 World premiere
recordings of three orchestral works by American composer
John Stewart McLennan, performed by the Radio Philharmonic
Orchestra of Hannover, conducted by Gunther Schuller.
McLennan was a student at the Peabody
Conservatory and studied piano with Aurelio Giorni and
Alexander Siloti and composition with Karol Rathaus and
Erich Itor Kahn. An American Academy of Arts and
Letters music award winner, McLennan’s work includes
chamber and orchestral music, pieces for piano and organ,
songs, and choral works.
Mr McLennan designed and maintained the
beautiful gardens depicted on the CD cover at his family
home in western Massachusetts. His talent for
elegant form and proportion in music was also expressed
through his landscaping — blending a sloping hillside, a
wooded dale, a rushing stream, a majestically rising
fountain, and all manner of manicured flora in an Arcadian
symphony.
(Also on GM Recordings by John Stewart
McLennan: Vocal and Organ Works.)
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“McLennan is one of those composers
whose innate modesty prevented him from blowing his own
horn. But I think his music, though considered
conservative in some circles, is very strong and
emotionally persuasive.”
—Gunther
Schuller |
