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[ewk]

Hi all,

I'm not quite sure whether there is already existing a thread like this in this board but at least the search didn't show me any.

The idea is somewhat "stolen" from our local radio station SWR3 which does this game for unsung pop songs:
You give the name of something sung (or maybe also unsung) and you get as an answer one or two works you should also listen to because they're quite comparable.
I liked the idea to apply this for "classical" music because there are still some sung works I really like and I have no unsung »equivalent« for it.

I would like to set up the rules as follows:
1) You can propose 2 or 3 equivalents to the »inputs« of the two preceeding posts
2) Then you can make an input yourself and ask the others which work they would consider equivalent: also 3 works maximum (to avoid huge lists)

In order to make Alan happy and to qualify your answers, reasons why the works are comparable would be nice.

Any questions?

My Input (works I like and which I don't have an equivalent for):
1) Rachmaninow 2nd symphony (I've never found anything so beautiful again) (there are quite some PCs that are comparable to Rach's PCs,  but for the symphonies?)
2) Wagner: Vorspiel and Liebestod from Tristan (the same reason)
3) Barber: Adagio for strings (anything so intense?!)

Sebastian

[ewk]

Hi all,

it may be not nice to bring my own unanswered topics back to the top of the list – but I'm still searching equivalents for those fantastic pieces. Can nobody recommend  a piece similar to Rach2? or a piece which is like Barber's Adagio? Maybe they're just really unique?

Sebastian

[Alan Howe]

Rach 2 >> Stanford 2? Do you mean Rach PC2 >> Stanford PC2? If so, then we are still looking for a symphony to try after Rachmaninov's 2nd...

[eschiss1]

or, though quite "sung", the Elegy from Tchaikovsky's serenade for strings- a rather sad piece in its way (though in D major rather than Barber's B-flat minor) (and I hope I am not being too rude if I guess that sad / empathic / tragic rather than "gorgeous" (though I do not yet know the Kelly...) may be the direction in which you are aiming in finding a work to hear after the Barber...)  (I wonder if Corder's elegy for strings and organ - recorded @ imslp.org - suits? I'll have to go relisten and check...)

If you're looking for a separate slow movement, argued ungenerically (I'd agree there about the Barber), I think the string orchestra version of the finale of Prokofiev's first string quartet (admittedly, again, rather "sung") - a very elegiac Andante, which I think the composer may have once wanted played at his own funeral (what he got, was part of his later violin sonata in F minor, instead- maybe I'm projecting; I know I once wanted a recording of that Prokofiev string quartet, from which the Andante is an arrangement, played at -mine-...) -- haven't heard the arrangement, just the original and also the composer's piano arrangement of the Andante. Still, worth a try, I think.   The slow movement of his friend Myaskovsky's 4th string quartet - an earlier work (late 19th-century, though revised in 1930) - has a similar affect and overall nostalgic/elegiac argument (less incidental dissonance) - in other words, another really sad piece of music - but I know of no string orchestra arrangement and it's not been, to my knowledge, recorded separately, just with the remaining movements of the quartet, if that matters.

Probably several symphonies worth a go after Rachmaninoff's 2nd- is something like Rachmaninoff's general climax/structural-pattern etc., also followed in the 3rd symphony and a number of his other works ("big tune" expansion near the end for example but I emphasize the for example) something that you want more rather than less to hear in a "Rachmaninoff-like" symphony? (Ok, yes, Howard Hanson's 2nd symphony probably comes to mind first here. I did go to Interlochen in-between two years of college, though as food staff- still, I did attend a lot of ... ok, tangent. )

[TerraEpon]

Well for something very similar to Barber's Adagio there's always the unused music that Georges Delerue wrote for the movie Platoon which was /heavilly/ inspired by said piece (and of course ultimately said piece ended up being used). Getting into a bit moderistic territory there, though, with either piece, all things told...
On the more classical side there's of course Sibelius's Andante Festivo, though that's not particularly unsung...

[eschiss1]

well, not "modernistic" in the strictest sense, but I catch your meaning. (The problem's inherent in the problem...er... something; the Barber is the slow movement of a very "early-20th-century" string quartet - though arranged for larger ensemble- and sounds its origins, sounds quite right and in-place in its original conception- so any recommendation would probably have to be a bit out of this forum's exact orbit too, though not in the sense of being inexpressive. But then, anyone who believes only the most strictly-speaking, dotted-is and scratched-ts Romantic music can be expressive and emotional has a deeper disagreement with me on that point, anyway, than I usually detect here... )

Diverging from a failed attempt to provide an answer with what may be a failed attempt to provide a question along the lines of this thread, there are times when for me nothing in the way of listening but a certain kind of piece of music - a certain kind of extended, sort-of epic-yet-detailed (that is, not generically gestural, but - carefully written, both (not so paradoxically) widely-emotional and contrapuntal... )  and sort-of-angry/tragic?,-- I tend to think of

Medtner's Night Wind sonata,
Furtwängler's 2nd symphony,
Mahler's 6th,
Elgar's 3rd (as completed) (nos. 2 and 4 are controversial choices here- maybe all 4- so maybe that doesn't help explain what I'm talking about anyway...)
as being among the works that seem to come near meeting whatever emotional and mental needs I think I'm trying to fill at such times.
Sometimes too, though I haven't listened to them in awhile, Robert Herrmann's 2nd symphony, too, and a few others.  Maybe too diverse a list there. Still, common to them is a certain- fatalism, a feeling that the music has tried everything - and it has (that wide emotional scheme I mentioned) and will now dash gradually but headlong (and virtuosically- viz. the Medtner) into the minor... (no- not a fatalism or pessimism __I__ feel, not an emotion of my own, but sometimes music of this sort appeals to me) -- ...

erm...
anyway.
Any suggestions?
(Already have the Rachmaninoff first piano sonata somewhere- and several recordings of Medtner's Reminiscenza sonata. Other suggestions? Good idea, though. And yes, a lot of such pieces do seem to hit on the idea of quoting the Dies irae at some point... )

[ewk]

Hi all,
thank for all the suggestions, I'll have to give them a listen.
One more piece I have never heard anything as glorious that comes to my mind  is of course Verdi's Requiem. I read somewhere that Berlioz' Requiem is quite similar, but I don't think you can call Berlioz an unsung...

cheers,
Sebastian

[eschiss1]

For something not very like the Verdi in style in any detailed way, I guess, but another piece that I think can produce a similar reaction (can't guarantee, of course), maybe try Felix Draeseke's Requiem in B minor (from 1865-1880)? A recording can be heard over here... (scroll down the page of course to see all of the recording )

[Alan Howe]

If you like Verdi's Requiem, then you ought to try the one by Suppé too.

[alberto]

If you like the Verdi Requiem , you could try the Bottesini's one, recently released by Naxos or the collective "Mass for Rossini" (composed , between others, by Verdi -first version of "Libera me" later used in the Requiem. The Mass was recorded by Rilling.

[musiclover]

I think the Felix Blumenfeld Symphony would be close to Rachmaninov Symphony 2. Some people said closer to Tchaikovsky but I think they are totally off on that.

[Alan Howe]

For aficionados of late-romantic Russian symphonies, there are also Glazunov 5, 6 and 8 (c.Serebrier), the two by Bortkiewicz (on Hyperion), Lyapunov 1 (Naxos) & 2 (c.Svetlanov), Grechaninov 1-5 (Chandos) and Scriabin 1-3 (c.Muti).   

[Amphissa]

I have seen the Blumenfeld symphony titled "To the Dear Beloved," "For the Beloved Dead," and variatious wordings. I understand that there are always nuances in translating text from Russian into English. But I've always wondered what terminology is more literal and what is rather more poetic impression.

There is so much to like about the Blumenfeld Symphony that it is hard to understand why it doesn't get played, or at least mentioned in music circles more often. The influence of his teacher, Rimsky-Korsakov, is prevalent throughout. Blumenfeld was contemporary with Glazunov, and was clearly familiar with the latter's work. So, if you like Rachmaninoff's 2nd and Blumenfeld's Symphony, you might also like Glazunov's 5th.

[sdtom]

Another two Russian composers to be thrown into the mix is Myaskovsky's Symphony No. 5 as far as Rachmaninoff is concerned.
Tom

[eschiss1]

Rachmaninoff and not, say, Rimsky, Gliere or others? Interesting comparison for the Myaskovsky. (Not the first composer that work brings to mind... some of the composers it brings to mind- e.g. at the very opening- may not even all be Russian or even Eastern European. Maybe a hint of ... I don't know. Bax or Delius or - something??? (Or Debussy, more likely, Eric. That's where your mind is heading...) )