Frederick Fennell conducting the Cleveland Symphonic Winds. Recorded in Severance Hall, Cleveland.
Talk about a mistitled record! Looking at the cover, aren't you led to believe this is American patriotic music? Well, there's a bit of that, but we also get music from composers from Belgium, Czechoslovakia, Austria, England, and Australia. Out of the 12 works recorded here, 5 are by American composers and only 2 would be considered patriotic: Sousa's Stars & Stripes Forever and Zimmerman's Anchors Aweigh. Either the Telarc marketing department dropped the ball on this one or they lied...errrr...misrepresented the truth to an unsuspecting public.
The performances and production here are very clean. Fennell is a wind band legend and the ensemble is first-rate overall, although the brass players give us some harsh tones every now and then. The otherwise good liner notes give no indication, but I'm guessing that the Cleveland Symphonic Winds is essentially the Cleveland Orchestra without strings and a few added players.
My favorite piece here (indeed, one of my favorite band pieces) is Shepherd's Hey by Percy Grainger. I also enjoy the other works by Grainger and Ralph Vaughan Williams.
Personal Memory Associated with this CD: This was one of the first CDs I ever owned and I think I traded for it with a fraternity brother. This was the only purely digital CD of band music that I knew of and, since I was studying "wind ensemble repertoire" (a.k.a. band music), I thought this was a must have. Since I haven't listened to it in its entirety in over 20 years, I was incorrect about it being a must have, at least for me.
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