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Lukas Foss - The Prairie (2007)

Posted By: scoredaddy
Lukas Foss - The Prairie (2007)

Lukas Foss - The Prairie (2007)
Classical | FLAC (separate tracks) | LOG+CUE+Scans | 242 MB

The German-born, American composer Lukas Foss passed away several weeks ago after a long and distinguished career. Here is a recent recording of WWII-era work that is accesible yet complex, a delightful piece that truly deserves this high quality digital recording.. Scoredaddy

The German-born, American composer Lukas Foss passed away several weeks ago after a long and distinguished career. Here is a recent recording of WWII-era work that is accesible yet complex, a delightful piece that truly deserves this high quality digital recording. I am glad to be back: enjoy. Scoredaddy

Foss’ youthful (1941-42) Carl Sandburg cantata brought him to early prominence, taken up by Koussevitsky, Shaw and Rodzinski. As unfashionable and vaguely anachronistic as both text and music may have come to be seen in subsequent decades, there is absolutely no need to apologize for this bold, bracing and thoroughly likable piece, brashly comfortable in its wide-eyed tonal idiom. The most obvious influence on the young composer in the music’s open harmonies and textures, its invigorating outdoor qualities, is of course Copland; Stravinsky is also in evidence, and admirers of Virgil Thomson (who in turn admired the piece) will also find kindred inflections. Setting a Sandburg text, replete with that peculiarly naïve knowingness unique to that most American of authors, should, and does here, invoke an instantly assimilable, but resonantly thought-provoking reaction. Foss’ elegant uncluttered style is the ideal foil to Sandburg’s direct address to his audience; the result is a wholly convincing amalgam of refinement and rough-hewn nobility. Texts included. Elizabeth Weigle (soprano), Gigi Mitchell-Velasco (mezzo), Frank Kelley (tenor), Aaron Engebreth (baritone), Providence Singers, Boston Modern Orchestra Project; Andrew Clark.

BMOP/sound, the country's foremost label launched by an orchestra and devoted exclusively to new music recordings, announces the November 1st release of its seventh album Lukas Foss: The Prairie.


Based on the epic poem of the same name by Carl Sandburg, The Prairie (1944) established Lukas Foss, who was at the time only twenty years old, as a significant new voice of American music. Funded through a 2008 Access to Artistic Excellence Grant awarded to the Providence Singers by the National Endowment for the Arts, the work is resurrected in this stunning recording, 64 years after its world premiere. With the prowess of the Boston Modern Orchestra Project (BMOP), the 100-voice Providence Singers chorus conducted by Artistic Director Andrew Clark, and guest soloists Elizabeth Weigle (soprano), Gigi Mitchell-Velasco (mezzo-soprano), Frank Kelley (tenor), and Aaron Engebreth (baritone), the symbolic ideas of liberty and hope are powerfully communicated.

A German-American composer, conductor, pianist, and professor, Foss was inspired to write The Prairie in part by Aaron Copland's own efforts to compose classical music that was distinctively American. At a time when American culture - literature, painting and sculpture, film and photography, and music -was on the cusp of explosive post-war development, Foss was introduced to Carl Sandburg's 1918 collection of American-themed poetry, "The Cornhuskers," which included The Prairie. Uprooted in 1937 from a homeland devastated by the Third Reich and having since found refuge in the United States, Foss shared many of the romantic sentiments expressed in The Prairie. According to Foss, the poem "in its earthy and almost religious approach, is a new expression of an old faith drawn from the native soil." Moved by Sandburg's extraordinary journey through the landscapes and lives of the American Midwest, Foss embarked on a journey of his own, creating an iconic work of American classical music that embodies the élan vital of a generation of men and women braving industrialization in America.

The collaboration between the Providence Singers and BMOP is just the beginning of what will undoubtedly be a long and fruitful relationship between the two organizations. Conductor Andrew Clark says, "through this and future projects with BMOP, the Providence Singers hopes to reintroduce significant choral masterworks by legendary American composers in hopes of preserving and advancing our country's rich choral traditions." The next collaboration will be the world premiere recording of Pulitzer Prize and Grammy award-winning composer Dominick Argento's Jonah and the Whale. The release is scheduled for 2010.

Boston Modern Orchestra Project & The Providence Singers, Conducted by Andrew Clark

1. The Prairie: I. I Was Born on the Prairie 5:46
2. The Prairie: II. Dust of Men 5:38
3. The Prairie: III. They Are Mine 8:42
4. The Prairie: IV. When the Red and the White Men Met 4:20
5. The Prairie: V. In the Dark of a Thousand Years 6:45
6. The Prairie: VIa. Cool Prayers 2:46
7. The Prairie: VIb. O Prairie Girl 4:03
8. The Prairie: VIc. Songs Hidden in Eggs 3:00
9. The Prairie: VII. To-Morrow 11:58

Recorded on March 15, 2007 at Mechanics Hall, Worcester, MA USA

Check out these informative links:
http://www.providencesingers.org/Concerts06/Season06-07/Mar07Foss.php
http://theprairieproject.org/Intro.htm