Despite Greatest Global Economic Crisis In 60 Years, Three American Classical Music Advocates Plot Henry Eichheim And American Classical Music Revival
"Garth, if you're interested I can send you two mp3s of extant Henry Eichheim, both conducted by Stokowski and the Philadelphia orchestra. A big piece and a little piece: Bali, and the Japanese Nocturne from the suite Oriental Impressions.
Eichheim has been on my list for a good while. Dolores Hsu [at the University of California, Santa Barbara] has offered to lend Eichheim's instruments from the collection if I were to make a recording. Where's that lottery ticket!"
Best,
JMW
*
"John, I see that see while the University of California, Santa Barbara, has the Eichheim papers, musical instrument collection, and travel photographs; the Newberry Library, in Chicago, has his music manuscripts.
Is this where you consulted them?
I'll help you put together the list of American foundations to approach about this project. While private American foundations increasingly disdain American creative artists, they have been increasingly kind lately to American conductors and music critics."
Best,
G.
*
Photo credits: (c) Portrait of Henry Eichheim by Alfredo Ramos Martinez (1871-1946) via the Henry Eichheim Collection at the University of California at Santa Barbara. (c) Portrait of Grammy Award winning American classical conductor John McLaughlin Williams via the Eliesha Nelson website. (c) Portrait of Professor and Henry Eichheim Musical Instrument Collection Curator Dolores Hsu via the University of California at Santa Barbara web-site. With thanks.
posted by Garth Trinkl at 10:34 AM
4 Comments:
Yes, the Newberry Library in Chicago. I made several trips there to peruse the manuscripts. ANy lead you offer I shall follow. Eichheim is a terrible lacunae in the repertory of American Music.
There are huge lacunae in our understanding of American classical music and while some people are pushing for greater understanding; other misguided people are pushing just as hard to repress the sharing and appreciation of American classical music.
Your work, John, for Naxos, has been outstanding; and I am saddened that orchestras and public radio stations such as our local Classical WETA-FM (under the wanning leadership of Sharon Percy Rockefeller) are not programming some of the works you and your Naxos producers have uncovered and recorded.
Perhaps the Rockefeller Foundation, in New York City, has a little money left which with to buy some Naxos American classical recordings for Sharon Percy Rockefeller's Classical WETA-FM, in the Nation's Capital. A couple years back the station claimed that they didn't have any American classical music in their collection (except for one recording of a piano quarter of Arthur Foote which I believe that a concerned listener insisted on donating to the public radio station -- then in chaos); while the station does own and programs ad nauseum the complete works of Kaiser Frederick the Great of Prussia.
Alternatively, perhaps some of the cultural foundations of Chicago, Washington, D.C., or San Francisco might see the virtue in such a recording and programming project.
(You probably know that the Rockefeller family donated a beautiful, huge collection of wonderful American classical painting to the deYoung Fine Arts Museum of San Francisco.)
Why don't you propose a list of your top ten underappreciated works of American classical orchestral music, and we can send the list to foundations, as well as to public radio stations, American orchestras, the Library of Congress, and such web-sites as On an Overgrown Path.
Ok. Do you mean works that are under-appreciated and recorded (Creston 2nd, Menin 7th, etc.) or works that are under-appreciated and unrecorded (Flagello's Mirra, Hadley's Cleopatra's Night, etc.)?
Good question John.
How about two separate lists?
Thanks a million.
Post a Comment
<< Home