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Mercury Living Presence Boxed Set CD31 van55
Howard Hanson Conducts Barber, Piston, Griffes, McCauley, Kennan, Bergsma.
Hanson championed a certain style of contemporary American music, and looking backward from today's perch a lot of it ultimately may have missed the mark. But history should also be kind to Hanson because he presented and preserved all of this ecclectic music, and did so without picking favorites like Bernstein always did. An obscure concerto by a well-known composer like Barber and a relatively well-known piece by an obscure composer like Piston, get equal billing with four other works by people I've never heard of before or since, all in glorious MLP sound -- making these recordings all the more worthwhile.