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Messages - saxtromba

#16
Composers & Music / Saxophone in Chamber Music?
Monday 03 December 2012, 16:38
Although the saxophone didn't really make its way into the orchestra until the 20th century, there were several composers in our period who used it orchestrally (Thomas, Bizet, Debussy, Strauss, etc.).  But what about chamber music?  Does anyone know of any chamber pieces whatsoever written during the 19th or pre-Great War 20th century which used the saxophone (not counting arrangements, if any such exist)?
#17
Despite the drubbing the finale has received here, it has its defenders, among them Tchaikovsky, who wrote a review of an early performance by the Russian Musical Society orchestra under Nikolai Rubinstein.  He found the symphony as a whole to be "one of the most interesting that I have had occasion to hear in recent times," but was not wholly convinced by the first two movements.  The fourth movement, on the other hand, he found to be the best, in part because "both primary themes stand out for their unusual charm, inspiration, and fire."  So I'm not in bad company :) .

I would be interested to see more detail regarding the work's "failure".  What exactly is it trying to do at which it fails?  After all, it would be wholly wrong to criticize a Tchaikovsky symphony for not being emotionally detached in the manner of Brahms, say; it seems to me that Rubinstein is not attempting a conventional Romantic-Classical symphony, and that criticisms based on the idea that he is are unfair.

So what is Rubinstein trying to do here?  I take a hint from the title, which does appear to be his own.  His orchestral music is very operatic in general, and it strikes me as plausible that what we have here is essentially a four act abstract opera without words (a 'music drama', if you will, but assuredly neither Wagnerian nor specifically programmatic).  The 'characters' are the various blocks of sound, which are themselves organized around thematic or motivic elements, and the energy they create.  The finale goes the furthest in this direction, even beginning with a short overture.  You then have the principal material (the b-DAH, b-DUH rhythm and motif), followed by a secondary component (marked as Moderato assai for even greater contrast).  These take a considerable amount of time to play out, as each is immediately 'developed' through re-orchestrated repetitions, such that the actual sonata-form development, when it arrives, is perforce based on something altogether different (the charming woodwind only section omitted completely from the Golovchin recording).  Note that the recapitulation is in fact in a different key (A Major), preparing the listener for the transition to D Major at the climax.  But there is something else here, easily missed but key to understanding the overall structure of the drama: in the first movement, the second melodic block is first heard in the horns and recurs in the recapitulation on the strings, whereas here the second main melodic block is first heard on the strings and then, in its new key, on the horns, thus serving as a structural mirror of the first movement.  This symphony is not so carelessly built as one might guess.

Nor is the fact that the outer movements are in something of a sonata form particularly surprising or problematic.  This was the inherited form of a symphony, and Rubinstein, for all that he's doing something unusual here, is not overtly radical in his approach.  He could no more have written "symphony" without using (modified) sonata form than Wagner could have written the 'Beer Barrel Polka'.  But if one listens to the way he uses sonata form, it becomes clear that he's straying from the conventional path by a wide margin.  The question is whether or not the listener is willing to take that path with Rubinstein, and it's here that a truly idiomatic performance, such as is found in neither of the two recordings available) would be a tremendous help.
#18
There are several problems with the Golovchin recording, of which the most important is that the second and fourth movements are incomplete (and the solo string lines which add such a weird sound to the scherzo are performed by the entire sections).  On the other hand, it's worth listening to for the third movement, which is a full two-thirds longer than the recording by Stankowsky, and much richer (it makes very clear why Mahler was a fan of Rubinstein's music).

As to the status of the symphony: it's perhaps worth noting that George P. Upton, among the most widely read commentators on music of the late 19th and early 20th centuries, regarded it very highly indeed; in his Standard Symphonies, first published in 1888 and reprinted many times thereafter, he described it as "the greatest of Rubinstein's works of this kind." He was impressed by Rubinstein's use of the orchestra, asserting that "in technical skill, boldness of treatment, and largeness of conception [the symphony] is a masterpiece of musical art."  In describing each movement, he continued to find things to praise, considering the development in the first movement "masterly," the second movement pleasingly eccentric, and the third movement's main theme, "exquisitely tender and graceful," for example, and concluding his description of the fourth movement quite enthusiastically: "It flows on with resistless force, constantly gathering fresh energy as new ideas are added, and finally closes with a triumphant outburst in which the principal subject is heard again asserting its superiority."  There are no qualifications in his praise.

I suspect that Upton, unlike modern listeners, may have heard Rubinstein himself conduct the work (or at least heard someone who knew Rubinstein's interpretation).  Rubinstein himself took 58 minutes to get through the piece, and almost certainly did not sanction cuts.  Assuming that his account of the slow movement was more akin to Golovchin's than Stankovsky's, that leaves about 45 minutes for the other three movements.  It's clear that the first, second, and fourth movements must be played with extreme vigor (though with room for ebbs and flows in tempo as befit the various motifs). In addition, if we abandon the fixation on Schumann and Mendelssohn which plagues Rubinstein criticism and recognize the relation of this symphony to Schubert's 9th, it also becomes clear that a proper performance has to take the lyric nature of the structure into account.  Rubinstein centered his music on melody, and treated melodies and melodic fragments as blocks of sound which could be superimposed upon each other at will (quite different from a contrapuntal approach). To expect this symphony to sound, or work, like Brahms or even Schumann, is an error of interpretation.  Ironically, Rubinstein's method, here and elsewhere, is rather more akin (in approach, though definitely not in sound) to Wagner's attitude to the symphonic tradition; Wagner described the development sections of even the greatest symphonies as 'the clattering of dishes at a royal feast').

I would very much like to hear a recording of this symphony by a specialist in Prokofiev, say; such an approach would be able to make the most of what Upton rightly singled out as "startling dissonances and complicated chromatic passages," and bring the symphony properly to life, something not done by either recording presently available.
#19
Composers & Music / Re: Mixed Quintets Without Piano?
Monday 20 August 2012, 15:48
Quote from: eschiss1 on Sunday 19 August 2012, 02:45
You mention 3 winds and 2 strings twice (3 winds and 2 strings, or 2 strings and 3 winds.)
Oops-- sorry about that.  Yes, I meant 3 winds/2 strings OR 3 strings/2 winds (or 4 winds/1 string, though I did not expect any examples of this).

Thanks for the suggestions; the relative dearth of them has confirmed my idea that these combinations were quite rare prior to the 20th C, unlike the broader ranges found in larger ensembles or quintets with piano.  Given the large number of chamber players in domestic situations, I wonder why there weren't more unusual combinations at this time.
#20
Composers & Music / Mixed Quintets Without Piano?
Friday 17 August 2012, 17:52
I'm looking for recommendations of quintets with either two strings and three winds (or brass, but, apart from French Horn, I doubt you get much of that before the 20rth c.) or three winds and two strings.  Any instrumentation, but not involving piano or solo plus string quartet.  If there's a four winds plus one string piece from our period I'd be interested as well.

Thanks.
#21
He's actually considerably more conservative musically than his father.  He wrote a pleasant violin concerto, for example, which wouldn't have been out of place decades earlier.  While I enjoy what I've heard of his music (which isn't a whole heck of a lot), I've always felt that he composed because it was expected of him rather than because he was driven to do so.
#22
A recent release from Fc Records, a Finnish company, is the fourth in a series of Russian pianio music disks.  The first three are Tschaikowsky, Arensky, and Tschaikowsky, respectively; apparently someone decided that Russia's most important 19th Century piano composer shouldn't be ignored altogether, though little thought seems to have gone into the selection of pieces.

The major work is the Sonata #1 in e minor, Op. 12 (now the most frequently recorded of Rubinstein's four solo piano sonatas).  Somero's performance is earnest, though generally lacking in passion.  As do the others who have recorded the piece, he omits the first movement exposition repeat.  As is the case throughout this disk, he favors slower tempi; his timings are consistently slower than anyone else's.  In movements 1 and 3, the difference is but a few seconds, but movement 2, at 8'36", is more than two minutes slower than anyone else, and movement 4, at 9'03", is almost two minutes slower than anyone else.  While tempo is, to a degree, a matter of taste, there comes a point, especially in Romantic music, where the melodic line starts to sag and loses focus, and I believe that to be the case here.  There are also some noticeable finger slips in some of the harder passages which would be less significant at a faster pace.  The fugal section of the last movement is hard to follow, and the climax loses some of its spectacular aspects.  This isn't really a bad performance (there is some nice work in each of the movements, and especially in the scherzo), but it is uncompelling, and does not overshadow either of its predecessors.

The remainder of the disk is taken up with a hodge-podge of shorter pieces drawn from several different sets.  The big three (Melody in F, Reve Angelique, and the Romance in Eb, Op. 44, #1) appear, as do the only slightly less familiar Barcarolle #3, Op. 50,#1, and Etude in C, Op. 23, #2.  These performances are all s-l-o-w; in every case save one, they are the slowest known to me, often by far (take the Reve Angelique: Somero's 10'52" is longer by more than two minutes than any other solo piano recording I've heard, and almost exactly twice as long as Michael Ponti's 5'30" (okay, Ponti favors speed, but the point is still valid.)).  Again, it's not the tempos per se which are problematic, but their impact on the musical line.  The Barcarolle (5'38") is becalmed, losing all forward motion, and even the indestructible Melody in F (5'30", but this includes some slightly extended internal cadences) drags unduly.  Rubinstein himself played it quite quickly, and he would probably have preferred to shave a minute or more off the timing.  Only the Romance in Eb (3'27", about a minute longer than the standard timings) seems to gain from the slower tempo; its climax was perhaps the most passionate moment in the whole recording.  The Etude (4'57") is the only piece for which I know a slower recording (Morton Estrin, at 5'11'); Somero's version played some games with tempo shifts and dynamics which made it more interesting than most of the other well known pieces.

Rubinstein completists will want this disk, though, for the other two short pieces: the Preghiera in Bb, Op. 44, #3 and the Melancolie in g minor, Op. 51, #1, both apparently receiving their first recordings here.  Just following the scores suggests that the tempos are slow, with the Preghiera suffering as well from a rather dry recording ambience, which minimizes the operatic melodic aspects (so often important in Rubinstein's music).  Nonetheless, the performances are focussed enough to give at least some idea of the better qualities of each piece, and the latter part of the Melancolie, with its fluttering sixteenth note triplets, rises to a certain power.

I wanted to like this disk more than I really can, and I wish more thought had gone into the selection of music (did we really need new recordings of the big three?).  Nonetheless, it is not without interest, and those looking for variant interpretations of some of Rubinstein's better known music (or who are less averse to slow tempi in shorter pieces than I am) will find something to think about here.
#23
In some ways any piece, no matter how grim or dissonant, is uplifting, in that it represents an act of hope in a world which seems to value greed, destruction, and death so much more than the arts or any other civilized values.  So it is that I find Messiaen's Quartet for the End of Time, written in a P.O.W. camp, uplifting despite not sharing his own religious faith.

At the same time, though, there are definitely pieces which, while not necessarily 'happy', are more conducive to post-listening optimism than  others.  Someone already mentioned Martinu; I agree heartily, and would add his second symphony and sixth string quartet in particular.  Also the Nonet, written while he was dying of cancer, but which shows no sign of exhaustion, musically, emotionally, or physically; there are momemts of absolutely poignant beauty, as well as Martinu's trademark energy.
#24
The tune known in England as "God Save the [gender of reigning monarch]' is also a major patriotic tune in something like twenty different countries, including Brazil and Germany (and some people have already mentioned examples from the United States), so I'll bet there are plenty of pieces which quote the tune without the composer having thought of England at all.
#25
I thought I remembered there already being a post devoted to this recent release, but I couldn't find it.  Hence this new thread.

Rubinstein: Persian Love Songs (Helene Lindqvist, soprano; Philipp Vogler, piano)

6 Songs, Op.32; 12 Songs, Op. 34; 6 Songs, Op. 57; 6 Songs, Op. 72

This release from the Art Song Project (main site: http://theartsongproject.com/ ; this release: http://theartsongproject.com/persian-love-songs-rubinstein-english ) is a major addition to the Rubinstein discography, and the most important recording of his lieder yet released in any format.  Rubinstein composed somewhat over 150 solo lieder, so the thirty on this CD represent just under 20% of the total; the quality of the music, the performances, and the recording make an excellent case for further recordings of the remainder.

Several of Rubinstein's most famous songs appear here.  "Der Asra" (Op. 32, #6) is a hauntingly gorgeous piece which used to be a common encore number; listen to it two or three times and you will remember it for a long time to come.  "Du bist wie eine Blume" (Op. 32, #5) has been recorded before; it, too, was once well known.  And of course the whole of Op. 34 was justly famous; Rubinstein manages to capture the hints of exoticism implied by the title without ever doing violence to his own style, mainly through careful use of occasional unexpected flats, sharps, or naturals, and a great deal of melismatic writing, all of which is beautifully done by Lindqvist.

Speaking of which-- the singing is superb.  Lindqvist's voice is light but warm, pure, unforced, and very smooth; she uses comparatively little vibrato, and her grace notes and mordents are crystal-clear (not the vague blur all too common).  Her interpretations are very intelligent, and the quiet intensity evidenced in, for example, "Es war ein alter Konig" (Op. 32, #4) or "Nun die Schatten dunkeln" (Op. 57, #2) is radiant.  In some of the more dramatic pieces she slightly favors a thoughtful approach over a passionate one, but never to the detriment of the music (only "Die Waldhexe" (Op. 72, #3) is, I think, a little too calm, though since the poem itself (by the rather obscure Gustav von Boddien (1814-1870) is something of a knock-off of Goethe's "Erlkonig", too much forcefulness in the performance would simply call attention to the similarities rather than the musical differences).

Vogler's pianism is likewise very clear and rhythmically crisp, with comparatively little use of pedal (one of my few quibbles comes in "Der Asra" (Op. 32, #6), where the descending bass line as the slave reveals his name and fate strikes me as too dry and distinct).  A couple of oddities do appear; in Op. 32, #5 the last two measures are omitted, making the ending rather abrupt, and in Op. 57, #4 the penultimate measure is omitted (as this is also the case in the only other recording of this set (Johanna Rutishauser and Ana Dimova on the Real Sound label), this may stem from the use of an alternate edition not known to me).

Lindqvist likewise opts to drop a few verses from strophic songs.  In the case of the hilarious drinking song "Die Weise guter Zecher" (Op. 34, #5), where she sings verses 1, 2, and 5, this is of little importance; Rubinstein simply put repeat marks at the final measure, so if you want the full effect you can just program your player to repeat.  In "Schlag' die Tschadra zuruck" (Op. 34, #7), though, Rubinstein actually wrote out the strophic verses in full, which to my mind suggests that he very much wanted to avoid having the last (of three) omitted.  It might also be worth noting that Lindqvist occasionally substitutes vocalises for words (as in Op. 34, #5) or extends them, though in no case does she do so to the detriment of the music.  In the case of the drinking song, the words would probably come across as something of a gabble, which I suspect was Rubinstein's intention (it is a drinking song, after all), but this is a minor point.

I cannot imagine anyone who has even a remote openness to solo vocal music not enjoying this disk, and it goes without saying that anyone interested in Rubinstein's music should buy it.  There are simply no comparable recordings.  An old Melodiya recording of Op. 34 has no modern incarnation (it may have been released in the West on cassette(!) decades ago, but not since then).  Only one other complete set of solo Rubinstein songs (Op. 57) has been recorded, so far as I know; this is the aforementioned Rutishauser version.  Her voice is heavier and darker (rather more operatic than I think is best for the songs, but that's a matter of taste), and she uses way more vibrato.  Other than that, every other recording is either duets or selections from single opus numbers.  I recommend this very highly, and, as I said, hope to hear more such Rubinstein recordings.
#26
Quote from: JimL on Wednesday 25 April 2012, 17:05In the world premiere LP of Rubinstein's 3rd PC (Robert Preston, coupled with Kabalevsky 3 on Orion) the finale was heavily cut.  Nearly all of the references to the previous two movements were eliminated.  It actually showed how extraneous all of those cyclical quotations were to the structure of the movement and tightened things up considerably.
I'll just politely disagree, a disagreement I first felt (though of course with Preston rather than you) when I first bought the recording 35 years ago.... ;)  .  In any case, though, I'll listen to the Mendelssohn 1 with a fresh take, so thanks for that.
#27
Quote from: JimL on Sunday 22 April 2012, 15:16First cyclical piano concerto?  Mendelssohn's 1st PC (1835) recalls material from the first movement at the end of the finale.  Schumann's concerto (1841-1846) uses the first movement motto theme as transitional material between the Intermezzo and finale, and actually quotes some material from the second movement in the coda of the finale, a reference that is little noted by analysts.   I'm not sure what material from the first movement in Rubinstein's 1st PC gets recycled in the finale - none that I can recall.  There are probably some other examples of the cyclic approach used prior to 1850 in PCs that escape me besides the Moscheles 6th and the examples I have already cited.
Hmm, yes; I should perhaps have been more explicit in my claim.  These examples (and others, such as the Kalkbrenner 1st PC) are pieces in which there are what might be called thematic reminiscences, so they are, in a sense, cyclical.  But in most of them the previous material appears so briefly, and often so subtly, that it's hard to say what the composer was thinking structurally (were these simply half conscious usages of earlier material, or were audience members expected to take away specific emotional connotations?).  The Rubinstein 3rd's third movement, on the other hand, makes a very dramatic point of recalling material from the first two movements and even reworking it slightly.

But the debate here is largely semantic, and simply points to the problem of even defining 'innovation.'  I suspect that many composers who are seen as derivative were actually reaching their ideas on their own (which, at a personal level, means that they were being quite innovative), but had the misfortune to do so under the shadow of others whose innovations were both larger in scale and earlier in appearance.

A general question stemming from thoughts about Rubinstein: in his third violin sonata (about 1878) he starts the first movement with brief quotations from the first two sonatas.  Pieces quoting from their own earlier movements wqere common by this time, but had anyone done this particular form of self quotation before?
#28
Two thoughts on Rubinstein relevant here:
Quote from: sdtom on Tuesday 17 April 2012, 18:11
Was there ever a recording of the second Rubinstein 'Ocean' revision that had 6 movements?
There was not, but the old Candide recording of the second had five movements!
QuoteWe can also look forward to a Gliere Symphony No. 3, Rubinstein Symphony No. 4, both with Golovchin and the State Symphony of Russia.
The Golovchin Rubinstein 4th is a very mixed bag.  The slow movement is stunningly performed; if every performance of Rubinstein's work was at this level, he would be ineligible for discussion here because he would be recognized among the greats.  But the first movement is rather scrappy, the scherzo ignores repeats (and replaces the wonderfully odd solo string section with the full strings), and the last movement is cut significantly.
#29
I agree with the posters above who suggest that a single 'most innovative' composer, unsung or otherwise, cannot really be decided upon.  But as long as we're considering people whose innovations have gone unrecognized, I'd like to nominate Anton Rubinstein for consideration.

1) He was the first composer to have a cyclical piano concerto performed (#3, in 1854; though a case can be made that his concerto #1 (1850) uses material in mvt. 3 which is developed from material in mvt. 1).

2) He appears to have invented, or at least first notated, the full chord tremolo (in the concerto #1).

3) He wrote the first seven movement symphony.

4) He appears to have been the first composer to use a solo double bass in a symphony (in the section for solo string quintet at the end of the scherzo of his 4th symphony).

5) He wrote the first symphonies,concertos, and string quartets of any significance in Russian music history (locally innovative, so to speak).

6) He was the only composer (unless you count his brother Nicholas, who did write a small number of piano pieces) in the 19th century to found a full-scale conservatory which remains functional to this day (that is, not a piano school, but s music school with a full range of instrumental classes, composition and theory classes, and music history classes).
#30
Cheating a little by counting opera albums as one CD.... :)

CD 1: Anton Rubinstein: The Merchant Kalashnikoff (I could do a whole long list of Rubinstein works, but I'll stick to just one for now).
CD2: Gabriel Von Wayditch: Buddha (or any other opera by this all-too-neglected figure).
CD 3 (okay, I'll be marginally realistic just this once): Paul Creston, Symphony #6.