American Symphonies London Symphony Orchestra & Lance Friedel

• Walter Piston (1894-1976): Symphony No. 6:
• 1 I. Fluendo espressivo 06:42
• 2 II. Scherzo. Leggerissimo vivace 03:23
• 3 III. Adagio sereno 09:11
• 4 IV. Allegro energico 03:59
• Samuel Jones (1935- ): Symphony No. 3 "Palo Duro Canyon":
• 5 Ia. Allegro inquieto 09:04
• 6 Ib. Adagio cantabile 02:56
• 7 Ic. Andante 01:35
• 8 Id. Allegro vivo 01:39
• 9 Ie. Andante maestoso 04:07
• 10 If. Andante solenne 04:09
• Stephen Albert (1941-1992): Symphony No. 2 (Completed by S. Currier):
• 11 I. Allegro 12:45
• 12 II. Adagio 04:33
• 13 III. Allegro 12:44
• Total Runtime 01:16:47

Info for American Symphonies

When American composers began writing symphonies around the mid-1800s, their works were very much in the European tradition. During the first half of the 20th century, the great innovator Charles Ives injected a recognizably American sound into the genre, however, and since then the American symphonic legacy has been both wide and varied. With the present disc, conductor Lance Friedel strikes a blow for three fellow American composers, with the help of the eminent London Symphony Orchestra.

The album opens with Walter Piston’s Symphony No. 6. It was completed in 1955, by which time many regarded Piston (1894–1976) as clinging to tradition in the face of modernism. When Samuel Jones (b. 1935) presented his Third Symphony ‘Palo Duro Canyon’ in 1992, the pendulum was swinging back, however, and traditional music built of melody, harmony and rhythm was no longer considered hopelessly outdated. The work nevertheless begins in a rather non-traditional fashion with the recorded sound of the wind of the Texas plains, where the Palo Duro Canyon is situated. Jones’s slightly younger colleague Stephen Albert (1941–92) was just completing his Second Symphony when he was killed in a car accident. The work had been commissioned by the New York Philharmonic, and the orchestration of it was completed by Albert’s colleague and friend Sebastian Currier.

London Symphony Orchestra
Lance Friedel, conductor

Lance Friedel
American Conductor Lance Friedel is currently enjoying an active career in Europe and America.

Mr. Friedel has won wide critical acclaim for his recordings of music by Carl Nielsen, with the Aarhus Symphony Orchestra in Denmark (MSR Classics MS1150), and by Josef Bohuslav Foerster, with the Slovak Radio Symphony Orchestra (Naxos 8.557776), as well as a collection of Great Comedy Overtures with the Royal Scottish National Orchestra (Naxos 8.573418). Friedel's most recent recording is a new SACD of Bruckner's monumental Fifth Symphony with the London Symphony Orchestra (MSR Classics MS1600).

He has served as Music Director of the Providence Chamber Orchestra in Rhode Island and Assistant Conductor of the Peabody Symphony Orchestra in Maryland, and has also directed various ensembles in the New York area.

Mr. Friedel was awarded first prize at the 2001 Mario Gusella International Conductors Competition in Pescara, Italy. As a result of this prestigious prize, he has been engaged to conduct concerts with orchestras throughout Italy, as well as in Hungary.

In 1994 Mr. Friedel was the first-prize winner at the Czech Music Workshop in Hradec Králové, and was invited to conduct the Hradec Králové Philharmonic Orchestra the following season. In 1995, and again in 1996, Mr. Friedel was awarded first prize at the Marienbad Conducting Workshop in Mariánské Lázně, and was invited to conduct concerts with the West Bohemian Symphony Orchestra.

Since then Mr. Friedel has been invited to conduct orchestras throughout Eastern Europe, including the Wrocław Philharmonic Orchestra in Poland and the National Symphony Orchestra of Ukraine in Kiev. He has conducted new productions of Aida and Le nozze di Figaro in Slovakia, as well as premiere performances of several new American symphonic works in Bulgaria.

More recently, Mr. Friedel conducted the Berlin Sinfonietta and Berliner Symphonie-Chor in a performance of Beethoven's Ninth Symphony at the Konzerthaus in Berlin.

Mr. Friedel has attended master classes under such esteemed maestros as Leonard Slatkin, Andre Previn, and Lorin Maazel, and has attended numerous workshops and seminars, including the Mozarteum Summer Academy in Salzburg, the Aspen Music Festival, and Tanglewood. His conducting teachers have included Gustav Meier, Michael Charry, and Georg Tintner.

A magna cum laude graduate of Boston University, Mr. Friedel has also studied at Peabody Conservatory in Baltimore, the Hochschule für Musik in Vienna, and the Mannes College of Music in New York.

The London Symphony Orchestra
is one of the world’s top orchestras. Our home is at the Barbican in the City of London, where we perform over 80 concerts every year, and at LSO St Luke’s, a converted 18th-century church just up the road which is the base for our LSO Discovery community and education programme. We also run a record label, LSO Live. Each year we tour to several different countries, and return to some regularly where we have residencies.

Booklet for American Symphonies