This is the world premiere recording of Steven Stucky’s August 4, 1964, a “concert drama” commissioned by the Dallas Symphony Orchestra to honour the 100th anniversary of Lyndon Baines Johnson’s birth. It received its world premiere on September 18, 2008 with Jaap van Zweden conducting the Dallas Symphony Orchestra and Chorus and soloists in the Morton H Meyerson Symphony Center in Dallas, Texas.

The work centers on a single day in the Johnson Presidency when President Johnson and Secretary of Defense Robert McNamara decided to escalate the Vietnam conflict, and when the bodies of three slain civil rights workers were discovered in Mississippi.

The libretto by Gene Scheer (Jake Heggie’s Moby Dick; Tobias Picker’s An American Tragedy) juxtaposes White House telephone tapes, letters from the slain civil rights workers and their mothers, speeches by President Johnson, and other contemporary sources. Stucky’s music heightens the gripping narrative, which pulses with contemporary relevance.

This CD was recorded during live performances in May, 2011 at the Meyerson Symphony Center.

“The work lived up to its outsize ambitions, and Mr. van Zweden led a beautifully prepared and dynamic performance.” - James R Oestreich, The New York Times

“That Mr van Zweden and the Dallas Symphony are proud of this moving, skillfully written piece was clear at Carnegie Hall.” - Anthony Tommasini, The New York Times