Fatum

[sdtom]

http://sdtom.wordpress.com/

While we can hardly call Tchaikovsky unsung I can make a case for this work which was published posth. in 1896 being reconstructed by R.R. Shoring who I know nothing about. I also know nothing about the Grand Symphony Orchestra that Gauk conducted. Compare it with the Detroit Symphony and you almost have two different works! I've included the first minute of both recordings.
Tom

[fuhred]

Well, I guess you could call Fatum an 'unsung work'...
I have heard the Gauk recording, it has to be the slowest and most ponderous performance around! The Detroit/Jarvi version is very good, he whips up a lot of excitement even though the opening idea is still taken very slowly. Eliahu Inbal's Frankfurt Radio Version is good too. But the best version I have ever heard (and I've heard pretty much all of 'em!) would be the Bochum Symphony Orchestra performance conducted by Othmar Maga on Vox. Even the terrible coda hangs together for a change!

[eschiss1]

at least it's not like his Voyevoda which exists as three (related I assume) works  (Voyevode the Ballad, the Opera and the Symphonic Poem, at least one of them unpublished until the 1960s I think?) There's entries for all 3 at IMSLP. Anyhow. Sorry for not only digression but so immediate a one. I'm going to guess that Grand in Grand Symphony Orchestra is a translation of Bolshogo, or Large, and therefore just maybe means "not Chamber" and is not in itself so useful but that it may have been- a guess and a wide one- one of the 2 or 3???  "usual?" ? - state radio/TV symphony/Academic symphony orchestras that did a lot of Soviet recordings to my limited knowledge those days. (Note: my command of the Russian language isn't. Please consult with actual authorities before believing anything I say besides such things as this. )

[TerraEpon]

Actually none of the Voyevoda pieces are related, though they are based on the same story. http://www.tchaikovsky-research.net/en/Works/Incidental/TH022/index.html

[fuhred]

Oops, I forgot to mention that Gauk's orchestra for his recording of Fatum was the 'All-Union' or Moscow Radio Large (bol'shoy) Symphony Orchestra.

[sdtom]

The orchestra was the Grand Symphony Orchestra. I'll have to look into obtaining the Vox work. I have it on LP but it has suffered a lot over the years.
Tom

[khorovod]

Actually none of the Voyevoda pieces are related, though they are based on the same story. http://www.tchaikovsky-research.net/en/Works/Incidental/TH022/index.html

In fact, the stories on which the opera and the symphonic poem are based are quite different. The opera is based on Ostrovsky's play "A Dream on the Volga" (also the source of Arensky's opera) and the symphonic ballad is based on a Polish poem by Mickiewicz. I have arecording of the opera or what survives of it on LP somehwhere, I don't think from memory that it is complete but a substantial number of scenes though, reconstructed from parts? Not sure about how it came to be but it has some wonderful Tchaikovskian music and the mono performance is good, IIRC. very confusing for us for Tchaikovsky to use the same title so many times!! 

[fuhred]

Actually none of the Voyevoda pieces are related, though they are based on the same story. http://www.tchaikovsky-research.net/en/Works/Incidental/TH022/index.html

In fact, the stories on which the opera and the symphonic poem are based are quite different. The opera is based on Ostrovsky's play "A Dream on the Volga" (also the source of Arensky's opera) and the symphonic ballad is based on a Polish poem by Mickiewicz. I have arecording of the opera or what survives of it on LP somehwhere, I don't think from memory that it is complete but a substantial number of scenes though, reconstructed from parts? Not sure about how it came to be but it has some wonderful Tchaikovskian music and the mono performance is good, IIRC. very confusing for us for Tchaikovsky to use the same title so many times!! 

The opera Op.3 was reconstructed by Pavel Lamm in the 1940s and there is a complete stereo recording available on the Aquarius label (search for 'Voevoda' on Amazon and you'll find it). There are countless recordings of the Op.78 Voyevoda, but there are none available on CD of the 'third' Voyevoda piece of 1886. Fortunately, there is an upload of it on YouTube.
Here is the link:   

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AK10yhqYFR0

[Jonathan]

There is also the early (and published under a pseudonym) "Pot-pourri sur des themes du Voievode" but I don't know how that relates to the other pieces with a similar name...

[britishcomposer]

It's a typical 19th-century opera-potpourri and uses themes from his Voevode-opera.

[TerraEpon]

Incidently some of his Voyevoda music was reused....I believe in Swan Lake. IIRC one of themes in the Potpourii is one of them.

[Jonathan]

Thanks everyone!

[TerraEpon]

. There are countless recordings of the Op.78 Voyevoda, but there are none available on CD of the 'third' Voyevoda piece of 1886. Fortunately, there is an upload of it on YouTube.
Here is the link:   

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AK10yhqYFR0

Wow, I had no idea all those student works were actually recorded....I'm tempted to demux em, I just wish the guy had a better source...
Would be nice if someone would issue this stuff on CD x.x