The Fourth Symphony was a personal and professional watershed for Hanson. His father had died: therein lay the work's inspiration and dedication; and simultaneously he had hit the peak of his symphonic form. In 1944, the year after its premiere, his symphony won the first Pulitzer Prize for music. It was the right time and the right work for that kind of recognition. So, how to describe it? All Hanson's favourite devices are here: the thematic recycling through which simple, often anonymous, themes undergo wonderful, very characteristic transformations, his use of the leitmotiv (in this case a stark octave leap prefacing each of the first three movements like a signature or logo). And of course the textural landscape, Nordic to the last craggy precipice: we've definitely been there before. As ever, the Sibelian elements are everywhere—forbidding, dark-hued, windswept, with dramatic use made of bassoons and sonorous ground-basses. Hanson's own thematic elements germinate here, a mere handful of notes from which he lovingly, methodically, organically forges his father's Requiem. Perhaps the most remarkable feature of the work is the way in which his simple, scalistic, upwardly-mobile themes (most of Hanson's themes are made this way) seem constantly to strive for something higher, and loftier. The more they are elaborated and transformed, the greater their aspirations. If you take his Kyrie theme and hear how he develops it to one of those ecstatic but never-quite-resolved climaxes, you'll understand more clearly what I am trying to say. Then, again, at the heart of the symphony, in the second movement Largo (''Requiescat''), you'll encounter an even more beautiful example. At 2'42'', he modulates into a gloriously tender passage rich in harmonic suspensions. It is at once heartbreaking and comforting and eternally grateful—like all true laments.
The other lament on this disc is very different—big and public. One can see why the young Hanson (25 when he started work on Lament for Beowulf) might have been drawn to so ancient a text. The primitive, the pagan, the elemental, the heroic are elements which colour all his music. He could no doubt visualize the craggy cliffside on which the Geatan people had constructed their hero's funeral pyre. Tolling bass tuba, bass drum and the sound of gathering fanfares immediately give us a vivid sense of time and place. Against this imposing backdrop Hanson builds his choral edifice—a confident mix of ancient and modern conveying ''a timeless sense of bereavement''. It is a strong piece, a fervent example of a young man thinking big. Speaking of which, how is it we hear so little about his opera Merry Mount? Or is it just that we in the UK have been kept in ignorance? By all accounts this most ambitious of all Hanson's works was a triumph at the New York Met in 1934—50 curtain calls on its first night. What happened? Well, this orchestral suite happened, but it doesn't give one too much insight into what sounds to be a fascinating subject for an opera: Nathaniel Hawthorne's short story of puritan New England and a pastor's romantic obsession with a visiting lady. Heaven forfend! From these brief orchestral morsels one can gather that Hanson pulled out all his romantic stops: from a sombre Lutheran chorale grows a ripely hedonistic climax; there is a classic Hanson love scene, replete with pounding-heart climax, an insidiously catchy children's dance with a mischievous syncopation in its step, and Carmina burana-like Maypole Dances, the medieval given a twentieth-century flamboyance with lashings of brass and percussion. But I really would love to hear more of the opera.
Schwarz is obviously the man to bring it to us. Are there plans? Once again my comments here have been preoccupied with the music rather than the performances. But isn't that the best kind of compliment to any performer? At the risk of repeating myself, Schwarz's commitment to this music is evident in every bar; you really can take the quality, not least of course that of his marvellous orchestra, for granted. This exceedingly well-filled (and again technically excellent) disc is completed with two lyric creations for flute and oboe (with harp and strings) respectively, each reflecting the very different characteristics of their solo instruments. But they are, if you like, the icing on the cake. You really must try the cake.'