Symphony No. 4 (1941)

The opening of Schuman's [FOURTH SYMPHONY] is quite arresting: an English horn tune over a plodding bass line that gradually encompasses the full orchestra and ignites the ensuing allegro. Schuman marks the slow movement "Tenderly, simply," and that describes it perfectly, while the bustling finale takes on some very effective fugal writing along the way to a bold C major close...

...Schuman’s Symphony No. 4 ...has remained something of a “sleeper” over the years, under the shadow of its predecessor…it is a superb work, a natural “next step” after No. 3, with an especially beautiful slow movement…musical ideas are developed not so much through the analogue of a drama, as in more traditional symphonic music of the prior generation, but rather through variations in rhythmic energy and bodies of sonority. This is pure, abstract music, without any extrinsic reference... The Circus Overture is an exuberant piece originally composed in 1944 for an aborted Broadway revue. However, it is far more musically sophisticated than its provenance would suggest.