A First for ‘Fall River Legend’
The first recording of the entire ballet score that Morton Gould wrote for Agnes de Mille in 1947, “Fall River Legend” (Albany TROY 035) features the National Philharmonic conducted by Milton Rosenstock, with Brock Peters, the speaker.
It is a rather enigmatic, occasionally pungent piece of work, suggesting a strain of Americana via the folk and hymnal routes but never really evoking them as openly as a Copland might have.
As always with Gould, the score is resourcefully orchestrated--and Rosenstock treats it with spacious affection, though he doesn’t get as much out of the church-social dances as Gould did in his own buoyant recording of the suite.
The compact disc is filled out by a fascinating informal conversation between Gould and De Mille on how the piece was conceived.
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