Peter Mennin: Symphony No. 5 and Symphony No. 6
Mennin (1923-1983) wrote a kind of American music that was part of no  school or modernistic trend. His symphonies and large-scale orchestral music  tend to be polyphonic. This way he can incorporate any impulse that will serve  the music. His Concertato,Moby Dick, of 1952 builds like a Renaissance  choral work of flowing melody clusters, intermingled with the kind of  contrapuntal energy found in Hindemith. Mennin's symphonies, though, are genuine  masterpieces, even if the latter ones are broadly atonal and practically  unplayable. Symphonies 5 and 6, though, should be better-known than they are. We  need more of this man's music.--Paul Cook