Details here:
http://www.duttonvocalion.co.uk/proddetail.asp?prod=CDLX7315&cat=385 (http://www.duttonvocalion.co.uk/proddetail.asp?prod=CDLX7315&cat=385)
Didn't see this one coming!
Hugely welcome. I had always considered Widor something of a one-work wonder until the recordings of his piano concertos and the Second Symphony and Cello Concerto appeared. What delights they revealed. I can't wait for this latest offering.
oh man!! great news indeed! I'll receive it! ;D
Both new Duttons, the Widor and the Loeffler, will go to my next-to-buy list right away! Great news indeed. I love Widor's Cello Concerto.
Great news indeed! I must get it!
Yes, I was very impressed with the 'Cello Concerto/2nd Symphony disc...especially the symphony. I hadn't realised Widor had written a Violin Concerto. Wikipedia doesn't mention it and it seems as though it doesn't have an opus number. Can't wait to hear it!
Wonderful new. Dutton are working very good! Widor isn't only one great composer for organ. He wrote some a lot of pieces for piano, orchestral works, operas, ballets, etc!! I hope soon get it!
The Widor violin concerto was published, if at all, only in reduction (I think not published in reduction, either, just manuscript through and through); the full score, I think, is in manuscript at the French National Library. It's from around 1894. French national library notes to which acc. to Worldcat (http://www.worldcat.org/title/concerto-pour-violon-et-orchestre-par-ch-m-widor/oclc/842449959):
"Auteur identifié d'après l'écriture.
Oeuvre identifiée d'après la réduction.
Daté à la fin : 20 sept. 94.
On a joint 4 p. de corrections autogr. biffées".
That is, I think, the full score doesn't identify the composer or the work, which information had to be deduced from the penmanship and the work itself from the reduction ms. (http://www.worldcat.org/title/concerto-violon-et-orchestre-par-ch-m-widor-reduction-pour-violon-et-piano/oclc/842449962) - the latter of which has an alternate version of the finale, by the way, according to its "notes"...
I think we are talking about two violin concertos, right? The one on the Dutton CD is the first violin concerto from 1877 and there is the manuscript of the second violin concerto at teh French National Library which dates from 1894.
Best,
Tobias
hrm, my mistake... interesting, that.
WHAT? 2 Violin concertos by Widor? Are you sure......?
The first (?) violin concerto was published in 1877 as Op. 26.
There's also at the Bibliothèque nationale de France an autograph manuscript of a violin concerto, dated 20 Sept 1894, containing 4 pages of (crossed) corrections and "identified from its reduction". Is it a second violin concerto, or a late revision of Op. 26? A facsimile of this autograph can be ordered for 45 euros (http://catalogue.bnf.fr/servlet/RechercheEquation;jsessionid=860E9A8C3C8D74AB1179E16BC1D01D04?TexteCollection=HGARSTUVWXYZ1DIECBMJNQLOKP&TexteTypeDoc=DESNFPIBTMCJOV&Equation=IDP%3Dcb43337426h&host=catalogue (http://catalogue.bnf.fr/servlet/RechercheEquation;jsessionid=860E9A8C3C8D74AB1179E16BC1D01D04?TexteCollection=HGARSTUVWXYZ1DIECBMJNQLOKP&TexteTypeDoc=DESNFPIBTMCJOV&Equation=IDP%3Dcb43337426h&host=catalogue).
Dutton's record mentions only the year 1877 for the violin concerto.
What key is the VC on the new Dutton CD in? Toskey only mentions one VC - in E minor (no date supplied).
To make the story more complicated, a research of "widor violin" with google leads to an album "Aaron Rosand in Norway" supposedly containing Widor's concerto op. 26. http://www.juneclassic.net/EN/album/albumdetail.jsp?albumno=gt7nc9nc (http://www.juneclassic.net/EN/album/albumdetail.jsp?albumno=gt7nc9nc)
Another search, on prestoclassical mentions Klaus Egge's violin concerto op. 26 instead.
http://www.prestoclassical.co.uk/w/160956/Klaus-Egge-Violin-Concerto-Op-26 (http://www.prestoclassical.co.uk/w/160956/Klaus-Egge-Violin-Concerto-Op-26)
This is a red herring, I'm afraid. The Op.26 piece on the Rosand set is definitely by Egge, not Widor! (I have the CDs!)
Can anyone consult the works list (Appendix 2) in this book, please?>>
http://www.urpress.com/store/viewItem.asp?idProduct=13483 (http://www.urpress.com/store/viewItem.asp?idProduct=13483)
Could one of the works "in question" be an orchestration of Widor's also little-known violin sonata, perhaps?
I doubt it, Eric. The VS dates from 1907, according to the Thorofon recording of it.
I have been in touch with Dutton.....they put me in touch with Martin Yates who replied very quickly:
There is only one concerto for violin and orchestra and it was indeed written in 1877. It recieved a fairly disastrous first and only performance. In 1894 Widor worked on revisions to the work. It was not quite finished and the full score has some omissions but with a few exceptions these are included in the piano reduction, which is listed in the BNP as a reduction but it is in fact a short score on three staves mostly. There is a substantial cadenza near the end of the work and this was incomplete in both the full score and the short score, but at the back of the short score there are very scruffily written out notes for how the cadenza is to go. The full score is signed by Widor but the short score is not. They are both in the same hand and are the same work, so there was no guesswork as to identifying the composer as Widor. As to the opus number given to it there is no mention of this on either score but it is catalogued as op.26. That is what Martin wrote me. He added that it has real charm and is in one long movement of several sections. He also mentioned that we should all enjoy Nuit de Walpurgis. I have ordered it already, so let's hope many others do too as it is only our support that will allow Martin and Dutton to carry on with theses discoveries.
Hrm. And now I think of it, there are two Widor violin sonatas, both of them a few times recorded, and I think I was perhaps thinking of something else- maybe. Thanks for clearing up the situation about the one-and-revised violin concerto.
Thanks for the clarification, musiclover. Toskey was right!
Thanks a lot for the information, musiclover!
Best,
Tobias
Dear friends, thank you for your research. The 2 violin sonates are in one recording of Centaur. There are excellent pieces. Surely the violin concert and Walpurgis night will be wonderful discoveries!
Musiclover, thanks for this valuable information.
This next record will make all symphonies and all concertos of Widor available!
Not a concerto so-named, but is the orchestral form of his Choral & Variations for harp (sometimes recorded with piano or organ accompaniment) available in a commercial recording?
This score for harp and orchestra was dedicated to Hasselmans. I wait soon can be performance and recording. 2016 :-\
Neat- thank you.
Has anyone received and listened to their copy yet?
No. It's been on order for a couple of weeks, but so far no show!
I'll wait till I can download it from iTunes...
Dutton tell me that the physical CD will be out at the end of January.
Thanks for that information Alan. I will stop watching for the postman then!
The VC's a very attractive piece indeed - and beautifully played by Sergey Levitin. We all owe Martin Yates an enormous debt of gratitude for this piece of sleuthing - and reconstruction work. Although not particularly long (approx 24:30), it seems to pack in an awful lot in that time span. I'd say there were some similarities to Saint-Saëns, although some of the climaxes pack a tougher punch, as it were. I don't think it's a major discovery (unlike, say, the roughly contemporary Raff VC1 or the Dietrich VC), but it's an uncommonly appealing one.
More on the remainder of the CD anon...
Finally got my copy....I agree with Alan about the concerto, it is a really beautiful piece and Sergey Levitin is an exceptional player. Hopefully he will be doing more with Yates and Dutton. Reading About Levitin I guess he and Yates know each other as they both work at the Royal Opera House. An outstanding player. I was taken with the early Symohony, it does fit into the genre of all those symphonies written as entrance pieces for the Prix de Rome, but it also has the most delicious slow movement, almost Elgarian.
The Nuit de Walpurgis is a very colourful work and well worth hearing and the orchestral playing by the RSNO is outstanding. Why Yates isn't their chief conductor I just don't know. Musical tastes too eclectic perhaps. Whatever, Yates has done a great job resurrecting this basically "lost" concerto and has done a wonderful job on behalf of unsungs generally. This disc is worth having in my opinion. I keep listening to the concerto. It is really something.
Still waiting for my copy! :'(
I hope I won't wait too long for it to reach France!
Is Levitin a common surname? Reminds me of a Soviet-era composer. Still, I expect the answer is "yes, it is".
The Symphony No.1 in F minor is very much of its period (1870); the first movement reminds me somewhat of Svendsen, which may seem rather odd, but probably reflects their shared commitment to the broadly conservative tradition which one might describe in both cases as 'Leipzig plus'. The slow movement, scherzo and finale are similar in style to, say, Saint-Saëns or Godard (not to say Mendelssohn or Raff - one should never underestimate the latter's influence in this period).
Still this is extremely attractive and vigorous stuff, with not a note wasted. Again, not an undiscovered masterpiece, but well worth anyone's attention.
I wonder why the Dutton recording of the 2nd symphony appeared before the 1st. I suppose there is some logic to it (?)
I suspect that for their three Widor CD recordings, Dutton chose to release them in declining order of commercial appeal. That's to say, create a market for Widor with the Piano Concertos, both very strong and attractive works, and it'll stay with you for the discs with the two symphonies, the Second being again a stronger work than the First. Much as I like the music on this latest CD, for me none of it has the impact of the Piano Concertos.
Quite right, Mark.
For those who, like me, cannot wait for their cd to arrive, you can hear it from spotify.
Have you listened to La Nuit de Walpurgis yet, Alan? Incidentally, I thought this work contained a part for chorus? Where did I read this?... Ah, yes. On the Naxos website. http://www.naxos.com/person/Charles_Marie_Widor/22417.htm (http://www.naxos.com/person/Charles_Marie_Widor/22417.htm) "His symphonic poem La Nuit de Walpurgis ('Walpurgis Night') is scored for chorus and orchestra,"... Perhaps they got it wrong, or perhaps the chorus is "ad lib.", or perhaps there are two versions. Anyone know? Fleisher lists score and parts with no mention of a chorus. On the other hand, the Wikipedia article on Widor http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Charles-Marie_Widor (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Charles-Marie_Widor) gives this entry in his list of compositions: "La nuit de Walpurgis - poeme symphonique op. 60 (1887, Hamelle) - Chorus and Orchestra".
I haven't listened to the piece yet, Gareth, but the sleevenote says that the piece can be performed with chorus, although it is omitted here.
Ah, clearly an optional part. All the same, I imagine it was the composer's intention that it be performed with chorus. Nevertheless, costs would probably have been prohibitive for Dutton. Do let me know what you think when you listen to it.
Strange, I have a copy of the full score. There is no chorus part at all and there is no mention of a chorus in the review of the London Premier with the Royal Philharmonic Society. Maybe it's a different piece.
Hrm. Maybe the choral parts are in ms- will look to see if the BNF catalog provides any information here.
Not that i can see, except conversely? Original orchestral score and parts dedicated to London Society, description @ BNF (http://catalogue.bnf.fr/ark:/12148/cb42372729v/PUBLIC) (digitized by BNF- press "visualizer" to have a look at the parts); etc. --
hrm. Yes, "chorus" @ Op60 @ IMSLP worklist e.g. shouldn't be there, I think. Putting in a request for better sourcing of that line... even if a Widor biographer can locate a letter in which the composer expressed the intention (if; that's hypothetical...) there would be the matter of , well, whether any choral parts ever existed.
Ok, hrm, composed 1888, published by Hamelle, then published by Heugel in 1908, which latter copy is the source of the version @ BNF - ah, there's an alternate title, Nuit de sabbat, under which I need to be searching too...
Thanks for the response to my query about the order of recording, Alan and Mark. :)
So, are they right? Is Widor's 1st symphony less appealing than his 2nd?
In short, Colin: yes.
I asked Dutton about the order of the recordings and they said it was the choice of Martin Yates to do the Widor recordings and the Piano Concertos were they obvious place to start because at the time there was no recording of those. As it happened Hyperion's recording came out just a month after the Dutton version. Regarding the two purely orchestral symphonies the decision to record No.2 first was much simpler than anything suggested here. There was orchestral material for No.2 and there wasn't any for No.1. Also No.2 used slightly larger forces than No.1 and as they were doing the cello concerto recording with the RSNO (and at the time thought they may do No.1 with either the Northern Sinfonia or the BBC Concert Orchestra), it seemed more sensible to do Symphony No.2 first.
In the end the orchestral material for Symphony No.1 was created by Emma Syrus, from the ROH, who I was told works closely with Martin Yates on all his projects.
Ah, interesting, thanks for that. I do still think though that, even if not done for commercial reasons, the order of release does happen to reflect the strength of the compositions on each disc. Symphony No.1 is a perfectly enjoyable work, fluently put together, expertly orchestrated and with some attractive material. But, as Alan pointed out in his first impressions, it lacks individuality and often sounds more mid-century German than French. That, and what I suspect will prove to be a lack of memorable melodies, rob it of the freshness and vitality which, perversely, some of the later works in Dutton's series exhibit. It's not a bad work at all, but is certainly not Widor's best. I'm afraid that, although it has more French individuality to it, I wasn't too excited by the newly-unearthed Violin Concerto either. It seemed to be rather a rambling piece, but I've only given it one hearing so far, and I'm not going to rush to judgement. On the face of it La Nuit de Walpurgis is the stand out work here. It's mature Widor, has a Wagnerian depth, lots of pace in the outer movements where, for obvious reasons I suppose, I was reminded of Frank's Le chausseur maudit and Guiraud's Chasse fantastique, and a sumptuous middle one.
I think the Cello concerto is a much stronger work than either of the Piano Concertos. I also think the Fantasy for Piano and Orchestra is too. The violin concerto took me a couple of hearings. Once I found my way around its structure I really do like it. It's not a great lost work but it didn't deserve to be totally ignored. It would be lovely if it gave young and amateur violinists a chance to expand their repertoire but it's probably more difficult than it may appear and Sergey Levtin plays it so well as to make it sound straightforward!
Someone must have created the orchestral material used for the old radio tape performance I have of Widor's symphony 1 (for French radio, I think), though. Maybe it got lost...
The date Dutton gives for sym.1 , 1870, differs from that @ BNF (http://catalogue.bnf.fr/ark:/12148/cb43337491z/PUBLIC), 20 June-20 August 1872. Interesting.
I think the two PCs are Widor's most substantial and interesting pieces of those we've been discussing, followed by Symphony No.2. La Nuit de Walpurgis is certainly the most individual piece on the latest CD, although I'm bound to say that Franck or Saint-Saëns did this sort of ghosty-ghouly stuff rather better. The middle movement of the Widor symphonic poem was the most attractive of the three for me - it rather reminded me of a Massenet intermezzo (almost verismo).
If my memory serves me correctly, the BBC broadcast a Symphony (No1 in F, I'm sure) sometime in the 1980's and I do actually have somewhere an old cassette of this together with the performance details, although at present I can't lay my hands on this! I'm sure, though, that it featured one of the BBC orchestras, rather than being of French origin, and therefore can we assume that the BBC may have performing material still, unless of course this was obtained from another source at the time? Perhaps someone can remember this or may have the information to hand?
Cadensa confirms the existence of a BBC recording (or a commercial recording available to BBC announcers, but I think the former in this case) of symphony 1 @ BBC - and one of symphony no.2 in A op.54 (which the cataloguers, got to love them, think is an "alternate title" for his organ symphony no.2, Op.13/2, excerpted) - but provides no detail on the former recording; clicking on the usual link on the Cadensa work page just brings one, not to a list of recordings, but right back to the work page...
I think my tape was probably of the BBC performance, with another performance, of piano concerto no.2, on the reverse; not sure if the tape came with performance details or where I got it from, since sometimes my memory, short-term and long-term, deserves the name only in honor of earlier days.
The 1st Symphony, although referred to as being in "Fa" is in F minor. I've seen the score - 4 flats, and the tonal scheme in the opening movement is definitely centered around the minor mode. Not a particularly individual piece, but entertaining. The 2nd is more characteristic.
I have obtained a copy of THE LIFE AND TIMES OF CHARLES-MARIE WIDOR 1844-1937 by Andrew Thomson (OUP, 1989, revised edition). In it he writes of the Royal Philharmonic Society of London giving "the world premiere of his symphonie 'La Nuit de Walpurgis on 19 April, 1888" and goes on: "In contrast with the classical formalism of the two earlier orchestral symphonies, 'La Nuit de Walpurgis' constituted a passing gesture towards Liszt's 'Music of the Future' with its programme based on an episode from the locus classicus of German Romanticism, Goethe's Faust. Composed in three movements, the extraordinary inventiveness of the orchestral textures owes much to Berlioz's Symphonie Fantastique." So it would appear Widor may have thought of it as a 3rd symphony on a Lisztian model. (Oh, there is no mention of a chorus - so this would appear to be a piece of misinformation... as Eric's researches indicate.)
JimL- agreed re key of Op.16... (The full score is now @ IMSLP, by the way.)
Further to my recent post on this subject, I have just located my cassette recording of this work together with the printed programme details extracted from the Radio Times, and although I don't have the date (early 1980's?), I can confirm that this was listed as Widor: Symphony No1 in F, with the Ulster Orchestra conducted by Kenneth Montgomery. I hope this clarification may be of assistance!
Just received the CD this morning! :D
If you are still waiting, let me remind that you can hear a mp3 version of it on spotify for free.
Something peculiar about the CD... It's a SACD hybrid disk. I happen to have a SACD player. To my surprise, it's a 2-channel SACD. In the menu, contrary to other SACD, I have only one choice: 2-channels.
If this is really the case, is there a difference between a 2-channel SACD and a regular CD?
Higher resolution is all.
along with all of the other Dutton releases from the latest batch!! :D :D
Now I come on a notice of Marsick playing a Widor violin concerto in 1877. ... have to look over this thread again to see what was up with that- 2 versions of the same work, or ... or... :)