Catching up with a recent Fanfare (May 2003 – OK, I’m a little behind on things), I came across an interesting double review of music by Yardumian on a Bis CD. To quote from the Peter Burwasser review:

Quote:
It’s easy to see why Richard Yardumian . . . was so popular with the long-time Philadelphia Orchestra conductor Eugene Ormandy. Ormandy’s tastes in contemporary music ran toward the big, tonal and frequently bombastic, with heavy doses of Sibelius, Shostakovich, and Prokofiev. Although in his own time, many critics dismissed Ormandy as an unintellectual populist, he was, especially in retrospect, a tireless and faithful supporter of many living composers, championing a number of works that have since entered the standard repertoire.


One senses the ambivalence in that passage, and of course one senses how Rozsa might easily fit in. “Bombastic” is not a friendly adjective. On the other hand, Sibelius, Shostakovich, and Prokofiev are not exactly inferior company. And Yardumian? I pulled out an old Columbia LP with his first and second symphonies and Chorale Prelude. It looks to be from the early sixties. And what do I find but another interesting bit of prose in the liner notes:

Quote:
The Chorale Prelude had its first performance on April 3, 1959. . . . The work was commissioned as part of a “Restful Music Project” organized by New Orleans businessman Edward R. Benjamin, who felt that too much contemporary music is unpleasantly loud and dissonant.


Well! We’ve heard of Mr. Benjamin before, of course. He commissioned the Notturno ungherese around the same time. But I had never realized that he was sponsoring a whole program of musical quietude. I wonder what other composers received commissions from Benjamin.

Now to check out those Yardumian scores . . .