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Have only seen this Bohemian-born, Boston-and-New York-resident composer (1781-1861) mentioned here once (a few months ago, for his Ornithological Combat of the Birds- the one work of his I had heard of until recently, actually, though the programmatic suggestion of the title turned me off at the time it was on the radio, I believe (sorry!). Anyhow, the Library of Congress has quite a bit of his music that was published in his lifetime scanned, and in a commentary on that project one of the organizers, I believe, selects him as one of the most interesting and idiosyncratic composers working in America in the mid-19th century. That piqued my interest. Looking at the scores they have scanned in did not disappoint...

A couple of publishers are making new editions of his music, at least one intended to be fairly complete, I've seen (and has a few webpages up about specific works and the project in general- that would be Kallisti Music.) Anyone heard/seen/played a representative sampling of his music in various genres (choral, piano, solo vocal, ... ? orchestral probably still mostly, except for that Ornithological Combat aforementioned, requires critical editions not yet prepared for the most part- with a few exceptions already out, I gather.) 

Trying to remember who, but read someone describe him as the first 'full-time' composer working in the USA... (that the quality of his works does seem to be fairly high along with its innovation, judging only however from browsed scores though... - though PD Music has some MIDI samples I haven't heard yet - augurs well.)
Eric

have only seen the scores and/or arrangements of the first three and that was the first time I'd even heard of the composer - liked a lot about what I saw (even the very minor but decent fact that the scores included so much incidental "premiered and published" info frustratingly lacking to a semi-librarian .) - thank you, this is promising.)

Not sure if this is a name that is fair to them or does them justice at all, as I find more and more that - unsurprisingly, in retrospect - the best of the composers who concentrated on potpourris etc. and seem to have never tackled other forms and genres (well, hardly ever?) are much better composers than I thought, and are engaging my interest more than I thought. (I used to focus a lot more on the - well, usually called larger forms even when they seem to show up in Webern...)

This 2-bit epiphany (thanks, Peter Schickele, for the lovely phrase) courtesy of the substantial look-overs etc. I've done of a number of scores by Sydney Smith, Charles Grobe and a number of others, some slightly better-known than others, for IMSLP.  I'm torn between asking about similar 2-bit epiphanies (small revelations) and sticking to topic, one's feelings about the best of the multitude of minor 19th-century composers whose works filled the published and unpublished sheet music ranks. (The best part including of course much Liszt before Weimar- a subject line I considered including.

The works by these composers - many found scanned in at memory.loc.gov - are generally more or less limited to, i find, marches, dances, potpourris on then well-known operas, variation sets, songs, methods of instruction, arrangements of works by others (which gives interesting sidelights, as the potpourris do, on who was well-known in the US and who wasn't in the time the LOC / Duke university project covers ,more or less music published by American publishing houses between 1820 and 1885 or so?... - a point that interests me as an amateur untrained would-be music historian ), songs, and many liturgical works. That said, the quality and even diversity of some of these works within the formal limits varies and some seems reasonably good to me - though I and others reupload rather a bit to imslp (not just the I think it's good stuff admittedly, for various reasons- preservation/spreading things so they're not just in one place in case no one downloads it from loc, after 'cleaning' their copy a little ) . anyhow. _There_ I babble. 

(And am left with more questions. Charles Wels- interesting stuff there by him, and arrangements by him too. Wait, some earlier scores by "Charles Welsch"? Is that someone else or was that his birthname which he later shortened? No one mentions that online- Wikipedia, other places- but how much do we know about him? Just for example. Indeed, trying to fill out the biographical details of these composers has been a challenge and a half- and I say that often with a smile, not a groan of a frown...)

To bring *yank!!!! no pun intended by this Yankee* back to topic, while my aural experience (as opposed to visual) with the music of these lighter-piano-music composers is less, though quite a bit has been recorded by them by now.  Still, anyone want to chime in about relative quality of, say, Baumfelder (Friedrich, not Fritz - if any of Fritz Baumfelder's music even survives, that is - and yes, I know Baumfelder wrote several piano trios, sonatas, symphonies, etc. though they seem mostly to have been lost, but in a sense that strictly may disqualify him from this category )... , Grobe, Sydney Smith, Arnoldo Sartorio, Carl Faust, Brinley Richards, Küffner (yes, wrote some 6 or 7 symphonies and several concertos apparently though later in his career settled down to writing potpourri and variation after etc.- or so it seems), Rudolf Bial, etc.?

(I am not saying that there is only music of this kind - speaking somewhat broadly and indistinctly - in the LoC scan collection ; there is at least a small collection of scanned-in violin , organ, piano (and other - cello, I think- sonatas also) sonatas, for instance. The violin sonata at LoC (and which I did have to upload to IMSLP - Matzka violin sonata in G, copyright 1876) I was interested by most recently was by a Georg(e) Matzka , who also left a symphony, concert overture, songs, other violin music, etc. ...
Eric

Apologies I suppose that I keep doing this, but two new recordings from the SBB over at the Music Score Library Project ("Score" now) needed notice (imslp.org) -

Two pieces for string quartet by Samuel Alexandre Rousseau (published 1902)

Petite Suite Armenienne by Diran Alexanian.

There's also since my last post (mentioned this but in a comment) the 5th of Gernsheim's string quartets, and other works up... (and don't know if I ever mentioned that the quartet of Leo Sachs, a sort of impressionist affair by a German composer, has been up and recorded for a bit now too- interesting stuff.)

Eric

now available at http://imslp.org/wiki/String_Symphony_No.7_in_D_minor,_MWV_N_7_(Mendelssohn,_Felix) , and I've always - well, not always - wondered something...
Almost all recordings of this, in the 3rd movement, have a truncated "Menuetto". That is, one hears Menuetto, then trio, then finale- no reprise da capo of the Menuetto as would have  been assumed (if not asked for otherwise). So I had a look at the score at the university library.

And indeed, the score does not include a notation "da capo"- but doesn't specifically request otherwise, either. Apparently Mendelssohn, or perhaps Wolff, omitted it...

A moderate number of works from the 1700s and early 1800s, I think, especially if you include works written for private study and apprentice work like Mendelssohn's early compositions mostly were -  do omit this sort of notation (specifically this notation and other kinds too) precisely because it would have been assumed. This is one of those circumstances where I can see us making fun of early 20th-century, performance practice-deaf recordings not getting it, but ... when the score hasn't even been available for performance until recently anyway and only one recording I've ever heard "gets it" (and takes the da capo)... (I don't even remember which one- I don't know what kind of performance it was or who was performing, though they were definitely worthy of praise on that point...)

er... erm. ... ah well. the string symphonies and other early Mendelssohn works (whose scores are available online in some areas because copyright has expired - so enjoy - that part is more important ) are at imslp.org - have fun!

Steve's Bedroom Band has made several very good recordings recently, but I thought it worth pointing out, given the interests of some people on this forum (which I share) that the Band has turned its attention to Gernsheim's 33-minute 1870s string quartet no.1 - here.

just seen on MDT as coming very soon on Chandos - the premiere recording of Weinberg's symphony no.3 in B minor, op.45 (1949/1959) (Svedlund, conducting - I assume by now that Chmura did not work out).  It's been something like 15 years? since I borrowed the score, and I've never heard it (and only seen the score those few days anyway, but it did look interesting. I look forward to hearing it...) (also, suite no.4 from the Golden Key is advertised. Still haven't heard any of this ballet.)

just wanted to say I found what definitely looks like a not-quite-ready-for-publication, in-progress (but I should emphasize- for fans like me, very interesting) manuscript of Martucci's 2nd piano concerto scanned in at the Italian scanning clearing house (Internet Culturale, a very interesting resource if you don't know it, not limited to Italian music- there's music by JB Cramer there for instance... - though it helps to limit the advanced search to autografo or manoscritta or something similar in one of the fields to prevent lots of early recordings from turning up along with the manuscripts. though it's interesting to know that some works were recorded that one thought never were, of course...
Uploaded the Martucci to IMSLP of course and some other things too and others did likewise - a template exists on IMSLP whose use is encouraged to link one's uploads back to the original Internet Culturale catalog description pages, as often with these resources.  but there's something like 15000 manuscripts still on the site, mostly out of copyright - haven't made a dent. this sort of stuff is such fun- sorry to ramble. anyhow re the Martucci- the tempo indications of the outer movements seem to be straight Allegro (not the Allegro giusto and con spirito of the final published version), there's lots and lots of cross-outs - including an x-ed out Andante introduction to the opening movement ... (I wonder what that might have sounded like, instead of the call to arms that does open the work... yes, certain very famous composers have sketches full of such things, of course too.) just finding this intriguing. and if I'm ever asked to revise the preface I wrote to the MPH edition of the concerto, wondering if I should mention this... probably!

Eric

that they have researched the topic authoritatively and that they are quite sure that Donald  Francis Tovey wrote "The Forms of Music" when he was -10 years old.

May I give up now?

a few of the composers I've found out about because of IMSLP have ended up intriguing me greatly (especially when Steve's Bedroom Band over across the pond decided to record some of their music, at that. Doesn't hurt...) Ewald Straesser is not the only one but he is among them. Dates 1867-1933, a biography here in German (I did find his brief obituary today in the Neue Zeitschrift reprints at the library but that would of course be under US copyright, having been written post-1922), 6 symphonies at least (the last - and also the 4th - premiered, I believe, posthumously, the 6th conducted by Abendroth; also according to 1933 issues of the NZM; I don't know, in fact, if any of his symphonies after the 2nd were published, and that the 3rd is in A- major or minor- I only know because a website mentioning a broadcast of it said so... but anyway.) There's also a clarinet quintet, 5 string quartets (at least? i think only 5 - was corresponding with someone yesterday who tells me he's played through all of them, with no.4 the best; I've skimmed the score, prepared the 1st violin part to the 1st movement using Lilypond, and heard the 2nd and 4th movements online; it really is a fine piece and very recommendable in my honest opinion...

the earlier, by 19 years (publishing ; I don't know composition dates) first quartet (op.12/1 in E minor) seems close, in places, to Brahms and Reger among others.  Also a really good piece and worth hearing. (see here )
and so I wonder - alas the publication date assures I shall probably be wondering for some time, ... probably - about Ewald Straesser. Sein musikalisches Schaffen. (Herausgegeben von Frau E. Straesser.) -A list of compositions. With a portrait.- (published and edited by the composer's wife in 1937, a copy of which is in the British Library, apparently. Might actually conceivably- just conceivably- be in London sooner than I thought if the Gothic sym comes through at the Proms and - erm - anyway - but not long enough I'm sure to satisfy even a  brief other wishlist of items, alas... )

Eric

Had to, they do (he does) good work.

The two most recent uploads I know of -
Jan Brandts Buys (1868-1939, Dutch)'s 1917 string sextet op.40  (3 violins, 2 violas, cello) in D major

Riccardo Pick-Mangiagalli (1882-1949, Italian)'s 1910-or-so string quartet (not PD-EU)  in G minor op.18

Neither commercially recorded to my knowledge, though both composers have had other chamber works recorded (a serenade by Brandts-Buys; and some pieces for string quartet by Pick-Mangiagalli were on a 1950s LP with, I think, quartets by Respighi (I believe) and Malipiero --- not positive at the moment, more sure about the Malipiero (his 7th, I think.), have to look that up again...)

Also (edit) forgot to mention this one, perhaps because I haven't heard it (non-PD-US under present law until 2025). String Quartet in F major (first performed 1916 and published posthumously 1929, I think) by Charles Wood (1866-1926), one of Tippett's teachers. (A performance of Wood's quartet in D major can also be found. The quartet in A minor is or was once on an ASV CD as part of a recreation of the concert in which Tippett's 5th string quartet was premiered.)

In La Mara's Liszt und die Frauen occurs the following passage from a letter (expurgated by her, as Alan Walker notes in a rather less public domain source . This is a book about Liszt's relations with women in general; La Mara's collections of Liszt's letters to Agnes Street-Klindworth - not so identified in the earlier book - is in a book called "Briefe an eine Freundin" I think, which is also online elsewhere.) - (page 234; chapter 2, section 5.)

(Letter - from Liszt to Agnes - dated - by whom I'm not sure - September, 1879. I am excerpting just briefly.)
"Kennen Sie Raffs 'Waldsymphonie'? Ich empfehle sie Ihnen als eins seiner bestgelungenen wertvollsten Werke. Was aber neue Musik betrifft, so ist ein wahres Meisterwerk, ernst und unterhaltend zugleich, in Petersburg erschienen.  Es kann drei- oder vier-händig gespielt werden, der rechtsseitige Pianist hat unausgesetzt nur die acht Noten
(music example follows - I have not heard the work in awhile, perhaps it's the opening of one of the movements?)

nach dem Motiv ticktack zu wiederholen."

Putting together a list for IMSLP of works published by Adolf Robitschek and its earlier incarnation Rebay & Robitschek, I notice how very many works by Robert Fuchs in the later years of his career that organization (distinguing it from the person who gave it his name, btw) published.  I am wondering at the consequences, as for Dvorak and Brahms with their associations with Simrock etc. - did Robitschek pressure Fuchs to produce certain kinds of music since he was becoming their headline composer (it seems?) ( A search at HMB - for the last years of the 19th century - seems to confirm my working hypothesis.   Rebay & Robitschek published quite a few works by other composers - Perger and others, a few little-known, most entirely or just next to entirely unknown, I think, and that in itself produces some curiosity in some cases, for me anyhow, some more people to look into... anyway... ) - but yes, a HMB search on 'Robitschek' seems to mostly confirm that the later years of the 19th century had very many works by Robert Fuchs proportionately, a few works by others but not very many of them.

(As very much a fan of Fuchs, I don't mind. He hasn't received much biographical attention - a couple of German biographical dissertations, never translated into English, is about as thorough as his life and music has gotten explored so far, I gather, and I really can't read German and haven't seen those dissertations yet - but it suggests a question to study, if someone were ever to want to... Of course, if Robitschek pressured Fuchs into writing many of the fantasy-pieces and waltzes (or some other groups) that run through his output, it's hard to prove it; most of his contemporaries have such sets also, and Fuchs' output, compared to that of many though of course not all or even the better-known of theirs' by the number of larger-scale efforts - the 6 violin sonatas, the piano trios, quartets, clarinet quintet, string quartets (whether four or five - see an earlier thread raising a question on that subject), etc. etc. ... - which Robitschek seemed to have no problem publishing- though one guesses at that, until one sees their correspondence, if one ever does

Pardon babble. Don't know if those thoughts go anywhere interesting...

Was just listening very happily (if I can say that about a rather depressing movement in E minor...) to a pair of movements from Straesser's 4th string quartet here-

imslp.org/wiki/String_Quartet_No.4_in_E_minor,_Op.42_(Straesser,_Ewald)

(there is a reason why only those two but hopefully it's a "so far".)

Also, the string quartet no.2 (ca.1907?) in D major, op.68 by César Antonovich Cui can be found in scores, parts and now a recording here-

Cui quartet 2.

I do recall that Cui's quartet 2, and the other 2 also, have received some adverse criticism in this forum. I did find no.2 worth hearing and enjoyable, anyway.  But the Straesser, especially its finale, is a finer work, I believe.

A category with all or most of the performances by the 'band' is at this IMSLP category address, btw. (Unlike some pages on the site, it doesn't seem to have an RSS feed.)
(I am, yes, a fan, and again hope this is an appropriate use of the forum. Anyhow, must dash...)

A cautionary tale, or something.

Awhile back I noticed a whole lot of CDs on Amazon.com with music attributed to one "Sigismondo d'Indy". (Relative, thought I, of Vincent, of d'India, maybe a friend of Tristan Klingsor and of James McPherson too?) At a guess of course... somewhere along the line, whether at amazon or at another site, individuals asked to enter track data had gotten a lot wrong - very often.  With a lot of CDs.  I did put in a little effort and tried to fix a few of them - the music was music I knew, and could provide some evidence that etc., was (probably- I hadn't -seen- him write it...) written by Vincent d'Indy ... and I may even have suggested in comments that Sigismondo d'Indy sounded like a confusion of two names to me; I don't recall. For whatever reason, Amazon.com does have 2 CDs attributed to "Sigismondo d'Indy" now- but that's down from quite a few more earlier (and I only corrected a couple.) Other sites, though, on a websearch, have a lot of them, it seems. There's one old-and-new Lieutenant Kijé who's still alive, you could say, awaiting only a biography

found out a few things since this thread was last current...

about Marie Felicie Clémence de Reiset Grandval's concerto, an oboe/piano 1877 manuscript is at IMSLP - don't know where or even if an oboe/orchestra manuscript exists or existed, so I now see where the question in the preceding up-to-June thread comes from.

Romantic-era and presumably style oboe concertos not, I think, mentioned in the earlier thread also include those by Christian Frederik Barth (1787-1861)'s op.12 concerto (around 1823, in manuscript only I think) and Georges Guilhaud (b.1851, date of death unknown?)'s op.15 concerto and concertino (the latter often arranged for saxophone). (Dates on the latter I don't know but will try to find out; the concertino by 1890 or so if not earlier- possibly much earlier, possibly not; saw a reference to it in a 1890 journal. Will keep looking.) Anyone familiar with these works? Not positive that the orchestral parts and scores exist in all cases, though, so 'concerto' may be anachronistic in some cases... (as in, used to be but now more a sonate concertante .) (Except for the Barth, where we have a manuscript full score.)
Eric

sorry!
already posted their catalog- though it's only, I believe, mid-evening of the first day of the month? (and that's in New Zealand. Only 2am, here East Coast USA.)
some good releases this month- some that were announced here some while ago (like the Jadassohn trios on Toccata Classics, Ernst violin music from the same label, the d'Erlanger/Cliffe and Spohr 8/10 on Hyperion, the Foroni opera on Sterling, Lyapunov, Rosza's overture and Karlowicz on Naxos, and Enna's symphony and Enescu piano quartets on cpo), etc.  A new volume of Spohr quartets - my favorite genre with him - on Marco Polo intrigues, too, and the Marxsen piano music CD on cpo has some interest for historical reasons at the least... have at least read about him a number of times!

I'm interested to see my suspicion confirmed that the Naxos CD of Weinberg's solo cello sonatas 2-4 is in fact the same recording as the Olympia 1998 disc of the same music with the same performer- good stuff.
Eric

(ok, ok, yet again )
A 47-minute chamber work from the late 19th century, the octet for strings in C op.12 by Hermann Grädener (whose father, Carl Grädener - very slightly more recorded than his son, a piano trio has been CD'd - also wrote an octet) - has been uploaded at different times in score, parts and now a recording to IMSLP - see

Grädener octet

a string quartet (no.1, in E minor from 1901, of at least 4) by Ewald Straesser (1867-1933) has been uploaded in parts and now recording (by Steve's Bedroom Band) to IMSLP; also, 2 posthumously-published Intermezzos for string trio by Charles HH Parry, a more familiar name I suspect.

Straesser op.12 no.1.

Parry Intermezzi.

(He - no, I am not a sockpuppet truly, just an interested listener, though I did upload the parts of the Straesser, true, in late 2009 when I found them on Sibley (and, more recently, the score of Straesser's 4th quartet of 1920, in the same key) - also awhile ago uploaded an early Gouvy quartet - and other works some of which have been mentioned here, some not. Anyway.)
Eric

2 works by Percy Hilder Miles (1878-1922, dates I had a difficult time finding out btw ) (friend of Lionel Tertis; infamously the teacher of Rebecca Helferich Clarke whose advances on her may have led to her father taking her out of the RAM) - have been uploaded in score or parts and in recording to IMSLP - three fantasy pieces for string quartet (1902) and a string sextet in G minor with double bass (published 1920). (Performances by Steve's Bedroom Band. I've heard that of the fantasy pieces - good! - and will be listening to that of the sextet, uploaded today, very soon.)

Fantasy Pieces

String Sextet.

Eric