All of the material on the five-CD Mercury set, Howard Hanson Conducts American Masterworks, has been previously released as single discs in exactly the same configuration. Most of the older issues, however, are out of print and are unlikely to return, given the availability of this box set. This is no reason to mourn, for this set is retailing at a bargain basement price, working out to roughly a "five for the price of four" ratio. Some collectors may welcome the added shelf space.

As to the performances themselves, they are all outstanding, with several performances being definitive, such as the Ives Three Places in New England, Barber's Capricorn Concerto, Douglas Moore's Pageant of P.T. Barnum, and many others heard here. Howard Hanson with the Eastman-Rochester Symphony Orchestra was just simply a hard act to follow. Hanson's performances have hardly dated at all sonically, thanks to Mercury Living Presence's pioneering attitude toward sound quality and the careful maintenance accorded the master tapes of these early stereo recordings, which date from 1957 to 1966.

Not all of the pieces heard here are "masterworks"—one would be hard pressed to apply such an adjective to such pieces as William McCauley's Five Miniatures for Flute and Strings or the greatly enlarged orchestral arrangement of one of Moravian composer Johann Friedrich Peter's six chamber sonatas as a "Sinfonia in G." There are still some excellent Hanson recordings for Mercury Living Presence that have never appeared on CD, presumably because they were made in mono; this would include his superb renderings of Griffes' The Pleasure Dome of Kubla Khan and Sessions' Suite from The Black Maskers. It is unfair, nevertheless, to complain about that which is not present; besides, the new disc does include greatly improved notes, detailing recording dates and locations, microphone setups and includes a well-written, conversational liner by Bill Newman, a producer and engineer who worked on a lot of these sessions. Unless one has already acquired all five of these single discs, the American concert music fancier can hardly afford to pass up Howard Hanson Conducts American Masterworks.

© Uncle Dave Lewis, All Music Guide

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