Martin Wegelius

[Gareth Vaughan]

Last night was sleepless for me so I had Radio 3 on and, at about 2.45am, they played a Rondo quasi fantasia for piano & orchestra by Martin Wegelius which I thought was truly delightful.  Did anyone happen to record it by any chance?

[britishcomposer]

It's already in the Downloads Archive, Gareth.
Finnish Music Folder, reply #13, uploaded by Atsushi.

[Alan Howe]

Here's the link (scroll down to reply 13):
http://www.unsungcomposers.com/forum/index.php/topic,1329.0.html

[britishcomposer]

I did not give the link because I thought it was against the policy of the site to give unregistered visitors access to the downloads. Perhaps I was wrong?

[Alan Howe]

No, you are right. But as far as I can see unregistered visitors still can't access the download by clicking the link...

[britishcomposer]

Ah yes, I see! Just made myself a visitor by logging out and after that couldn't access the linked page. Good to know.

[eschiss1]

Welcome, visitor! (Hush, Eric.)

[Gareth Vaughan]

Once again, many thanks to everyone for beimng so helpful.  What a nice community we are!

[Alan Howe]

Get well soon, Gareth.

[britishcomposer]

To divert you a bit, Gareth, I have uploaded another piece by Wegelius, his 'Daniel Hjort' overture.

BTW, according to this entry in the Nordisk familjebok the Rondo quasi fantasia was written in 1873, not 1872.
But maybe this information is outdated:

http://runeberg.org/nfck/0527.html

[eschiss1]

Er... the Rondo quasi fantasia? Not the same recording that's been available on CD - is it? Radio broadcast doesn't mean studio recording... (here)

(Oh. That's a Finland Transcriptions CD- never mind, doesn't really count. Hrm. Never mind after all... Sorry, sorry, sorry... Cheers!! Over-reaction, there. Name's very, very slightly familiar for some reason, though. Can't place it. Maybe that's the reason though.)

Oh- a teacher of Sibelius (Sibelius had some distinguished and interesting teachers - as to another, I'm thinking of, say, Robert Fuchs...)

[eschiss1]

Hrm .There's some bio of Wegelius here. Interesting, too, or so it seems to me. ("A Summary of Prof. Matti Huttunen's Lecture during The Finnish Wagner Society's Meeting 8th March 1995.") (I know, I know, that wasn't the original question...)

[britishcomposer]

Tanks for that, Eric. But a statement like this one leaves me a bit baffled:
" One of the teachers was Carl Reinecke whose compositions were influenced by Wagner."

[eschiss1]

Well, they were. Two magnets of opposite polarity are influenced by each other.

(Indeed, Wagner is often said to have influenced almost everyone around that time, so few were indifferent to him. A very interesting case in this respect is Debussy, I'm told.)
Yes, I know what you mean- and what the author thinks he means... and how unlikely it is...

[Mark Thomas]

That's true of course, Eric, but I think that you're being extremely charitable in attributing that meaning to the statement in the Wegelius profile! 

Belated thanks for the Overture upload, Mathias.