British Music

[Pengelli]

Just listening to the introduction to 'The Alchemist. A bit suprised by the vigour of the opening. I was expecting something dreamily impressionistic like Debussy. He was known as the 'English Debussy,of course,but then again,his third symphony is pretty stirring stuff & would be great at the Proms,(along with 'Neptune'). I rather like his Fourth which got some flak from the critics. Who cares if it just drifts around,just listen to that gorgeous orchestration.

[Pengelli]

They should have done the whole opera,this is great. Come on Chandos!

[eschiss1]

By the way according to iLink, the Stanford serenade, though broadcast later , was either first broadcast, or recorded (I don't understand what is meant by what's written there ), on May 15 1985.  Sea Wanderers may be 1991 re-broadcast of a 18 June 1976 broadcast, I believe (I'm not sure)- it could be a new concert but the performers seem to be the same (the 1976 broadcast has duration 24'48" according to iLink, if that helps).
Eric

[Pengelli]

Sorry,my lazy,(bad),writing. Regarding Parry. I think Albion mentioned the Chandos 2 cd set of Parry choral works,somewhere else on this site. Wonderful music,but I have to say that the some of the music was ruined for me by one of the male soloists,who has a very abrasive vibrato. I ended up selling the recording because of this. I can't remember who the singer was,but he really,seriously, put me off! The others were fine,however,as were the performances.

[Mark Thomas]

Albion, you are performing us a great service and I am very grateful, particularly for the Stanford, Parry and Mackenzie works. Thanks very much indeed.

[Albion]

Alas, long gone are the days when I used to scan the Radio 3 listings avidly in anticipation of recording some unsung British rarity! Now you're more likely to find Andre Rieu's Forever Vienna  or a couple of thousand hours of Mozart 

[Pengelli]

I used to be the same,in my case,poring over the Radio Times with the old biro at the ready. Needless to say,I cancelled it ages ago after it turned into a glossy celeb orientated rag!
  Also,those packages,sent via the Royal Mail,(which probably won't be around for much longer,either), with off air cassettes inside them, sent by some kindly soul contacted via the BMS or HB Society. The only one's I didn't enjoy at all were some Benjamin Frankel symphonies,which were eventually recorded,commercially, by cpo. I still don't like them,but it was still nice of him to send them!

[Dylan]

It'll be very good to hear again La Belle Dame, since my own off-air tape succumbed to stretching many years ago; and I don't recall many of those Stanford performances at all! I do remember listening to Prometheous Unbound (was it really 31 years ago???) with a heavy heart as it seemed to plod along - but in those days I was much less attuned to Parry's wavelength. The fact is, 20 or 30 years ago even such rarities were so common (by comparison with today) that one became blase....For example, I keep hoping that someone out there has a recording of Holbrooke's "The Bells" which I recall hearing in about 1979 (?) and thinking thrilling, but which, bafflingly, I made no attempt to record...

[Albion]

I've just uploaded the following to the second folder of broadcasts (see first posting in this thread):

William Sterndale Bennett: Fantasy-Overture Paradise and the Peri, Op.42 (1862)

Alexander Mackenzie: Overture Youth, Sport, Loyalty, Op.90 (1922) - written for the centenary of the RAM.

I keep hoping that someone out there has a recording of Holbrooke's "The Bells" which I recall hearing in about 1979 (?) and thinking thrilling, but which, bafflingly, I made no attempt to record...

Both The Bells and Byron were performed by the BBC Singers and the BBC Concert Orchestra under John Poole (broadcast 6/12/1978). It would be great to hear those performances - does anybody have access to off-air recordings?

[Mark Thomas]

Once again, John, we are in your debt. Particularly so in my case for Bennett's Overture, which turns out to be a big 16 minute long piece which sustains it's length really well. I never thought I'd hear a symphonic poem by Mendelssohn, but that's almost what we get. Very nice.

[Albion]

Once again, John, we are in your debt. Particularly so in my case for Bennett's Overture, which turns out to be a big 16 minute long piece which sustains it's length really well. I never thought I'd hear a symphonic poem by Mendelssohn, but that's almost what we get. Very nice.

I think it's a highly attractive work, which should really have been included in Lyrita's disc of Sterndale Bennett overtures.

I used to be the same,in my case,poring over the Radio Times with the old biro at the ready. Needless to say,I cancelled it ages ago after it turned into a glossy celeb orientated rag!

I keep badgering the BBC to schedule Cowen's Symphony No.5 (1887) which was recorded as part of the 'British Symphonies' series (2007/08) but has never been broadcast!

Besides the John Poole 1978 Holbrooke concert, could anybody possibly help with the following broadcasts:

Cyril Rootham: Ode on the Morning of Christ's Nativity (Teresa Cahill, Philip Langridge, Michael Rippon/ BBC Singers/ BBC Concert Orchestra/ Vernon Handley - broadcast 18/12/1975)

Cyril Rootham: Symphony No.2 (Scottish Philharmonic Singers/ BBC Scottish SO/ Handley - broadcast 28/1/1984)

[Mark Thomas]

I can't help with Albion's requests unfortunately, but to round out his British music fest I've uploaded recordings of Radio Three broadcasts of Ebenezer Prout's Fourth Symphony (in D of 1886), performed by the Bournemouth Sinfonietta conducted by Simon Jolly, and the Intermezzo, Al' Espagnol movement from his Third (in F op.22 of 1885). The files are here: www.mediafire.com/?dc4q4w2erdrwm. I'm afraid that I have no record of the performers of No.3 or the movement titles of No.4.

It's far to say that both works are attractive but archaic for the mid-1880s....

[Albion]

Thanks Mark!

I've uploaded my off-air recording of Stanford's large-scale 1898 Te Deum, Op.66 (see folder 3 in the first post in this thread). I attended the concert at Leeds Town Hall (unfortunately I can't remember the date and the British Library Sound Archive don't seem to have it catalogued for some reason). It was a bad night in Nottingham for FM reception when the BBC finally broadcast the concert, but the actual quality is not too bad!

Originally Chandos intended to record this Te Deum alongside the Stabat Mater but then discovered ( ) that the two works would not fit onto a single disc, so they trotted out the little B flat Te Deum and the rather dreary Biblical Songs: http://www.chandos.net/details06.asp?CNumber=CHAN%209548

[Pengelli]

Regarding the query about the Frankel cassettes. Unfortunately,it's just a cassette of off air performances of symphonies. The sound quality is poor,but would have been of some comfort to a Benjamin Frankel admirer,back in the 80's,when composers like Bantock and Holbrooke were just foot note in history boks or targets for snide put downs in dusty old pbks and tomes.
  Also,I did have a clear out a while back,so I don't even know if I've still got it. Although,if it was a rare archive copy, I probably would have kept it. Incidentally,the cpo Frankel symphony cycle was praised at the time. I shall try some audio samples later. Maybe I will warm to Frankel,this time around, with some decent sound quality! Maybe!
I also had Alan Bush's mammoth Piano Concerto,somewhere,I think,complete with a rather poignant interview with John Amis,who remembered that when he went to visit the ardent Communist, Bush,in an old peoples home,Bush,who had Alzheimers disease,didn't even know the USSR had fallen.
The music is gritty and steely,although not atonal. I have only played it through about once! Apparently,his opera's were very popular in East Germany,for some reason!!!
 Still,he's definately more tuneful than Roger Sessions. Although,to be fair to Sessions,I think he was genuinely motivated by his particular muse,unlike some pretentious,(being polite),so and so's I can think of.
 

[Pengelli]

Ebenezer Prout sounds like a character from a Dickens novel.