Carpenter: Adventures in A Perambulator / Symphonies Nos. 1 and 2
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JOHN ALDEN CARPENTER
Carpenter: Adventures in A Perambulator / Symphonies Nos. 1 and 2
National Symphony Orchestra of Ukraine, John McLaughlin Williams, conductor
[ Naxos American Classics / CD ]
Release Date: Monday 14 May 2001
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Although a largely forgotten name today, John Alden Carpenter (28th February 1876- 26th April 1951) was among the foremost American composers of his time. The leading conductors of the period performed his orchestral music, and its great singers sang his songs. At the height of his fame in the early 1920s, he became the only American composer to write a commissioned score for Dyagilev's Ballets Russes.
"John Alden Carpenter came from a wealthy Illinois family, and in spite of receiving every encouragement to develop his musical talent (which showed itself when he was still quite young) he put the family business first, eventually becoming Vice-President. His musical training included study under Elgar and this shows in his confident handling of the orchestra. Adventures in a Perambulator (which includes encounters with Dogs, Dreams, The Lake, The Hurdy-Gurdy and The Policeman) is charmingly scored and pleasantly tuneful. The First Symphony, a well-planned single-movement work, divided into five linked sections, is [hardly more ambitious. But again its invention is] warmly attractive and its nostalgic atmosphere holds the listener in its undemanding spell.
The Second opens more dramatically…The Ukraine Orchestra obviously enjoy this music and play it very well indeed. The Naxos recording is first class and the documentation includes the composer's own notes for Adventures in a Perambulator." Penguin Guide
"You have to hand it to Naxos. Here--on one very-nicely-performed program (played with gusto, polish, and complete sympathy by those specialists in American repertoire, the Ukraine National Symphony!!) and recorded in clean, bright, engaging sound--is John Alden Carpenter's cheeky evergreen classic from 1914, Adventures in a Perambulator, mated with the first-ever recordings of his two hitherto unknown symphonies. And it sells for less than a cheap haircut. (Probably much less--the last time I paid for a haircut was 1968.)
The music is outgoing, relaxed, and enjoyable from beginning to end. There's no attempt at profundity or deep personal feeling. Adventures, in six movements depicting the tiny voyager's travels, begins magically, with a gentle aquarelle flourish, and soon moves on to episodes sweet, tender, animated, dreamy, and picturesque. This charming, warm, modest, buoyant music reminds us of the old adage: To be loved, be lovable. The symphonies (revised in the 1940s from much-earlier compositions) are similar in idiom, though the Second is a little grander and weightier, the orchestration faintly Mahlerian sometimes. With their ingratiating tunes, pastel colors, casual approach to form, and (for the most part) good-humored mien, they could have just as easily been decked out as Adventures of a Toddler and Adventures of a Cub Scout. We can sure, however, that this civilized and urbane composer would never have attempted anything so savage and brutal as Adventures of a Teenager." American Record Guide
