Smith, J S: The Star-Spangled Banner

Celebrating its 80th anniversary season, the NSO here presents its first recording under its new music director. In the U.S., Christoph Eschenbach has previously held music directorships with Houston Symphony, Ravinia Festival, and The Philadelphia Orchestra.

This new release celebrates the memory of John F. Kennedy, and the 50th anniversary of his inauguration as U.S. President, by coupling new and historic recordings by the National Symphony Orchestra of Washington, D.C.

CD 1 features Christoph Eschenbach conducting the January 2011 anniversary concert at the Kennedy Center. It includes the world premiere recording of Peter Lieberson’s Remembering JFK (An American Elegy), with famous actor Richard Dreyfuss narrating excerpts from speeches of President Kennedy. Also included are Bernstein’s popular Symphonic Dances from ‘West Side Story’.

CD 2 features excerpts from the previously unreleased 1961 Inaugural Concert under then-Music Director Howard Mitchell, including radio commentary from the original broadcast.

This seventh volume in the Naxos McCormack edition includes the great tenor’s only published recording of the Preislied from Wagner’s Die Meistersinger, sung here in English translation as Morning Was Gleaming; music by Irish and Irish-American composers; patriotic war-related songs that evoke the pain of separation and the hope of return, including Ivor Novello’s hugely popular Keep the Home Fires Burning; and ‘Champs paternels’ from Méhul’s opera Joseph, recorded as a supportive gesture for the French forces that were suffering greatly at the time.

All these works are delivered with an intimacy of feeling, masterful phrasing and a compelling sense of engagement with the listener that were the hallmark of McCormack’s approach to everything that he sang.

Scientist and mathematician Wayne Stahnke used new techniques of transfer and reproduction to Rachmaninov's piano rolls, revealing the nuances and fine details of his playing with a never-before-heard clarity.