These world-premiere recordings are the third in conductor Reuben Blundell’s series promoting music by American composers, from the rich but underrepresented (at least in performance) music of the late 19th and 20th century. Some of these composers were born in America, while others, from Denmark, France, Germany, Great Britain, and the Netherlands, joined and influenced the musical life of their adopted country. Beyond these orchestral works lie tantalizing, and mostly obscured, catalogs of compositions including operas, tone poems, symphonies, chamber music and songs. Blundell unearthed these pieces from the rich troves of the Edwin A. Fleischer Collection of Orchestral Music at the Free Library of Philadelphia. The Fleisher Collection is the world’s largest lending library of orchestral performance material, lending to performing organizations worldwide. Alongside virtually the entire standard repertoire, it houses many rare and out-of-print works, with a current collection of over 22,000 titles and growing. Some of these composers were born in America. Others, from Canada, Denmark, and Switzerland, joined and influenced the musical life of their adopted country. While the previous two recordings in the series featured works for string ensemble, this recording series features the Lansdowne Symphony Orchestra, a regional orchestra near Philadelphia that Blundell conducts.
