Recent posts

#21

Recordings & Broadcasts / Re: Osip Kozlovsky - Requiem

Last post by Christopher - Monday 22 April 2024, 11:06

What's your favourite section Alan? Mine is unquestionably the Confutatis.  Just so dramatic.  I might have had it on repeat...repeatedly..!

#22

Composers & Music / Sir Andrew Davis dies 20th Apr...

Last post by Alan Howe - Sunday 21 April 2024, 19:45

I'm sorry to report the passing yesterday (20th April) of Andrew Davis who went to my school in Watford, although he was ten years older than me so I never met him. He was one of a number of distinguished musicians that the school produced, including Adrian Leaper (French horn and conductor) and Michael (Mick) Thompson (also a French horn player). My violin teacher was a Pole named Stefan Fragner who had been a prisoner-of-war in WW2 and was a very fine player. It was quite an era for music - although I never figured as a musician myself!

#23

Recordings & Broadcasts / Re: Osip Kozlovsky - Requiem

Last post by Alan Howe - Saturday 20 April 2024, 21:52

Well, my copy arrived today - and now that I'm finally able to listen to it in its entirety it's hard not to wonder what might 'top' this as the unsung discovery of the year. OK, there's Raff's Samson still to come, but this Requiem is an utterly amazing achievement for a work composed by an unknown composer in 1798. I hope it sells like hot cakes and gets the reviews it deserves.

#24

Recordings & Broadcasts / Re: Franco Alfano string quart...

Last post by tuatara442442 - Friday 19 April 2024, 23:40

Also I don't think anyone's mention the other Alfano recording they just released?

https://www.naxos.com/CatalogueDetail/?id=8.574533

I did, so the topic resurfaced!

#25

Recordings & Broadcasts / Re: Enescu Symphonies 1-3/etc.

Last post by Alan Howe - Friday 19 April 2024, 20:29

Only two of the 'Study Symphonies' have been recorded and Nos.2 and 3 are presumed lost. I haven't listened to the completions of (the much later) Nos.4 and 5 for ages - I'll have to dig them out. Certainly it'd be good to have the two surviving early symphonies in new recordings, though they are very early and uncharacteristic - No.1 in D minor is from 1895, (No.2 in F major from 1895, No.3 in F major from 1896) and No.4 in E flat from 1898, i.e. all were written by the time Enescu was seventeen.

The same applies to Dohnanyi, of course. And Tippett. And Sibelius. And Arnell. Perhaps.

#26

Recordings & Broadcasts / Re: Enescu Symphonies 1-3/etc.

Last post by Ilja - Friday 19 April 2024, 19:47

Thanks, this sounds like a really interesting set; not least because they show a very clear musical evolution. However, that might even be more illustrated if everyone didn't keep forgetting about the other symphonies. After all, Enescu wrote nine of the things. 

Now, I sort of understand the reluctance about Bentoiu's completions of the E minor (1934) and D major (1941). But the neglect of the "Study symphonies" is more difficult to fathom. The fact that they were written when in he was his teens doesn't mean they've stopped being symphonies all of a sudden; the "study symphony" ephitet to justify ignoring them is even possibly even more moronic than talking about numbers "00" and "0" (Bruckner) or just assigning random symphony numbers to orchestral things even if they're not symphonies (Mendelssohn).

#27

Recordings & Broadcasts / Re: Enescu Symphonies 1-3/etc.

Last post by Alan Howe - Friday 19 April 2024, 15:06

This 3-CD set is now out - and should do much to bring Enescu's vibrant (and somewhat left-field) symphonies to the public's attention. At around £20 for the set it's something of a bargain. Perhaps the conductor, Cristian Măcelaru, will be introducing us to further unusual repertoire in future recordings.

[Sinfonie (vgl. AMz 1863, S.128)]

#28

Composers & Music / Re: Brambach, Carl Joseph (183...

Last post by Alan Howe - Friday 19 April 2024, 14:53

Too bad. Perhaps that score is in another cupboard someplace else, or not...

Quite. The works list at IMSLP simply reads Sinfonie (vgl. AMz 1863, S.128), which is a reference in the Allgemeine Musikalische Zeitschrift (= General Music Magazine) of 1863, p.128. One wonders where the score might be...

#29

Composers & Music / Re: Brambach, Carl Joseph (183...

Last post by tpaloj - Friday 19 April 2024, 13:58

I recently made an inquiry to the Stadtarchiv in Bonn about Brambach's Nachlass which is kept there. There is no online list of that collection, but it appears that among other things his autographs to the Piano Concerto op. 39 and opera Ariadne are held there. Regrettably, they reported back to me that they don't have any materials of Brambach's Symphony, premiered in 1863, which was the work I was most looking forward to find.

Too bad. Perhaps that score is in another cupboard someplace else, or not...

#30

Composers & Music / Re: Asger Hamerik and Marie Ja...

Last post by Ilja - Friday 19 April 2024, 12:54

Allow me to revive this ancient thread. I have found another piece that employs the same five-note motif (CCCD#C) at the start, Hendrik Waelput's Pacification of Ghent cantata of 1876:

So now there are three pieces that contain this fragment, all from the French-Belgian tradition and written in 1876 (Waelput), 1884 (Jaëll) and 1891 (Hamerik). It's awfully close to the opening of Mozart's Requiem, but slightly different. I'd be grateful if anyone would be able determine where this comes from?