大象传媒

Fiona Talkington links up live with American radio presenter Fred Childs in Minnesota, for the second Americana concert in the 大象传媒 National Orchestra of Wales's autumn series at 大象传媒 Hoddinott Hall in Cardiff. This season, Afternoon on 3 is celebrating American music, with a particular focus on composers who established a new orchestral identity from the cultural melting pot of the twentieth-century United States.

John Alden Carpenter won fame with his first orchestral work in 1914, an unusual view of American day to day life, from a child's perspective. These action-packed - and tune-filled - adventures, inspired by Carpenter's own daughter - are so vivid that Walt Disney considered them at one point for a sequel to Fantasia. Aaron Copland played the the solo piano for the premiere of his own Piano Concerto in 1926 - to unkind reviews. These days it's difficult to understand how this jazz-influenced score could seem so shocking, reflecting as it does what Copland saw as the two sides of jazz: "the slow blues and the snappy number". It's a bold, unbridled piece, full of new York exhuberance and swagger. Another New Yorker, William Schuman also embraced jazz and folk traditions. Schuman was a prolific composer and vital force in American musical life as an administrator: his works deserve to be heard more often.

Also this afternoon, an American classic by the quintessential American maverick, Charles Ives, inspired by his native New England. And Louise Fryer shares a sneak preview of a new recording with Raphael Wallfisch and the 大象传媒 NOW, featuring music by Swiss-born Jewish composer Ernest Bloch, who settled in America during the First World War.

John Alden Carpenter: Adventures in a Perambulator
大象传媒 National Orchestra of Wales,
Wilson Hermanto (conductor).

2.30pm
Copland: Piano Concerto
William Wolfram (piano),
大象传媒 National Orchestra of Wales,
Wilson Hermanto (conductor).

2.45pm
Ives: Three Places in New England
大象传媒 National Orchestra of Wales,
Nicholas Collon.

3.10pm
William Schuman: Symphony no. 3
大象传媒 National Orchestra of Wales,
Wilson Hermanto (conductor).

4.00pm
Bloch: Schelomo
Raphael Wallfisch (cello),
大象传媒 National Orchestra of Wales,
Benjamin Wallfisch (conductor).