An American Dream
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Label: Alpha
Cat No: ALPHA1222
Format: CD
Number of Discs: 1
Release Date: 22nd May 2026
Contents
Works
Dance SymphonyPorgy and Bess: A Symphonic Picture (arr. Robert Russell Bennett)
At the Fair: orchestral suite with soprano (B Hannigan, B Elliott)
Carousel
» The Carousel Waltz (arr. Don Walker)
Artists
Barbara Hannigan (soprano)Gothenburg Symphony Orchestra (orchestra)
Conductor
Barbara HanniganWorks
Dance SymphonyPorgy and Bess: A Symphonic Picture (arr. Robert Russell Bennett)
At the Fair: orchestral suite with soprano (B Hannigan, B Elliott)
Carousel
» The Carousel Waltz (arr. Don Walker)
Artists
Barbara Hannigan (soprano)Gothenburg Symphony Orchestra (orchestra)
Conductor
Barbara HanniganAbout
With "An American Dream?", Barbara Hannigan explores the concept of The American Dream. "I grew up in awe of America. I am still in awe, but largely in a nostalgic way. With this repertoire, I want to express my admiration for the incredible creativity and tenacity of composers who shaped a musical language that was truly their own." The Canadian conductor and soprano collaborates with her long-term partners, the Gothenburg Symphony Orchestra, on this programme of works by American composers. With "the fair" as a recurring theme across the repertoire, the image on the cover shows a carousel horse that is at a standstill. A pretty, painted object - but the floor is cracked and half the lights are burned out. Nostalgia and memory are mixed with underlying darkness and destruction. From George Gershwin's masterpiece Porgy and Bess - an opera about love, addiction, racism, and hope - Robert Russell Bennett's iconic arrangement of A Symphonic Picture is featured. Inspired by watching the silent film Nosferatu, Aaron Copland composed the vibrant Dance Symphony. The Carousel Waltz (arr. Don Walker) is the overture to the Broadway musical Carousel by Richard Rodgers. For the grand finale, Barbara Hannigan reunites with American composer and arranger Bill Elliott in their joint creation, At the Fair, a suite which includes a multitude of American songs and themes, including Have I Stayed Too Long at the Fair and Jule Styne's famous hit Don't Rain on my Parade.
Sound/Video
Paused
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1George Gershwin - Porgy and Bess, a Symphonic Picture (Arr. by Robert Russell Bennett) I. Catfish Row
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2George Gershwin - Porgy and Bess, a Symphonic Picture (Arr. by Robert Russell Bennett) II. Clara, Clara
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3George Gershwin - Porgy and Bess, a Symphonic Picture (Arr. by Robert Russell Bennett) III. Opening music - IV. Summertime
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4George Gershwin - Porgy and Bess, a Symphonic Picture (Arr. by Robert Russell Bennett) V. I Got Plenty O’ Nuttin’ - VI. Hurricane Music
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5George Gershwin - Porgy and Bess, a Symphonic Picture (Arr. by Robert Russell Bennett) VII. Bess, You is My Woman Now
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6George Gershwin - Porgy and Bess, a Symphonic Picture (Arr. by Robert Russell Bennett) VIII. Picnic Scene (Oh, I can’t sit down) - IX. There’s a Boat That’s Leaving Soon for New York
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7George Gershwin - Porgy and Bess, a Symphonic Picture (Arr. by Robert Russell Bennett) X. It Ain’t Necessarily So - XI. Oh Lord, I’m on my Way
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8Aaron Copland - Dance Symphony I. Lento – Molto allegro – Adagio molto
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9Aaron Copland - Dance Symphony II. Andante moderato
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10Aaron Copland - Dance Symphony III. Allegro vivo
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11Richard Rodgers - The Carousel Waltz (Arr. by Don Walker)
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12Billy Barnes - At the Fair (Arr. by Barbara Hannigan and Bill Elliott) Have I stayed too long at the fair
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13At the Fair (Arr. by Barbara Hannigan and Bill Elliott) An American Dream
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14At the Fair (Arr. by Barbara Hannigan and Bill Elliott) Don’t rain on my parade
Europadisc Review
Barbara Hannigan’s latest album on the Alpha Classics label is a kind of love letter to an America that, from her perspective as a citizen of the US’s northern neighbour, is under threat and in danger of disappearing. An America where people of all classes and origins, regardless of race or gender, were welcome and able to succeed. For a short while during the course of the last century, that dream seemed tantalisingly close to becoming a reality. The question mark in the album’s title, ‘An American Dream?’, indicates that all this may now be at risk. In Hannigan’s own words, ‘I wanted to express my admiration for the incredible creativity and tenacity of America’s immigrants and their descendants, and also my sadness in observing what seems to have been lost.’
It is also a tribute to Hannigan’s close working relationship with the Gothenburg Symphony Orchestra, of which she has been Principal Guest Conductor since 2019, building on an association that reaches back even further. The closeness of that bond is evident in the obvious love with which they perform works by Gershwin, Copland, Richard Rodgers, and a concluding trio of arrangements by Hannigan and her musical associate Bill Elliott.
The album opens with Robert Russell Bennett’s extended 1942 orchestral suite (or, rather, ‘Symphonic Picture’) based on George Gershwin’s ‘folk opera’ Porgy and Bess to specifications by the conductor Fritz Reiner. You can feel the closeness of the heat in the sultry wind solos of the opening movement, ‘Catfish Row’, while the strings swoop with a stylishly American sheen. This languid feeling is maintained through the next movement, ‘Clara, Clara’, before the music bursts into life with the spiky introduction to Act 1 (the percussion well balanced here), then sinking back into the torpor of ‘Summertime’. After a perky account of ‘I Got Plenty o’ Nuttin’’, the ‘Hurricane Music’ injects a sense of drama. ‘Bess, You is My Woman Now’ might in lesser hands seem almost cloying at such a lingering tempo, but the evident affection and commitment of the playing prevents this, and the tuttis of the suite’s latter stages brim over with panache and rhythmic punch.
The central work on the disc – and in many ways its highlight – is Aaron Copland’s three-movement Dance Symphony of 1929, based on music from his abortive ballet Grohg, itself inspired by F.W. Murnau’s classic 1922 silent Expressionist horror masterpiece Nosferatu. That movie was subtitled ‘A Symphony of Horror’, and the musical potential for such a macabre theme is taken full advantage of by Copland, with a procession of coffins appearing in front of the sorcerer Grohg before their deceased occupants are brought to life. The vivid orchestration includes (like Saint-Saëns’s similarly-themed Danse macabre) a prominent xylophone as well as a solo violin, plus some skeletal coconut shells. The central Andante moderato has a palpable kinship with the spookier passages of Bartók’s recently completed Miraculous Mandarin, while the lively finale – in which the reanimated corpses exact their revenge on Grohg – combines high spirits and a sinewy sense of the macabre. Hannigan and the Gothenburg players clearly relish the challenges of this seldom-heard music, and they bring out all the multilayered richness of the score.
From Expressionist horror to the opening Waltz from Richard Rodgers’s musical Carousel (in Don Walker’s orchestration) seems quite a jump, and maybe it’s this unlikely juxtaposition that gives the woodwind dissonances of the introductory bars an extra bite. In any event, the music builds patiently to another caressingly lovely performance, with a welcome combination of nostalgia, judicious rhythmic control and emotional abandon. And it acts as an effective transition to the final work, a three-movement suite entitled At the Fair which frames an Ivesian mash-up of such tunes Make ’em Laugh, Entry of the Gladiators, Seventy-Six Trombones, Brahms’s Lullaby (!) and the Colonel Bogey March with two songs associated with Hannigan’s near-namesake, Barbra Streisand: Billy Barnes’s affecting Have I Stayed Too Long at the Fair? and Jule Styne’s ballsy Don’t Rain on My Parade. In these outer movements, Hannigan herself is the singer, and she brings a Broadway-like sense of engagement and expression to both numbers. All the arrangements are by Hannigan and Bill Elliott, and by ending with the more youthful and sassy of the two songs, they give the album a final stamp of much-needed, feisty optimism.
Whether the programme as a whole quite coheres is perhaps an open question, but there’s no doubt that Barbara Hannigan’s latest release is consistently engaging, with outstanding playing, recording and singing, as well as her trademark combination of vitality and provocative thoughtfulness. Those looking to mark this year’s semiquincentennial of the USA will find much that is rewarding here: enthusiastically recommended!
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