Walter Piston continues to be virtually damned with faint praise more than a quarter-century after his death. While acknowledging his extraordinary ear for orchestra timbre, his consummate contrapuntal skills and his overall lifelong employment of classical forms, commentators have for too long dismissed him as an academic, as if intellectual rigor and the acceptance of historical models was a bad thing. Even his remarkably clear notation of scores and his early background in engineering reinforces the notion of a fastidious craftsman, which he certainly was in the best sense, rather than a creative artist. An even casual reflection on music history shows that the pantheon of truly great composers is peopled by such conservatives as Bach, Mendelssohn and Brahms, all three content to build upon and find vitality in musical structures created by their forebears. Likewise, Walter Piston combines an uncommon rigor with a tone-poet's sensitivity. Well-meaning admirers refer to him as a "composer's composer," an intended compliment that can imply a lack of touch with the public audience. In truth, his music commands respect and admiration from his composer colleagues, including Stravinsky, Krenek, Sessions, Hanson, Thomson and Carter, as well as by his lay enthusiasts who have simply given him a close and open listen.

Piston was a New Englander, born in Rockland, Maine, in 1894, of English and Italian ancestry. (His paternal grandfather, Antonio Pistone, was a Genoan seaman.) From the age of ten, Piston was raised in Boston, enlisted in 1916 and spent three years in the Navy, where he played saxophone in the Navy band, and was educated primarily at Harvard (summa cum laude, 1924) where he joined the faculty in 1926 following two years in Paris for lessons with Paul Dukas and the legendary Nadia Boulanger. He remained at Harvard until 1960 when he was named professor emeritus. An excellent teacher, his students included Elliott Carter, Irving Fine, Harold Shapero and Leonard Bernstein. Among many honors he received were a Guggenheim Fellowship in 1934 and Pulitzer Prizes for his third (1948) and seventh (1960) symphonies. In 1951, he became the first recipient of the Walter W. Naumberg Chair of Music.

In 1943, when the tide of World War II began to turn in favor of the Allies, Walter Piston composed his Symphony No. 2, a work with a palpable American feel that nonetheless avoided the hot blood of patriotic war fever. The new score received the New York Music Critics' Circle Award and enjoyed performances by the Boston Symphony, New York Philharmonic and the Cleveland Orchestra, yet fell into relative obscurity until revived in 1970 when Michael Tilson Thomas recorded it in 1970.

The opening Moderato begins with a long-spun theme in the strings, darkly hued and somewhat anxious. Winds add a dash of color to the otherwise basic string sonority. Piston raises the temperature through increases in pacing, animation and dynamics. A wind- and percussion-dominated section follows. Jaunty and syncopated, this paragraph sounds conspicuously American, reflecting the composer's youthful years playing in bands. Quiet strings return with distant wind commentary and reticent timpani. Piston treats the primary theme in canonic imitation, though the music remains utterly free of academic note-spinning. Periodic brass chorales add an effective somber mien that balances the rowdier moments.

The rapt Adagio, quiet and sadly nostalgic, evokes a sense of American homespun innocence and provides a lovely solo for the first clarinet before handing over the lead to the principal flute. This is Piston at his most achingly beautiful and utterly belies facile and unfounded later charges of academicism. Orchestral strings lead the orchestra into a section of elevated dynamics and an intensification of warm feeling before allowing the clarinet quietly to assert itself, with an occasional "blue" note that furthers the American backdrop.

The final Allegro surges forward, propelled by percussive thwacks and emphatically barking brass. Three separate themes, one dance-like, another poignantly sung by English horn and clarinet, and a third brassily assertive tune, course through the Rondo-like movement.

The Symphony No. 6 dates from 1955, composed to celebrate the 75th season of the Boston Symphony and first performed by them under Charles Munch. Piston dedicated the new work to the ensemble's previous music director, Serge Koussevitzky, and his wife Natalie. Piston's intimate association with the BSO began when he settled in Boston in 1926. Over the next four and a half decades, the orchestra performed nearly two-dozen works by Piston, including many written expressly for them. In this vein, the composer wrote, "While writing my Sixth Symphony, I came to realize that this was a rather special situation in that I was writing for one designated orchestra, one that I had grown up with, and that I knew intimately. Each note set down sounded in the mind with extraordinary clarity, as though played immediately by those who were to perform the work. On several occasions it seemed as though the melodies were being written by the instruments themselves as I followed along. I refrained from playing even a single note of this symphony on the piano."

From that statement one might rightly infer that the Sixth Symphony drew more than typically upon Piston's consummate skill as an orchestral painter: the work abounds in delicious contrasts of timbre and coruscating bursts of color. In the opening movement, marked unusually Fluendo espressivo, the long opening theme is attractively though modestly scored for strings and winds. Eventually, descending scales from the harp add a splash of golden tone before yielding to a second long-flowing tune, this one richly orchestrated and as highly varied in its unfolding as the initial theme was unchanging.

The ensuing Scherzo brews up its own contrast of sonority and mood. Galvanized by percussion, a whirlwind of activity from the rest of the orchestra creates a high-jinx atmosphere tinged with subliminal anxiety. This movement provides a perfect foil for the ravishing Adagio that follows. Low strings provide a sonic "wash" (to use the term from painting) from which emerges a solo cello enunciating an especially attractive melody that informs the entire movement even when transferred to other instruments. Though key signatures are not indicated in the score, the Finale is resolutely in bright A major. Echoes of jazzy syncopation animate this bright and optimistic music, internally contrasted by episodes of beguiling warmth featuring, among others, flute and harp. The work concludes in a blaze of positive energy in a full orchestral restatement of the opening cello theme.

Steven Lowe

g Seattle Symphony

Disc 1

Symphony No. 2

(more info)

Performed by: Seattle Symphony Orchestra
Composed by: Walter Piston
Conducted by: Gerard Schwarz

Moderato - 10:07
Adagio - 10:48
Allegro - 4:27

Symphony No. 6

(more info)

Performed by: Seattle Symphony Orchestra
Composed by: Walter Piston
Conducted by: Gerard Schwarz

Fluendo espressivo - 6:42
Scherzo: Leggerissimo vivace - 3:38
Adagio sereno - 11:19
Allegro energico - 3:51

Reviews

Be the first to review this title

FREE SHIPPING on orders
of 5 items or more!

Earn Naxos Rewards Points by opening an account and buying your favorite music today! Create your account here.

See all of our great site features here.

Flash 9 required. Click to download.

Composer(s):
Piston, Walter

Conductor(s):
Schwarz, Gerard

Orchestra(s):
Seattle Symphony Orchestra

Label: Naxos American Classics
UPC: 636943916124
Item Number: 8559161
Release Date: Jul 1, 2003