George Frederick Bristow: Symphony No. 2 ‘Jullien’ —Royal Northern Sinfonia/Rebecca Miller (New World 80768)
George Frederick Bristow (1825-1898), was a pillar of the New York musical community for most of the 19 th century. He was a composer, performer, conductor, educator, and a strong advocate for American music. His musical training took place entirely in New York, where he studied with his father and several prominent members of the Philharmonic Society, now the New York Philharmonic. Bristow's Symphony No. 2 is named for the French conductor Louis Antoine Jullien who had arrived in New York in 1853 and immediately began commissioning works from composers like Bristow and William Henry Fry. Bristow used as his models symphonic works by Beethoven and Mendelssohn that had been a regular staple of the Philharmonic Society concerts during its first ten years. This is the premiere recording of the recently published Critical Edition of Symphony No. 2 by musicologist Katherine Preston, who has also contributed an informative essay in the accompanying booklet. Premiere recordings of the Overture to the opera Rip Van Winkle (1855) and the Overture to ‘A Winter's Tale’ (1856) round out the program. Conductor Rebecca Miller is an Oberlin grad active in the UK.
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