BARBER. Symphony No. 1, Op. 9. HARRIS. Symphony No. 3t . Eastman- Rochester Symphony Orchestra conducted by Howard Hanson. Mercury Q MMA11097 (12 in., 28s. 9d. plus 9s. 4d. P.T.). The item marked was previously available on MRL2520 (7/57).

This is perhaps Mercury's most significant issue yet in their series devoted to American music, since it couples on a single disc the two American symphonies of our time which have made by far the greatest impact on the world at large (the Harris was originally coupled with the less significant Fourth Symphony of Hanson).

Both works belong to the nineteenthirties, and both are single-movement affairs, but they are vastly different in character. Samuel Barber (now in his fiftieth year) is an eclectic, with strong leanings towards romanticism and a sure command of dramatic effect, but without any marked musical personality. The structure of his First Symphony is highly successful, weaving the traditional four movements into a continuous whole : the opening Allegro sets forth three themes, which are then developed and transformed to produce a Scherzo, an Andante, and a Finale. The work makes an immediate appeal to the ordinary music-lover, expressing strong emotion by gestures of a familiar kind, but it undoubtedly suffers from disparity of style: Americanisms (such as the opening theme) mingle with pure late-romanticism (the Andante), cool neoclassicism (the Scherzo) and a sort of Brahmsian polyphony (the Finale—significantly enough a Passacaglia in E minor like the finale of Brahms's Fourth). Ultimately, for all its strength and beauty, this is the work of a professional but academic composer without a voice of his own.

Roy Harris, twelve years older than Barber, is a much more identifiable personality—a genuine twentieth-century American, exploiting American folk elements in a highly original neo-classical way. Nevertheless, although his Third Symphony has been widely acclaimed as an outstanding work, I feel that Harris just failed to bring off a very bold venture. As in Barber's work, there are four sections, but they bear no relation to the conventional symphonic movements. There are hardly any themes as such: an opening contrapuntal section weaves long, flowing lines, which continually change shape, into spare textures; in the ensuing pastoral section, the woodwind, against murmuring strings, throw out little scraps of melody which are never the same twice; then a short, stark thematic figure is jostled about in restless rhythms by the brass, at length; and finally, a kind of chorale on strings fights against this unavailingly, and there is a brief, tragic coda of a few fierce chords. Fascinating as most of this is, the difficulty is to see why at any one point the music should be what it is and not something else, in view of the lack of normal thematic logic and continuity; Harris himself seems to have sensed this weakness, since he completely changed the coda after an early performance, and has apparently cut out part of the pastoral section since the work was published. As against Barber's risk-nothing success, this is a risk-everything failure—but it is vastly more characterful and exciting.

Howard Hanson gives vital and compelling performances of both works, though in places he hurries the music along in defiance of the markings (return of the main theme of Barber's Andante, and around Figure 18 in the Harris, for example). The recordings are first-rate, apart from a tendency to spotlight the rather wheezy bass-clarinettist in the Barber and to lose the other clarinets from time to time. D.C.