In this case ''American Music'' is perhaps more than just a convenient, ready-reference collective title: the five pieces do make up a representative cross-section of early twentieth-century classical music of the United States.
Samuel Barber's Adagio, for example: the voice of conservatism, you might say. Of conserving affirmative ideas of the value of beauty in its own right, you might go on to say: for taken in isolation there is probably not a chord in the piece that was not somewhere written by Brahms; yet the value, as in all good music, lies in the construction of the piece from such serviceable materials.
And audiences have awarded their approval of the result generously, elevating this movement (extracted originally from a string quartet) into the status of a great favourite.
Then Copland, older in years than Barber but younger in style, depicting the night-time back streets of New York in an elegy for the momentarily Quiet City; a mournful duet for trumpet and cor anglais, played here most beautifully by the two soloists against a superb string background. And then, also possibly urban, Paul Creston with his A Rumor: a bubbling, gossipy growth from neighbourly innuendo to collective, street-long babble which must be great fun to play.
Earlier times are represented by Henry Cowell, who managed to combine avant-garde invention (one of many composers said to have invented tone-clusters; myself, I think they were invented by the world's first NAAFI pianist) with admiration for the old: the Hymn and Fuguing Tune could well yet be found moving. And finally perhaps the inventor himself of avant-gardism as a conscious cult: Charles Ives, taking a rest for the moment from his cult and writng a gentle, peaceful and wholly winning evocation of traditional New Englad scenes: ''Old Folks Gatherin''', ''Children's Day'' and ''Communion''.
The ''Communion'' ends with church bells: Ives made far from clear in the score just what he wanted, but it should surely have been something more than he is grudgingly allowed here! But if that is an orchestral flaw it is certainly the only one on offer; for the rest of the record there is nothing but the best of sound, conjured up by orchestra and recording engineer alike.
The Barber, as suggested earlier, is particularly popular, and is also available in at least two other very good versions, coupled with different music. The LSO/Schenck/ASV record (listed above) offers more Barber: the Piano Concerto, with Tedd Joselsen as the admirable soloist; and ''Medea's Meditation'' and the exciting ''Dance of Vengeance'' from the composer's Medea opera. I Musici (Philips) offer instead the Respighi third Ancient Airs and Dances suite, Elgar's Serenade for strings, and a distinct rarity, a rewarding one: Nino Rota's captivating Concerto for strings.'