The executor of Henry Brant's estate, Kathy Wilkowski, writes us to update us on our September, 1998 article about the Concord Sonata and Concord Symphony by Charles Ives and Henry Brant respectively. For those readers who need to refresh their memories about this, Brant rewrote Ives' Concord Sonata, creating an entirely new -- yet referential -- work in the process.Wilowski says, "You can order Henry Brant's transcription of Ives's Concord Sonata (Brant calls it: A Concord Symphony). A Concord Symphony is approximately 55 minutes in length, so the entire CD is devoted to it. If you do a Google search on A Concord Symphony, you will find lots of reviews and information about it." She directs us to it at Amazon.com (click here).
Only the movement entitled "Alcotts" is downloadable. The movements "Emerson," "Hawthorne" and "Thoreau" complete the symphony, and you need to purchase the album in order to hear the piece in its entirety.
A reviewer on the Amazon.com page for this recording said: "There are, I'm sure, purists who will balk at the very notion of an orchestration of Charles Ives's piano masterwork, the Concord Sonata. But they really ought to give this version, a 30-year-long true labor of love by Henry Brant, a hearing in its brilliant orchestral garb...."
