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Americansky Salutsky
Morton Gould (1913-1996), that Dean of Americana, avoided banality by ruthlessly breaking up familiar tunes and making his presentation of them entirely developmental. Listen to what he does with "The Star Spangled Banner" in the first of the six "American Ballads" (1976). It is almost Ivesian in its effect of disintegrating the homely into something so dismembered as to be (as the Germans would say) ganz unheimlich. Like Virgil Thomson and Aaron Copland, Gould also wielded the knack of discovering fundamental motifs common to two or more traditional tunes. Thus, in the second of the "American Ballads," "Amber Waves," we hear fragments of "American the Beautiful" which sound identical to fragments of "The Star Spangled Banner." All sorts of weird instrumental effects pass by on display, like the strange flute-trills that seem to be razzing aspects of "America the Beautiful." The "Foster Gallery" is older by four decades. But even here, Gould is aware that he cannot simply serve up these salon-favorites with new harmonies; he everywhere disrupts and mocks - and eventually reasserts the original validity of - his material. The "American Salute," based on the Civil War song "When Johnny Comes Marching Home," is less devious, more heart-on-its-sleeve, in manner, as befits a celebration of the return of victorious American soldiers from Europe and Asia. The National Symphony Orchestra of the Ukraine under Theodore Kuchar play this music as though they were Brooklyn-born and members of the Veterans of Foreign Wars. This is a gem in Naxos' seris of American Classics.