Thomas Wingham (1846-1893)

[albion]

Post moved to Composer Reference board.

[eschiss1]

tough one, this.
I see that the (premiere of the) serenade was given pride of place over the British premiere of Brahms' violin concerto in the review of the concert containing both (Monthly Musical Record, May 1, 1885, p.114) and allowing for various factors this interest me (at least would like to see the reduction. Alas the -online- version of one of his vocal scores can't be downloaded here for claimed copyright reasons.) Conductor of premiere of sym. 4 was August Friedrich Manns (1825-1907) (if one likes to fill in such details though I know that wasn't the point.)

Concert Overture No.1 premiered 2 November 1872 according to http://www.concertprogrammes.org.uk/html/search/verb/GetRecord/4466.

[Mark Thomas]

Does the review of the Serenade premiere give us any inkling of its quality? It's fascinating to learn of someone who one's never heard of before and who had such a, on the face of it, tempting catalogue but the key issue is always: how good is the music? Look at his contemporary Ebenezer Prout. A potentially worthwhile composer who's music, when we finally get to hear some of it, is desperately derivative and lacking in inspiration.

[albion]

Concert Overture No.1 premiered 2 November 1872 according to http://www.concertprogrammes.org.uk/html/search/verb/GetRecord/4466.

Thanks, Eric - date duly entered in the first post!

[Alan Howe]

Mark hits the nail on the head. Before spending a lot of time on these composers, the crucial question is whether it's worth the candle. Some forgotten music - possibly most? - is forgotten for all the right reasons. Still, a moderate amount of digging may produce an answer...

[eschiss1]

The review that I was able to find of the symphony 4 premiere was mostly very positive (if interestingly biased against German models and (paraphrasing- need to find it again) heaviness, but also biased in favor of developmental techniques - which could be an apology for a lack of memorable melody or could, and I hope was, a reminder that works of this time tend to last longer when their "dramatic movements" actually depend on or at least use effective drama...

[albion]

It's fascinating to learn of someone who one's never heard of before

That seems like a good enough reason to me for poking around in catalogues and archives - whatever the outcome!

[Mark Thomas]

John, do please poke away. I didn't mean to denigrate the effort or to be negative about the outcome, just to remind ourselves that the music which the British establishment favoured until quite late in the 19th century wasn't modern but the style memorably characterised as "Mendelssohn with water". Jeremy Dibble's fine biographies of both Stanford and Parry make clear that they were both initially regarded as radical composers, unlikely as that may seem now. Eric's reporting of the review of Wingham's Fourth Symphony to my eyes hints at just this Mendelssohnian limpness: a bias against German "heaviness" and praise of "developmental techniques" - lots of academic working out, maybe. But I could be wrong, and I rather hope that I am.

[albion]

John, do please poke away.

Poking duly resumed!





Oops!

[Amphissa]

Yikes! A librarian's nightmare!   

[eschiss1]

I'm not sure whether a librarian's nightmare is an unused library or an over-/mis-used library (but then I'm a library volunteer, not a librarian! Nor do I play one on TV, apologies for the even higher-than-usual frivolity.)