with conductor Louis Langrée
This drama lingered into Copland’s Lincoln Portrait, where the orchestra created a wonderful, expansive sound. They were joined by actor Charles Dance with the excerpts from Lincoln’s speeches and writings that Copland inserts into the piece. Although he made a striking entrance, Dance's delivery seemed a little rushed, meaning the words lost some of their profundity
Many fine actors have narrated Aaron Copland's Lincoln Portrait since it was first performed by the Cincinnati Symphony Orchestra in 1942 when William Adams narrated. For us, it was English actor Charles Dance giving a slight American accent. The text comes up with 'This is what he said' on a number of occasions. Charles Dance's interpretation was schoolmasterish and determined. We had to take note that he was about to say something about Abraham Lincoln, to which we needed to listen and absorb.
The Lincoln Portrait is a splendid bit of morale-boosting hokum, combining stirring quotes from the man himself with random biographical facts (“When standing erect he was 6ft 4in tall”), clothed in music that depicts something of the zeitgeist and also the gravity of a wartime situation. Charles Dance was the narrator here, affecting a not always entirely convincing American accent. The real problem, however, was the amplification: over-resonant and lacking in the clarity that is really the point in such a work. In these interesting political times, the work seems to have acquired new layers of meaning: a reminder of true statesmanship perhaps, with every word a rebuke to current leaders.
https://www.theguardian.com/music
from :
Prom 58: Cincinnati Symphony Orchestra and Louis Langree
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