The Pulitzer Prize in Music, established in 1943, is perhaps the most coveted award in American concert life. This new CD with Chicago’s Grant Park Orchestra and Chorus and principal conductor Carlos Kalmar presents three Pulitzer Prize-winning works from the competition’s earliest years: William Shuman’s Secular Cantata No. 2, “A Free Song”; Aaron Copland’s Suite from Appalachian Spring; and Leo Sowerby’s The Canticle of the Sun for chorus and orchestra. These are the world-premiere recordings of the Shuman and Sowerby cantatas.

William Schuman’s A Free Song, winner in 1943 of the first Pulitzer Prize in Music, uses excerpts from Walt Whitman’s Drum Taps, a poetic record of his humanitarian visits to Washington, D.C.’s Civil War hospitals. Schuman (1910–1992) set Whitman’s vigorous, expansive verse to a fierce and concentrated musical style. In its review of the Grant Park Orchestra’s 2010 concert performance, the Chicago Tribune observed, “Kalmar’s account was, by turns, poignant and electric.”

One of the most recognizable and beloved American orchestral works, Aaron Copland’s Appalachian Spring began life as a ballet score for the Martha Graham Dance Company. A favorite of many listeners is its five variations on the Shaker theme “Simple Gifts.” The original ballet score, for chamber orchestra, won the 1945 Pulitzer Prize. Copland (1900–1990) later arranged an orchestral suite, its most familiar incarnation and the one heard on this CD.