Howard Hanson: Piano

Sonata • Poèmes érotiques

Thomas Labé, Piano
CD CONTENTS

Two Yuletide Pieces, Op. 19 (1919)

1. Impromptu
2. March Carillon

Poèmes érotiques, Op. 9 (1917-18)

3. Peace
4. Joy
5. Desire

Sonata in A Minor, Op. 11 (1918)

6. Andante espressivo
7. Élegie herbique
8. Triumphal Ode

Three Miniatures, Op. 12 (1918-19)

9. Reminiscence
10. Lullaby
11. Longing

Three Études, Op. 18 (1920)

12. Studio ritmico
13. Studio melodico
14. Poema Idillico

15. Enchantment (1935)

For the First Time (orchestral score 1963; piano score 1970)
16. Bells
17. Tamara and Peter Bolshoi
18. The Deserted House
19. The Eccentric Clock
20. Deep Forest
21. Clowns
22. Dance
23. Serious Conversation
24. Kikimora
25. Mist
26. Fireworks
27. Dreams

28. Slumber Song

LINER NOTES

Though perhaps best known for his choral and orchestral works, the piano played a central
role in the development of Howard Hanson as a composer. The instrument is heard, with few
exceptions, in virtually everything he composed prior to winning the prestigious Prix de Rome at
the age of twenty five. Under the influence of Respighi (his teacher in Rome) he succumbed to
the rich tonal vocabulary of the orchestra, and wrote ever fewer works for the piano. Indeed, his
last published solo piano work, For the First Time, is an arrangement of a suite originally
composed for orchestra. Nonetheless, it was through the medium of the piano that the
composer’s distinctive idiom found its first expression in the works of an early maturity: the four
Poèmes érotiques, Op. 9, the Sonata in A Minor, Op. 11 (1918), and the Three Miniatures, Op. 12
(1918-1919). Here we find already the essence of Hanson's style: the bold outlines, the soaring
melodies, the layered climaxes, the penchant for unpredictability, the subtle northern flavor (that
does not escape even his most “American" compositions)—all exuding sincerity and imbued with
personality.
This recording brings together much of Hanson's solo piano oeuvre, a great deal of which is
as yet unpublished. All of the holographs scores are housed in the collection of the Sibley Music
Library at the Eastman School of Music, the venerable institution where Hanson had served as
director. A great many were presented by the composer to the library on 19th November, 1949,
while others were gradually added prior to his retirement in 1964. After his death in 1981, the
remainder were transferred from his office to the library.
The son of Swedish immigrants, Hanson grew up in the small Lutheran community of Wahoo,
Nebraska. His earliest musical instruction came in the form of piano lessons, given by his mother.
He left Wahoo at the age of fifteen to embark on an odyssey of remarkable success. He studied
piano in New York with James Friskin, flirting briefly with the notion of pursuing a career as a
concert artist. A teaching fellowship led him to Northwestern University, where he received his
Bachelor of Music degree before he was twenty years old. Accepting an appointment to teach
theory and composition at the College of the Pacific, just two years later he was named Dean.
It was at this time he composed those works that led to his being awarded the Prix de Rome
in 1921, the first American to ever be so honored. Towards the end of his three-year fellowship
in Rome, while in the United States to conduct a performance of his Nordic Symphony with the
Rochester Philharmonic Orchestra, he had a fateful encounter with George Eastman, founder of
the Eastman School of Music. No long thereafter came an invitation from Eastman to assume
directorship of the school. From 1924-1964, Hanson would guide that institution through a
remarkable era of growth, all the while serving as a tireless advocate in the cause of American
music and composers. Such a record of accomplishment inevitably brought Hanson his fair share
of detractors, none of which has caused the popular appeal of his music among audiences to
diminish in any way.
The Two Yuletide Pieces, Op. 19, were first performed by Hanson in San José, California, in
the spring of 1921. The first, Impromptu, is dedicated to his mother. The rich sonorities of March
Carillon (dedicated to American composer Leo Sowerby) prompted Hanson to consider a
symphonic treatment and an orchestrated version is found among the manuscripts in the Sibley
Music Library.
Hanson articulated his inspiration for the Poèmes érotiques in a handwritten postscript: “The
Four ‘Poèmes érotiques’ [only three are extant in the manuscript book] are my first studied
attempt at ‘psychological’ writing. Written during my first/second year at Pacific (1917/18) and
performed here. The third and fourth have a slightly morbid tendency reflecting a perturbed state
of mind.” The composer gave the set a premiere performance at the College of the Pacific in
1918.
Hanson might well have had a program in mind when he composed the Sonata in A Minor,
Op. 11, as the front page bears descriptive titles for the work’s constituent sections: Andante
expressivo, Elégie hérbique, Triumphal Ode, though they are not placed in the score itself. These
three sections are, in the manner of Liszt and Berg, drawn together to form a single movement.
Although the manuscript is incomplete, it is clear from an annotation in the composer's hand
(“Written during summer of 1918. Performed April 7, 1919”) that the work was heard on at least
one occasion. For reasons unknown, Hanson never bothered to bring the manuscript to
completion, leaving instead a sort of musical shorthand. Never one to revise his earlier work (to
“pour new wine into old bottles,” as he put it), perhaps his attention had already turned to other
compositions.
The Three Miniatures, Op. 12, were given their first performance by the composer on 7th
April, 1919. The score is dedicated to Rudolph Ganz. All are characterized by long, arching
melodies, rich sonorities and harmonies that appear to consciously avoid resolution in an almost
Wagnerian manner.
First performed by Hanson in San José in the spring of 1921, the titles and movement
headings for the Three Études, Op. 18, appear in Italian on the manuscript, apparently for use
during his fellowship in Italy. The title page bears the inscription "Omaggio della Accademia
Americana in Roma, Omaggio a sua Maestà il Re Vittorio Emmanuele [sic] III.” In spite of the
specific movement titles (Studio ritmico, Studio melodico, Poema Idillico) all three appear, above
all, to be most concerned with sound and color.
The delightful miniature Enchantment was composed in 1935, brought out by Carl Fischer in
1936 and is inscribed to “Tad and Baba.” Hanson often cited Grieg as an early influence, and this
piece, in both its simplicity and harmonic language, recalls the Grieg of the Lyric Pieces.
The orchestral suite For the First Time was composed in 1963 for a commission by the Music
Teachers National Association. It was first performed by the Eastman Philharmonia with the
composer yielding the baton on 16th May, 1963. The piano version dates from 1970 and bears a
dedication to Claudette Sorel on the published score.
The quaint Slumber Song (undated) which brings this recording to a close, is the sole
representative here out of a fair number of juvenile manuscripts in the Sibley Music Library
collection. Simple and effective, the Slumber Song embraces the sort of sentimental melody
characterized by Hanson's biographer Burnet Tuthill as “a tune to be carried away and to haunt
you.”

~ Thomas Labé