Hyperion RPC no.55 - Widor

[Mark Thomas]

The booklet notes and audio excerpts are now available at the Hyperion web site.

[reineckeforever]

thankyou,
nothing about the next issues of this series?
bye, Andrea

[jerfilm]

Another exciting release in this series.  Many thanks to Hyperion.  Again and again.

Mores the pity that we can't convince someone - somewhere - to do some American romantic concertos.  For examples:

George Boyle (1886-1948) - Piano Concerto
Howard Brockway (1870-1951)  -Piano Concerto
George Chadwick (1854-1931) - Concerto for two pianos
Victor Herbert (1859-1924) - Concertino for piano and orchestra
Edward B Hill (1875-19??) - Concertstucke for piano and orchestra; also Piano Concerto
Helen Hopekirk (1856-1945) - Piano Concerto; also Rhapsody for piano and orchestra
Henry H Huss (1862-1953) - Piano Concerto
Arthur Whiting (1861-1936) - Piano Concerto; also Fantasy in Bb

To name the ones I know were written.  Not to even mention violin concertos, symphonys, chamber works, etc. etc.

Come to think of it, there is no "American Music" folder in this forum either.  Which I think gives you clue about how excited American orchestra's and their maestros are about promoting anything but American contemporary music.  Perhaps we should chip in and purchase some old Grove's for some of them......

Jerry

[Gareth Vaughan]

The Huss PC is Vol. 16 in Hyperion's RPC series, coupled with the Suite Fantastique by Ernest Schelling. I'd love to hear some of the works you mention - and one you don't: the PC by Otis Boise, of which I have the full score.

[hammyplay]

If we're talking American romantic concertos I would love to hear the 2 by Abram Chasins. I believe there are two by Beryl Rubinstein as well.

[Gareth Vaughan]

Well ,the scores and parts of both Chasins' PCs are in Fleisher, as are the PC of George Boyle (+ a piano concertino and a Cello Concerto), and a piano concertino by Edward Burlinghame Hill. The score of Whiting's Fantasy appears to be in the Library of Congress.  That's all I've found so far - any leads from anyone else?

Just found out that the pianist Dana Muller published a critical edition of Hopekirk's Concertstucke in 1995. Is that the same as the Rhapsody, I wonder?

[jerfilm]

Apologies, I had forgotten about the Huss being in the Hyperion series.  I shouldn't have, it was one of my favorites.  The Schelling, that is. 

Lots of potential and even some scores so the darned things aren't lost......

Jerry

[X. Trapnel]

Jerfilm--you've provided the opening I've been waitng for. When are we ever going to get a new rcording of A Pagan Poem (piano and orch., if not quite a concerto) by Charles Martin Loeffler as well as his symphony Hora Mystica, and other major works such as Evocation and The Devil's Villanelle? The French side of American late romanticism (glad you listed Edward Burlingame Hill, the major exponent after CML) has been unfairly scanted in favor of the German model. 

[chill319]

I agree with X Trapnel that the unaccountable neglect of Loeffler is due in part to the culture wars of the late 19th century. His neglect reminds me of Bridge's neglect before the 1980s. Loeffler was a master craftsman with something serious to say and the ambition to keep growing musically throughout his career,

That said, I wouldn't want to generalize too much about the French side of the old culture divide. We shouldn't forget Chadwick's openness to French influences  (particularly Debussy) during the first decade of the 20th century, or the success of the eminently French-tinged Griffes and Carpenter in the late teens and '20s --  not to mention Bloch and the early pupils of Boulanger. In poetry and literature at that time, French influences were also paramount (Sara Teasdale, Gertrude Stein, the imagists, etc). Converse, Shepherd (Loeffler's pupil IIRC), and Josten were also wide open to a range of French musical styles. I recall seeing a Chadwick score from the 1920s that includes a saxophone -- clearly a French influence if not indeed a Loeffler influence.

To bring this post on track, I will mention that one of my first entrees to a (relatively) unsung composer occurred when I became closely involved in a Widor edition.  That gentleman was capable of masterpieces in many mediums.

[semloh]

Jerry, I agree entirely with your comments about the neglect of American music. I mentioned several examples in the unsung 20thC symphonists thread, but it is across the board, and certainly here in Aus., where the European mainstream dominates - with the exception of Copland and Bernstein. Our annual international chamber music festival here in Townsville attracts some big names from overseas, and that sometimes brings a chance to hear less familiar works by American composers, and in recent years they have been broadcast nationally by the ABC. Overall, the choice of recordings of any but the mainstream is poor or non-existent. How about we start an American Music thread?

[X. Trapnel]

Chill319--No denigration of Chadwick et Cie intended, but the French influence is external to their aesthetic, exotic trimmings here and there (and I like your very apt comparison of Loeffler with Bridge). As for the students of Boulanger and despite her on again off again allegience to Faure (I seem to recall there was a falling out) I feel they were mainly steered toward a Stravinskian neo-classicism which dovetailed nicely with our native musical puritanism, itself very far from the symbolist/impressionist aesthetic. One American composer though who thoroughly assimilated Debussy without losing his American voice was Paul Creston.

[mbhaub]

As an American, I have to tell you that it is simply embarrassing that American orchestra don't play American music, and record even less. Oh, they play some token things like Grand Canyon Suite, Hanson's 2nd, and a few pops things by Morton Gould, Copland and all. But it really is sinful that most of the recordings of American music come from Europe. There's a sense of duty or pride in Europe towards their heritage and composers that we completely lack over here. There have been feeble attempts to correct the situation, but when the best recording of Chadwick's Symphonic Sketches comes from Prague, there's something wrong. And hardly anyone records anymore; I guess it's too expensive with the union rules and all. But it is annoying nonetheless. Even the Naxos Leroy Anderson set was done in England! Is there no shame?

[eschiss1]

Going through more and more of the "American Memory" pages at the LoC (yes, offtopic for Widor- sorry- though the BNF is doing something very similar, I do think) - the scanning of music published in the early-to-middle-late 19th century by American publishers (not all by American composers)- gives an interesting idea of what the music scene was like here in that time, and while turning up few new masterpieces (there are only a few large works scanned by them, some vocal scores to operas and masses for instance, and most of it is, representatively, brief dance pieces and songs; little chance of finding a piano concerto there, though there are some solo/duo piano, organ, violin and cello sonatas and other works )-- erm, trying as usual with difficulty to get to my point, all the trolling (?) I do through their site, I end up with a more informed view (...maybe) of the development of American music and (not "by comparison" or etc.- just in simple fact) a good high opinion of it (and I'd already had one anyway); there're some really good pieces there, both the brief dance pieces, the bigger works (just for example I like the look of a ballade in G minor by an American Reinecke pupil named Oscar Weil, indeed I think Reinecke was its dedicatee, reasonably enough; Reinecke dedicated a work to his former pupil as well)...  I also wonder if I should see if any of these whose names I am encountering ... well, e.g. - yes. What did happen to the piano concerto de-Wikipedia claims Charles Wels (a Moravian immigrant to the US) wrote? Wonder where it went to (he composed apparently some 138-odd works many of which survive even if some may only survive in the Library of Congress (and British Library, which along with some other libraries has some of his late woO motets and other works) and its scans now- though IMSLP tries to help out there... - but the concerto is not among them, if it existed. Well, things do disappear. I like what survived by him, both the more frivolous things and the one of his 5 masses that I've seen too, though from an aesthetic perspective ) Boyle's concerto which was mentioned I noticed was uploaded (in reduction or score? have to check...) to IMSLP just recently, inspiring curiosity...

Apologies for babble.
Ob topic, I have heard Widor's 2nd concerto on tape (not recently and may have lost the tape besides, maybe at the same time I accidentally destroyed several others I had with some soda... erm, I didn't say that and you didn't hear it ) - anycase, I recall liking it, and am glad to see the 2 concertos recorded commercially.  All cheer to Hyperion from me!

 

[X. Trapnel]

I'd like to second my fellow American mbhaub on the disgraceful noncultivation of our musical heritage. I can only marvel over the fact that the Symphonic Sketches is not a beloved, regularly heard work in this country. Part of the problem may stem from the modernist polemics of the early twentieth century and dubious questions of American "authenticity." In his influential writings Copland tended to denigrate his immediate and not so immediate predecessors as academic and derivative and his point of view was amplified by Wilfred Mellers who overdid the maverick/pioneer bit. Add to this the declining interest in "classical" music since the 1960s and all that's left is (1) a lazy, incurious audience content to hear Billy the Kid and the Candide Overture unto infinity and (2) a smaller semi-intelligentsia for whom music is merely an accessory to various forms of "transgressive" posturing.

[X. Trapnel]

In confirmation of the forgoing I note that Werner Josten's Endymion (Naxos Archive) can't be downloaded in the U.S. Very annoying.