Andrew Litton - Liebermann: Symphony No. 2 & Flute Concerto (2000)

Continuing its practice of recording works of American composers, Delos is releasing the premiere recording of Lowell Liebermann’s Symphony No. 2, Op. 67, in a performance by the Dallas Symphony Orchestra conducted by its Music Director, Andrew Litton. The symphony is coupled with Liebermann’s Concerto for Flute and Orchestra, Op. 39, featuring Eugenia Zukerman as soloist. Liebermann was the Orchestra’s Composer-in-Residence at the time of this recording. The Second Symphony was commissioned for the Dallas Symphony to celebrate both the orchestra’s centennial season and the advent of the millennium. It was recorded at its first performances in Meyerson Hall in February of this year.

The Flute Concerto was premiered in 1992 by James Galway, for whom the work was written. The Symphony unfolds in a continuous forty-minute span with four distinct sections corresponding to the movements of a symphony. The work requires a large orchestra, including organ, piano and celesta, with auxiliary brass playing in the hall’s balconies and a mixed chorus singing passages selected from poems by Walt Whitman. The symphony was commissioned for the Dallas Symphony by Ford Lacy and Cece Smith. Booklet notes are by Peter G. Davis. Born in New York City in 1961, Liebermann is a graduate of The Juilliard School of Music where he earned Bachelor, Masters and Doctor of Musical Arts Degrees. His orchestral works have been performed by the Metropolitan Opera, the New York Philharmonic and the orchestras of Philadelphia, Indianapolis, Minnesota, Montreal, Cincinnati, Baltimore, Seattle and St. Louis, among others. His instrumental compositions have been championed by some of today’s most distinguished soloists and singers, including Mstislav Rostropovich, James Galway, Stephen Hough, Susan Graham, Joshua Bell, Robert White, Eliot Fisk and Jean-Yves Thibaudet. His honors include awards from ASCAP, BMI, the American Academy and Institute of Arts and Letters and a Grammy nomination for his Second Piano Concerto.