Recording reviews of Frederick Converse, American Sketches, Song of the Sea, and Festival of Pan. BBC Concert Orchestra, Keith Lockhart, conductorDutton Epoch CDLX 7278, 2011./George W. Chadwick, Adonais, Cleopatra, A Pastoral Prelude, and Sinfonietta in D Major. BBC Concert Orchestra, Keith Lockhart, conductor. Dutton Epoch CDLX 7293, 2012

Abstract

[From review]: On this enterprising pair of compact discs, U.S. conductor Keith Lockhart leads the BBC Concert Orchestra in world-premiere recordings of six symphonic works by George Whitefield Chadwick (1854–1931) and Frederick Shepherd Converse (1871–1940). The chance to finally hear these century-old scores should be of immense interest to scholars of American Romanticism. Why it has taken so long for some of these works to receive a first recording is not readily apparent. (Only Chadwick’s Sinfonietta has previously been recorded.) Particularly when performed at as high a level of technical and interpretive accomplishment as Lockhart and his BBC musicians achieve, the quality of the music itself is clearly not the issue. Indeed, the selected repertory fills significant gaps in each composer’s extant discography, offering compositions that marked key turning points in the careers of both men.