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Mennin (1923-1983) wrote a kind of American music that was part of no school or modernistic trend. His symphonies and large-scale orchestral music tend to be polyphonic. This way he can incorporate any impulse that will serve the music. His Concertato,
Moby Dick, of 1952 builds like a Renaissance choral work of flowing melody clusters, intermingled with the kind of contrapuntal energy found in Hindemith. Mennin's symphonies, though, are genuine masterpieces, even if the latter ones are broadly atonal and practically unplayable. Symphonies 5 and 6, though, should be better-known than they are. We need more of this man's music.
--Paul Cook
