Leonard Slatkin Conducts American Portraits—St. Louis Symphony (RCA 60983)
Here’s a blast from the past: a 1992 RCA release of patriotic pieces including some expected works like the Fanfare for the Common Man, National Emblem March, and El Capitan. But there are some surprising selections, too, like Virgil Thomason’s Fugue and Chorale on ‘Yankee Doodle’, Victor Herbert’s American Fantasy, and Be Glad Then America from William Schuman’s New England Triptych. The St. Louis Symphony Chorus is featured at the end of Dudley Buck’s Festival Overture on ‘The Star Spangled Banner’ and in The Battle Hymn of the Republic in Roy Ringwald’s 1943 arrangement for Fred Waring. Ideal listening for the week of the Fourth!