Romantic era/early 20th century pastiches/re-envisionings of Baroque originals

[Steve B]

What are your favorites?
Mine are:
Strauss Divertimento after Couperin, especially "La Cloches" section

Enescu Suites 1 and 2. The second movt of number 1 is exquisite; a beautiful re-envisioning of a Baroque sarabande, And there is the usual,Reger(contrapuntally) influenced but intensified rapture in places

Reger- Concerto in the Olden Style: try the exciting ending to movt 1 and the lovely melody of the slow movt

Bloch concerto grosso 1, with piano obbligato. again, complex, third movt, with memorable theme in trio, and fugal finale.

(Rennaissance era inspired) Resphigi Ancient Airs and Dances; and (baroque)"The Birds". i have always loved the finale of, i think the second Resphigi suite, which was the theme music to a lovely medley type programme on radio 3, "Homeward Bound, a sequence of music both familiar and unfamiliar...", interrupted by the news at(bizarrely)6.05 pm!Anyone remember it?

Your own favourites in this(loose, baggy) genre?Steve

[eschiss1]

I have a few, but the one that stands out and jumps out is Ravel's Tombeau de Couperin. The furthest from unsung, of course, but it has a special place in my heart. (I am unfortunately much more familiar with the orchestral excerpt than the piano original.)
Eric

[Kriton]

2 concerto adaptations by Schönberg - one for cello after a Monn harpsichord concerto and one for string quartet after a Handel concerto grosso.

[chill319]

Raff wrote a number of piano suites that combined Baroque ideas with then-modern ideas in an original way. I'd enjoy hearing what some of our Raff experts think of these suites.

[Mark Thomas]

Raff was in the forefront of the romantic revival of interest in Baroque music although, as so often with him, the sources are silent on why that should be so. There are seven piano suites in all, which he wrote over a span of 19 years. There are some unifying features: all bar one have baroque movement titles (Menuett, Gavotte, Gigue, Toccatina etc.) and generally speaking they have at least five movements, although a couple have just four. His intention was to "pour new wine into old bottles", to combine the structures of the baroque with the harmonic and melodic devices of the 19th century but, stylistically, they are all over the place.

The first three, written within a few months in the later 1850s, are pretty much of a muchness: small scale glittery works, very attractive but more baroque pastiche than romantic. The fourth Suite, the D minor op.91  although only written two years later, is a completely different animal. It's big (around 40 minutes long), in just four movements and wholly romantic in feel. IMHO (and in that of his contemporaries) it's one of Raff's finest creations. The fifth Suite wasn't written until 1871 and is pretty much in the same mould as its predecessor in terms of scale, number of movements and wholly romantic atmosphere. Raff even dispenses with the baroque movement titles. I's a very attractive work, but doesn't have the grandeur of the D minor and is let down by a lightweight finale. The sixth (Raff didn't number the Suites, by the way) was written at the same time and marks a return to his original baroque inspiration, albeit with more substantial movements and a clear employment of romantic harmony, if not melodic contour. The one exception is the fifth movement (Abends) which is gorgeously, but anachronistically,  romantic and which Raff removed from the Suite in subsequent reprintings, so that it reverts to the original five movement model, in which form it is much more satisfying. He later orchestrated that movement as the Abends-Rhapsodie. In the final Suite in B flat of 1876, also of six movements, Raff finally succeeded in his aim of fusing the baroque and the romantic. The language is roundly of the 19th century, whilst the structures and melodic outline are from 100 years before. It's a sort of pianistic equivalent of Grieg's Hoberg Suite.

All that said, for me the concept itself is flawed. The most successful works are the fourth, D minor, Suite and the first three movements of the fifth, and they are wholly romantic in character. The other suites stray perilously close to pastiche at times.

[Delicious Manager]

My candidates might be a little 'late' for true relevance to this forum, but the 20th century has produced some of the most satisfying modern 'concerti grossi':

William Alwyn - 3 Concerti grossi
Bloch - Concerto Grosso
Frank Martin - Petite symphonie concertante
Martinů - Concerto for Piano, Timpani and Strings
Vaughan Williams - Concerto Grosso
Schnittke - 5 Concerti grossi (which adhere marvellously to the Baroque spirit of the form)
Stravinsky - Concerto in E flat (Dumbarton Oaks)

Of course, Elgar's splendid Introduction and Allegro is a concerto grosso, surely?

[khorovod]

Respighi wrote a "Concerto a cinque" too - a substantial, three-movement work for oboe, trumpet, piano, viola (d'amore), double-bass, and strings. There is a recent recording on Naxos which I don't know and an earlier one on Claves, which is the one I own. I like it but it isn't typical of Resphigi's lush and colourful late/post-romantic scores.

[chill319]

Thanks for the excellent overview, Mark. I'm going to try out the fourth and fifth.

Martinů has been mentioned. I recall him referring to his compositional predilections as cleaving closer to the concerto grosso than to the classical sonata form. In short, for at least one 20th-c. composer the concerto grosso became a procedural model that had nothing to do with stylistic pastiche.