An American Dream?

“For me, every album is a statement,” Barbara Hannigan tells Apple Music Classical. “It should have a dramaturgical structure and be a kind of philosophical statement. I wouldn’t have done An American Dream? if I wasn’t so sad about the way I saw things going.” The Canadian soprano and conductor’s album explores the role music has played in building community and uniting disparate peoples. Those qualities were cultivated in the 20th century’s first half by a remarkable generation of American composers, George Gershwin, Aaron Copland, Richard Rodgers and Jule Styne among them, whose parents fled poverty or oppression in Europe for better lives in the US. An American Dream? opens with 1942’s Porgy and Bess: A Symphonic Picture, tailored by Gershwin’s friend and former assistant Robert Russell Bennett to suit precise specifications from Fritz Reiner, the Hungarian-born conductor of the Pittsburgh Symphony Orchestra. “Gershwin is number one, for me,” says Hannigan. “He’s up there with the greats. And this Symphonic Picture from Porgy and Bess is some of the greatest music I’ve ever had the chance to perform.” The Gothenburg Symphony Orchestra turn on the style with a performance of rhythmic precision, tonal variety and thrilling energy. An American Dream? also includes Dance Symphony, an underplayed gem from the late 1920s. Copland compiled the piece from material recycled from his earlier ballet score Grohg, mostly written in Paris and directly inspired by F.W. Murnau’s expressionist vampire film Nosferatu. “Grohg is not a great title! But Dance Symphony is much more attractive. When I imagine the ballet, knowing the music as I do, I honestly don’t want to see a procession of coffins or a corpse brought back to life. I’m happy that it got turned into a concert piece. It’s really fun for the musicians and listeners.” Hannigan’s passion for Gershwin led to the creation of the album’s closing work, At the Fair, a suite of showstoppers by Billy Barnes, Jule Styne and ot