From Amazon.com
Originally recorded in 1970, this is a welcome reissue of superb performances by the young Michael Tilson Thomas in his Boston Symphony days. The Ives is one of his best-known pieces and the crack orchestra plays it to the hilt. Ruggles's
Suntreader is the work of another American loner, full of stark contrasts and uninhibited sound explorations--with a brass and percussion opening that'll make you sit up. Piston is often written off as an academic craftsman but his Second Symphony, like most of his works, makes such stereotyping patently absurd. He may not have been as idiosyncratic as Ruggles or Ives, but he was a creative composer whose poised, warmly gracious music should be better known. The three-movement Second Symphony is typical Piston in its classic framework, well-molded melodies and orchestration, and the way it slides effortlessly between the lyrical and the dramatic. It's hard to imagine better performances of these important American works.
--Dan Davis
Chronique amazon.fr
C'est un jeune homme de 26 ans qui dirige ici le Symphonique de Boston, lui faisant découvrir l'un des coeurs de la musique américaine. Tilson Thomas dirige ce répertoire alors non-conformiste avec un aplomb et un sens inné du rythme. L'orchestre le suit, comme fasciné en découvrant ces oeuvres à la fois baignées de teintes et de culture américaine et pourtant si romantiques dans l'âme. Tilson Thomas ne se contente pas d'en donner une lecture incisive et débridée ; il insuffle un lyrisme qui, déjà à cette époque, marque sa personnalité musicale. Hormis les oeuvres de Bernstein et Gershwin, il n'y a pas de parcours discographique plus intéressant et plus réussi que celui-ci pour découvrir les grandes pages du classicisme américain du XXe siècle.
--Étienne Bertoli
