Messages

Thank you for your scholarly dedication.

Thanks for the notice. In the Amazon cart.

Thanks for this! Anything similar to late Massenet has me all ears. I was rather surprised to see more on-line than in the vinyl or CD listings. Are these videos appearing on YT radio broadcasts ? I really like the writing of the YT excerpt (1953??) of his opera Aphrodite with the piano score attached. Interestingly there are a fair number of book scores of Erlanger available. But thanks again for someone I completely missed.

As far as I can tell from the sparse descriptions of her life she held no positions but was simply a private music teacher in Vienna, where there was a surplus of such individuals. What I find curious is not the amount of lieder but that she was composing operas and orchestral works. Did any of the latter ever get performed in her lifetime or did they just end up in the cabinet?

OK thanks Wheesht. Putting the name in quotation marks brought up the rest of the threads. The apostrophe is confusing the search engine at least with my set up. But to clarify, myself putting d'albert in the search box without quotes did not bring up any instances of D'Albert in the title field just in a small number of message bodies. Some others had variants of d' and de. Why that didn't also bring up d'albert is a mystery to me.

The search was on Eugen D'Albert. Only this came up. Searching on d'albert more hits appear but the references are all en passant as far as I saw. I see no dedicated thread. If you do, can you please let me know your search term. Thanks

Update: Looking more closely a number of the hits for d'albert don't even contain his nama. Instead they have either d' or de somewhere in the text. Is the search engine confused by the apostrophe in the name?

Yesterday I played an LP of Reinecke's PC 1 performed by Ponti. On the reverse side is the PC 2 of Eugen D'Albert. Out of curiosity I searched for D'Albert's name here and found only this one specific mention. Is there a reason he is not mentioned  here e.g. not Romantic enough, not Unsung or something else?

These borderline composers can ebb and flow. Back in the 60s and 70s there was a fair bit of Berwald issued on the major labels EMI and Decca in both the US and UK as well as budget labels  Nonesuch and Turnabout. If memory serves there were even LP boxes of Berwald. The Grand Septet was a well known work and I think played in the US and all the symphonies were recorded multiple times. I am not sure how often the symphonies were programmed in the US but I assume at least occasionally in Europe. By the early 80s I agree that his name disappeared mostly, certainly in the US. Sic transit gloria mundi. I don't really consider him Unsung but just IMO.

eschiss As a scientist I am familiar with the issue of non-random samples. But at least bachtrack is not tied to a particular locale or genre. Russian composers because of the present conflict are certainly systematically under represented due to bachtrack restrictions, but home country performance in general is almost a category unto itself in most cases.. If you have an issue with any of the comparisons I made for composers Not named Korngold or Barber I would be very interested in learning about it. I do not want to be inaccurate but just gave the best swag at this I could manage.

Re Raff. I wasn't aware of that. I thought it was just neglect, but things don't necessarily all travel over the Atlantic. Another fine composer unjustly maligned then. But his situation on bachtrack is still dire. When you have fewer performances than Glazunov you know you are in trouble.

Just a quick further observation: not all of Samuel Barber's music is suitable for discussion here.

I understand the caution with composers far past the WW1 cutoff. Anyway based on the bachtrack results I am going to dial back on comments of both Korngold and Barber as I think they are moving out of the Unsung category (although things could always change).

Just to clarify. UK Magazine's references were to occasional stage performances of Die Tote Stadt and I think in one case Violanta from the 50s on into the early Oughts. Has any other fine composer ever suffered such sustained abuse (distinct from neglect)?

But yes I take your point about Korngold recordings particularly since many have excellent sonics and performances. Korngold's music seems to draw out musicians in the most positive way. And I still regularly play the original vinyl box by Leinsdorf et al. The singers never sounded better and a performance that equals the v Matacic Die Lustige Witwe. Penguin's Witwe comment "more theatrical than the stage" could be echoed for the Leinsdorf.

Mr Vaughan,

It might be a UK - Germany difference for the symphony. I would have to agree with Simon Perry at least in the US and Canada.

Thank you both for your replies. i was a bit disconcerted and saddened by my sojourn through bachtrack which I had not done as extensively for a year. We are well past the pandemic effects so this seems the current reality, like it or not.  And the sniffy attitude to Korngold extended far past the Violin Concerto. Even the usually reliable Opera Magazine UK barfed over Korngold's Die Tote Stadt all through the 80s and 90s.

I agree with Mr Thomas that if such a series modeled on Hyperion included the Concerto repertoire it could be successful. Not sure of the current audience fervor for symphonies they haven't heard 100 times.

As for Samuel Barber, I am just basing my comment that he has moved to the fringe mainstream on the bachtrack results just now which surprised me a bit. The listings show both geographical distribution as well as varied selection of compositions. There were a fair number of performances in central Europe. I am frustrated by the absence of his fine opera IMO, the revised Antony and Cleopatra  but at least a concert performance of Vanessa is being performed next year in the US.

Florence Price was on a par with Louise Farrenc in the bachtrack results. less than half of Barber and Korngold. I do think these two women have a chance to survive at some low rate of performance around Szymanovky's level..

Just so we are all well advised as to what will seize the classical recording biz in the near future:

1827 Death Ludwig van Beethoven !!!!!
1828 Death of Franz Schubert !!!!!
1829 -
1830 -
1831 -
1832 -
1833 Birth Johannes Brahms !!!!!

So a brief window of opportunity for Unsungs from 2029 -2032. 

Thanks for your reply. Yes I was careful to specify concert performances as I have no serious concerns regarding recordings, all things considered, particularly of chamber and orchestral. The quality of the recordings is variable but that is always true. The principal recordings concern I have is with the singing of the Romantic repertoire as that style is not in vogue with current vocal instruction as far as I can tell. It seems tilted to bel canto and Baroque. However your careful wording does seem to indicate that I am not wildly misreading what is happening regarding these apparent also rans to Barber and Korngold. 

The performance situation with Scriabin I find particularly perplexing as he had a distinctive personal style and made what I consider the last major original addition to the piano repertoire on top of his orchestral works.