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Messages - Friesner

#1
Recordings & Broadcasts / Re: Hugo Stähle Piano Quartet
Thursday 14 August 2014, 23:53
Apparently a reissue of a 1987 disc with a slightly revamped cover.  I wonder when the American (re-)release date will be; as of now all we have are a couple of used copies on offer for idiotic prices.  In any event it's a must-have for me as well. 
#2
8th July.  That's the date of the release in the US (per Amazon).  But we can pre-order....
#3
My Herzogenberg collection groweth again!  If CPO keeps going I may some day need a dedicated shelf.  That would be wonderful!

(Unfortunately this Requiem isn't released in the 'States yet, but it will be.  Takes a few months.)

Meanwhile, thank you for the heads-up Mr. Howe, I shall bide my time by replaying everything I already have.   
#4
Wheesht - I'm thinking that, once Juon moved 'back' to Vevey and the Swiss more or less adopted him as their own, the presumption of French origin took over.  For the longest time that's what I was calling him, until I learned otherwise....
#5
I had heard (or seen) "YOU-on" which seems to me to work in either Russian or German. 
#6
Good news indeed.  Now how about the violin concerti?  I simply cannot afford the one and only copy I've seen for sale of the old Sybille Tschopp recording of one of them - and in any case, that's just one; I want 'em all!

I do believe I had seen (via the Juon Society web site) that there was a Naxos orchestral disc in the works, to be recorded in Moscow and released early this year.  But the mention is gone now and I've got no further hint anywhere else.  And of course no release of the disc.  Anybody know anything, or am I merely remembering a fantasy I had?   ;D

Also - Amazon US now lists another disc played by pianist Igor Kraevsky, titled Satyre und Nymphen and containing a number of Juon's piano miniatures that have not shown up elsewhere.  I ordered a copy an hour ago so no comments to be made just yet, but I'm eagerly waiting!!  Here's the US listing:

http://www.amazon.com/Satyre-Und-Nymphen-Paul-Juon/dp/B00J0BBY28/ref=pd_ybh_1
#7
Things I hope are found (but I'm not holding my breath):

1.  The pages of Schubert's "Lazarus" that were supposedly used years later to light fireplaces.
2.  Johann Wilms's 2d Symphony, which is supposedly lost
3.  Am I correct that Kalliwoda's First Sym. exists only as a 2-piano reduction (as recorded), with the orchestration lost?  If so, find it!  If not, record it!
4.  OFF-THREAD:  Someone mentioned the "fake" Haydn Oboe Con.  I'd like to have them find the real one, if there was one.  Also the real 2-Horn Con., not the Rosetti one that was passed off as Haydn at one time.  And the D Major Violin Con.  And the Contrabass Con.  And the real flute con.  Greedy, ain't I?   
#8
eschiss 1 says  "When it comes down to it I haven't always, for all my listening life, been convinced that Schubert is the Austrian Schubert- so to speak- where the former definition is concerned."

Forgive me please if my synapses have fused or garbled, but I have no idea who Schubert could be if not the Austrian one.  Surely you cannot mean the Dresden one?  (Unsung and welcome to it!)  I quite agree that 1-10 pigeon-holings (?) are asinine; but on those days when I am constrained to play that game, Schubert - the Austrian, and substantively the only - zooms straight into the upper echelons every time.  But of course he's by no means unsung, therefore not appropriate here; which of course is why I bothered to mention the Dresden one at all....

Seriously - I'd appreciate a clarification of your intent. 
#9
Composers & Music / Re: Von Klenau - Symphony 9
Monday 21 April 2014, 18:06
Wow.  Thank you ever so much for a truly monumental upload.  I really like it when some nice person makes my day.   :) :) :) 

I have the DaCapo CDs of the 1st, 5th and 7th, and have been wondering if there was any chance we'd ever get to hear any more of Klenau's ridiculously-neglected works.  Well, here's a big step indeed (too bad they haven't issued it to public sale, but maybe that's planned?), and I can only hope there's more to be found one of these days soon.  (Although - considering that this 9th is longer than anything in Bruckner or Mahler except the M.3 or when Celibidache was involved - it's perhaps not the best place to start trying to sell this neglected person to the public.  Still, hope doth spring eternal....)
#10
Thanks for the heads-up.  Amazon.co.uk has it listed for release on 5th May (though apparently you can download the mp3 right now).  No idea when or if it will turn up here in the 'States, but I'll be on the lookout....
#11
Recordings & Broadcasts / Hugo Staehle songs
Friday 04 April 2014, 03:10
Just received my copy of the Hugo Staehle song recital on Brilliant 94492 (one CD):  Two sets of Lieder (six of Op. 2 and a set of eight WoO), two individual songs on different poems titled Gebet (the second of which had been set in a radically different way by Schubert, D.171), and - stuck right in the middle - a little Marcia for solo keyboard.  The booklet has notes in English, along with descriptions of several of the individual items; the texts are given in German only.  Performers:  Eleonora Contucci, soprano; Costantino Mastroprimiano, fortepiano (Conrad Graf 1826). 

Hearing Staehle at all is a major feat, and I have a suspicion this is a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity.  Lieder lovers (count me in that category) will want this very much; that said, Staehle was no Schubert, no Schumann, no Brahms, but in the secondary ranks he is quite a bit above most of the people whose work I know from this era.  And certainly the disc is cheap enough so that even if you hate it - hard to imagine - you haven't lost much.  The same performers incidentally already did a Brilliant (label) disc of songs (& piano sonata) of Burgmüller which I do not have but have just ordered.

All that said, there are a couple of cavils.  While the pianist does a fine and very appropriate job with his part, the reverberating acoustic gives a wee bit much echo to an instrument that ought to have been a little less heavy.  The reason is no doubt the weight of the soprano's voice; at least the engineers have helped thetwo instruments match one another, but rather more lyricism is called for here I'd think.  This is not La Boheme.  There is also unfortunately a small amount of pitch difficulty in the top range of her delivery. 

But with all, even if not perfect, it's likely to be the best we'll ever get.  And it's worth more flaws than this has just to get to hear the better songs in these groups.  (There are some excellent ones, and nothing at all is in any way second-rate.)  Four stars, minimum.   
#12
Composers & Music / Re: Max Laurischkus (1876-1929)
Saturday 22 March 2014, 14:34
Yes it's off-topic, but a couple of you seem to be interested, so:

Re:  Exclave.  I have a friend, currently curating the map collection at the Nat'l. Library of Australia, whose Ph.D. specifically dealt with exclaves.  He didn't deal with Kaliningrad/Königsberg, but he did study some really strange ones on the border between Burma and Thailand, and also Belgium/Netherlands.  For the latter, and for a bit of a marvel at how complicated this can get, look here:
                        https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Baarle-Nassau

My friend has had a book published concerning this border in the 1914-18 war, and how - keeping in mind that Belgium was occupied but the Netherlands was not - gave rise to a primitive but effective bit of espionage involving early radio and towers erected in the Netherlands exclaves to snoop on German troop movements in Belgium.

This concludes my deviation from music for today.   
#13
Composers & Music / Re: Hugo Staehle (1826-1848)
Saturday 22 March 2014, 13:24
Two replies here:  First, Mr. Thomas, thanks for the update on Sterling, I'd hate to see them go under as they have dredged up some wonderful things that nobody else cares to touch, viz. the Staehle symphony that started this discussion.

Second, that piano quartet.  So far as I'm aware, no, not yet done, and in fact it was an attempt to search that one out that led me to the song cycle recording.  Of course I am not all-seeing or all-knowing, so I suppose it's possible an obscure label has issued something under my personal radar.  But if so, they're hiding it very well. 

I don't suppose it would do any good to write letters of pleading to, e.g., the CPO people exhorting them to give us a new recording of the symphony - nothing wrong with the old one except it's no longer available apparently - perhaps coupled with the quartet, assuming they'd both fit on one disc....  (Staehle seems to have written on the long side - a symphony at 41 min. in the late 1840s is rather not the norm, nor is a song cycle such as the one that started this thread, coming in at 57 min.  Wonder how long the quartet is?)

Oh, there's also supposed to be a concert overture.  And maybe even a separable overture or prologue to his opera?
#14
Eschiss - Colladant did indeed get quite carried away with Wölfl, and I see on amazon.co.uk that someone is asking £165 for the set now!  But individual discs were also issued and some of those are affordable.  These don't seem to have been issued in the US, at least I can't find any.  I bought the box a couple of years ago from a seller in France, shipped via a friend in Wales. 

The other single disc you mention might well have been one of three (I think) sonatas on the American label Genesis, originally an LP and reissued as a CD but long gone now.  Pianist was Vladimir Pleshakov.  I had the LP, but at the time wasn't impressed (= sophisticated) enough to care that much, so I never upgraded to the CD.  I do recall that at about the same time Pleshakov recorded LPs of two other obscurities of about the same vintage, Bonifacio Asioli and J.W.Rust; those have been combined now into a single CD (missing a work or two from the originals) and that one can still be had from third-party sellers in the US.  Not worth much trouble in my opinion; the two composers are a nudge better than competent, but that's as far as I'd go. 

There's also a CD of some sonatas played by one Jon Nakamitsu, that's still in print but I've never heard it.  I do know it's modern piano, as was Pleshakov.
#15
Recordings & Broadcasts / Re: Victorin de Joncieres
Friday 21 March 2014, 01:07
Oh my.  I should have looked at Google BEFORE making that post just above.

Felix-Ludger Rossignol, a.k.a. Victorin de Joncieres.  The opera from which my aria was taken was "Sardanapale."  And now, for some strange reason, because I've remembered the name, I can also recall a few more snatches of the aria.  Weird.