One of the major figures in American Classical Music in the 1930s and 40s.
John Alden Carpenter – Radio Premier – 1944 – Past Daily Weekend Gramophone
Click on the link here for Audio Player – John Alden Carpenter – Tango from Dance Suite – NBC Orchestra cond. by Henri Nosco – July 6, 1944 – Gordon Skene Sound Collection
Some Americana tonight – actually North Americana approximating South Americana by a popular composer of the 1930s and 1940s, John Alden Carpenter who premiered his Dance Suite in 1943. Carpenter was considered one of the more accessible of the Modern composers. His works had an adventuresome spirit, while maintaining an aura of the familiar and he was very popular among the group of Modern American Composers during that time.
This performance, the first broadcast of the 2nd movement, is from July 6, 1944 and features the NBC Studio Orchestra conducted by Henri Nosco, as part of the radio series Music Of The New World. As far as I can tell, there isn’t a commercial recording available of this Suite and certainly no commercial recording of this performance.
So something perhaps unfamiliar and rare, all at the same time.
What a wonderful document! Thank you very much for allowing us to hear more of this very fine yet still neglected composer.
My pleasure! I am hoping the rest of this Suite was broadcast so I can present it complete. Thanks again for the kind words.
very interesting composer, always !!