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Hermann Zilcher's 5th Symphony ends with a variation movement, the last part of which includes a soprano solo:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uKPf05CV8fM

Werner Trenkner's 1st Symphony has a middle movement with soprano solo on verses by Mörike. The outer movements are purely instrumental.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qe6i3GIuDgQ

Tobias Bröker, German music collector and publisher, will publish the scores of some of Paul Büttner's most important works online. The first one has been released yet:

-Das Grab im Busento, a ballad for men's choir and orchestra.

The other pieces will follow:

-Symphony No. 4 (first publication of the original score - the score issued by Peters is an arrangement in reduced orchestration)
-Anka, opera
-Waldesrauschen for men's choir and orchestra
-2 four-part canons on texts by Goethe

https://www.tobias-broeker.de/newpageb5193fd1

Surely, the contemporaries of Noren and Strauss would never have placed both, Kaleidoskop and Heldenleben, on the same concert programme (at least there is no such case known to me), but for a Strauss festival that wants to show the composer in dialogue with his contemporaries, Kaleidoskop is the ideal piece to be coupled with Strauss's tone poem.

Noren's music was played regularly during the years before the First World War, but the composer fell in obscurity during the 1920s. In his last years he seems to have spend all his energy for securing a performance of his opera Der Schleier der Beatrice, which never materialized.

After his death, Noren's wife Signe, who was a Norwegian singer, went back to Bergen, where she must have lived until at least 1955. In this year she renewed the copyright of one of her husband's songs:

https://www.google.de/books/edition/Catalog_of_Copyright_Entries/MTohAQAAIAAJ?hl=de&gbpv=1&dq=signe+noren&pg=RA1-PA30&printsec=frontcover

It seems very possible to me that Noren's estate, including his unpublished compositions, is located in Norway.


 

In 2024 the Richard-Strauss-Tage in Garmisch-Partenkirchen will take place from 1 June to 11 June. The program includes two works by Heinrich Gottlieb Noren.

Heinrich G. Noren (1861-1928, born Heinrich Gottlieb) was an Austrian composer and violinist. His compositions for orchestra achieved international success in the early 20th century. In 1907 his work Kaleidoskop was premiered, a set of variations on an original theme, culminating in a double fugue. As an admirer of Strauss, Noren quoted (with Strauss's permission) two themes from Ein Heldenleben, but was accused of plagiarism by Strauss's publisher Leuckart. The lawsuit was put to an end by a court in Dresden in Noren's favour. The court declared that only melodies were protected by law, but the quoted themes were no melodies. This judgement was used by satiric writers, most prominently by Edgar Istel in a parody on the Allgemeiner Deutscher Musikverein, of which Strauss was president.

Here you can find a good introduction to Noren and his work:

https://repertoire-explorer.musikmph.de/wp-content/uploads/vorworte_prefaces/1827.html

Kaleidoskop will be played together with Ein Heldenleben by the Pilsen Philharmonic, conducted by Rémy Ballot on 8 June 2024.

https://www.richard-strauss-tage.de/event/sinfoniekonzert-5/

On 11 June the Phaeton Piano Trio will play Noren's Piano Trio in D minor, together with Strauss's piano trios.

https://www.richard-strauss-tage.de/event/kammerkonzert-iii/

17 May 2024, Kronach, Kreiskulturraum

Richard Wagner: Prelude to Lohengrin
Felix Draeseke: Symphonic Andante for violoncello and orchestra
Max Baumann: Symphony No. 1

(a concert in memory of the 25th aniversary of the death of Max Baumann)

Jörg Ulrich Krah, violoncello
Hofer Symphoniker
Manuel Grund, conductor

Grieg-Begegnungsstätte Leipzig, February 25

Pianist Haruka Izawa plays, together with works by Skryabin and Beethoven, Felix Draeseke's Petite Histoire.

https://www.edvard-grieg.de/events/petites-histoires-et-grande-sonate

Würzburg, 9 and 10 December 2023, Neubaukirche

The MonteverdiChor Würzburg and the Jena Philharmonic, conducted by Matthias Beckert, will perform the following Christmas concert:

Gabriel Pierne: Les enfants à Bethléem
Felix Woyrsch: Die Geburt Jesu
Hermann Zilcher: Abend senkt sich nieder

https://www.monteverdichor.com/konzerte.html#start

Aris Alexander Blettenberg will play piano music by Felix Draeseke and August Bungert on 9 April 2024 in Munich:

https://events.in-muenchen.de/muenchen/aris-alexander-blettenberg-r2512191469.html

There is no information, yet, which works will be performed, but its possible that the pianist will play Draesekes Sonata op. 6, of which he is a champion for years. Bungert has composed only one major piano work, the Variations op. 13.

My recommendation for Bruckner's 2nd symphony is the recording with Rémy Ballot conducting the Altomonte Orchestra St. Florian. After this performance I felt that I have heard this work the first time in its full beauty.

A problem of the 2nd Symphony is that you cannot take any version of it as definitive. Bruckner himself published it late in his livetime after having it severely cut, disturbing the ballance of form in movements 2 and 4. For each performance of the work before publication he did rewrite some passages, so it was never the same work that was played. Robert Haas made an arrangement - and a good one -, based on the last version with many passages inserted from earlier versions. William Carragan published two versions, each one problematic from a philological point of view. E.g. Carragan put the Scherzo on 2nd place in version 1. Bruckner had this thought, but before the 1st performance he put the Scherzo after the Adagio. In version 2 Carragan mostly follows the text of the first published edition, but in the Adagio he inserts bars that were cut by Bruckner. So his edition must be called an arrangement like Haas's. 

I do not think that Haas had made the best of the Finale. In Carragan's version 2 this movement is too short. In Carragan's version 1 it is very long, but I think that in this form, with some development-like passages in the recapitulation, not used by Haas, the movement is most convincing - when conducted by a musician who has the overwiew over the Whole.

Ballot has done this in a very convincing way.

 

Having heard the performance in Bern I can say that it was superior to the Weimar performance last year in every respect. The singers were first rate, even in the smaller roles, and everyone sang the text perfectly, the native German speakers as well as the singers of other mother tongues. As I heard in the theatre the recording is scheduled to be released in December.

The performance was not complete, but the recording, which was made during the week before, will contain the unperformed music, too.

This is the recording of this concert:

https://franzschubertfilh.com/es/programas/bach-mozart-i-la-simfonia-de-paul-buttner/

I can recommend it very much. It was a great performance.

[Franz Xaver Müller (1870-1948)]

The Austrian Franz Xaver Müller (1870-1948) falls into this category. He was a priest, organist in St. Florian and later Kapellmeister of the cathedral of Linz. In his youth he had regular meetings with Anton Bruckner, but did not study formally with him. Bruckner, to whose memory he dedicated an organ piece, was nevertheless the greatest influence on Müller's composing style. Müller wrote mostly church music: an oratorio on the life of St. Augustine, masses, motets. His most ambitous instrumental piece is his Symphony in D major from 1910, which, according to contemporary reviews, is 1 hour and 7 minutes long, and shows that its composer was a devoted Brucknerian.

Not to forget Lachner's six string quartets. They were all recorded in good performances by the Rodin-Quartett several years ago (as it was the case with the complete string quartets of Ignaz and Vinzenz Lachner). I think of these quartets as masterworks of a late vienesse classical style, following more the tradition of Mozart than of Beethoven. They are excellently written, with many fine contrapuntal episodes and ingenious use of traditional harmony. The great chamber music expert Wilhelm Altmann did severe injustice to these beautiful works when he thought them (in 1929) not worthy to be played in concert. I think the contrary is right: There is not one weak movement in all of the six quartets, and they would make a great addition to the concert repertoire of 19th century chamber music.

Bern, 2 May 2023, Yehudi Menuhin Forum

Cello solo recital with Julius Berger:

Johann Sebastian Bach: Suite in G major BWV 1007
Adolf Busch: Prelude and Fugue in D minor op. 8b
Walter Courvoisier: Suite in B minor op. 32/2
J. S. Bach: Chorale prelude "Wenn ich einmal soll scheiden" (arr. J. Berger)
Max Reger: Suite Nr. 2 in D minor op. 131c

https://regerbern23.ch/cellorezital-julius-berger/

Cellist Julius Berger has recorded a CD called "Soldanella" with works for violoncello solo from the early 20th century. The  programme consists of Max Reger's Suite op. 131c/2, the Passacaglia from Donald Francis Tovey's Sonata op. 30, the Suite, and the Prelude and Fugue which together form Adolf Busch's op. 8, and the Suite op. 32/2 by Walter Courvoisier, of which Julius Berger played the premiere public performance in 2022. As editor of the last work, this recording makes me especially lucky. The CD is produced by Wergo, and will be released on 17 March:

https://www.jpc.de/jpcng/classic/detail/-/art/tovey-soldanella-werke-fuer-violoncello-solo/hnum/11153460