This is the second disc devoted to American music in “Documents of the Munich Years,” live-performance recordings chosen by Maestro Levine from his 1999–2004 tenure as chief conductor of the Munich Philharmonic (12 CDs in eight volumes). George Gershwin’s Cuban Overture is a neat blend of Cuban rhythms and percussion instruments with jazzy New York street smarts. The Munich players do a good job of capturing both elements and are suitably brazen, but many American orchestras have done even better, from Arthur Fiedler’s Boston Pops to Levine’s own DG recording with the Chicago Symphony.

John Harbison’s Third Symphony was written in 1990. Its 25 minutes embrace moods rather than movements, but it sounds conventionally symphonic nevertheless. Like his former teacher Roger Sessions, Harbison is not afraid to revel in complexity and uses many musical means to fascinating ends, but a sense of tonality is always present. Again, the German players do a fine job. The Albany Symphony under David Alan Miller has more punch, aided by a brilliant Albany recording from the Troy Savings Bank Music Hall. That unmatched acoustic setting has lost some of its warmth since the shallow stage was “temporarily” extended a few rows into the orchestra some years ago, but the immediacy of sound is still present. For those who find Miller too hyperactive in this often-energetic music, Levine’s more thoughtful reading should be the answer.

This performance of Charles Ives’s Second Symphony is sweet and fresh, exuding charm throughout. The work responds well to this sunny approach, but it is not the only way to play it. Leonard Bernstein’s 1958 Columbia recording (his second of three, all with the New York Philharmonic) has been my preferred version, despite a cut in the finale and tempos Ives thought too slow (in 1951). Levine, at close to Bernstein’s tempos, is worthy of comparison; the Munich strings are more elegant, but the New York woodwinds are more incisive and colorful. This 2002 live recording does allow us to hear more of the score, but Columbia’s early stereo recording was made in the grand ballroom of the St. George Hotel in Brooklyn, which had glorious acoustics, and it sounds fine almost a half century later. Bernstein produces more tension; his string tremolos beginning at 166 of the second movement are more agitated than Levine’s. Yet in that movement’s closing pages, it is the Munich trombones that stand up and take charge, in a rousing finish. I’m still using the 1951 score edited by Henry Cowell, but so does Levine, so neither he nor Bernstein repeats the exposition in the second movement. Kenneth Schermerhorn on Naxos does, in a fine performance by the Nashville Symphony. At least Levine restores Bernstein’s 16-bar cut in the finale. Interested readers are referred to Fanfare 24:3 for a fuller discussion of the various editions and the two stories of Ives’s reaction to the radio premiere. I have just this moment realized that the two stories do not contradict each other after all: the Vivian Perlis report ends with Ives going silently into the kitchen, while the Cowell version begins as the composer emerges from the kitchen, “doing an awkward little jig of pleasure and vindication.”

Despite my nitpicking, these are lovely performances of wonderful music. One can never forget that Lenny, in perhaps his greatest moment, brought the Ives Second to us and to the composer in 1951, but this fine-sounding Oehms recording may yet end up being my favorite. A strong recommendation!

James H. North, FANFARE