Howard Hanson: Symphonies Nos. 5 & 7 / Piano Concerto / Mosaics

Amazon.com Howard Hanson is one of America's great mid-century composers. His music, like that of Roy Harris, draws its character from the plains, from the pioneer blood that settled that part of the country. Here we have two major symphonies, a piano concerto, and a tone-poem, "Mosaics". These works are at the heart of American Romanticism; his melodies are distinct and tonal, his writing formal. He's not as idiosyncratic as Roy Harris or as buoyant as Copland and his music never went into other areas of 20th- century experimentation. But his symphonies, particularly the Fifth, belong in every collection. --Paul Cook