Messages

Love those excerpts from the symphony - thank you. Looking forward to November 1st. Stöhr's music hits the spot for me every time!

Very interested in this  -  I had a go at orchestrating parts of the 2nd symphony from the 2 piano reduction but it proved to involve too much guesswork basically. I wonder where the score came from? The college told me there was no score!

Well done for completing this. I had a go at the 1st mov a while back but didn't get very far!

Yes I think maybe the tempo of the adagio should be quaver=60 maybe?

The finale is wonderful stuff - I really enjoyed it.  Thank you

Symphony in Eb  (1890)

Not bad for a 23 yr old !


LINK:  https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kzvChmrZrUo&t=1638s

Still looking for an image/photo of Franz Kessel please !

The photo/image is of Franz Lehar I think NOT Kessel

Thanks for the feedback.

I think when you hear the slow introduction you know you're at the start of something imposing. I orchestrated that from the piano reduction intially so I know every breath of it.

(Then I got hold of the score and I'm pleased to say my arrangement wasn't that far off the original!)

He seems to have composed very little instrumental music so I wonder if this work took him many years to craft and perfect?

[Symphony in D major, Op.12 (1863)]

Symphony in D major, Op.12 (1863)


LINK: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hEr5JZFK4Qg


(Please feel free to add to this post giving some pertinent backround info etc.. (Alan  )

It's a solid, attractive work lasting about 40 mins - composed about 1863 so at a particularly  interesting time in symphonic history.

CUT VERSION (lasting about 10 mins)

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rpS8GGWvxT8

[SO some cuts need to be made.]

I am in total agreement with the judgements. The opening, exposition is marvelous stuff. However, the middle section is the weakest - this development is a bit like wading through mud at times.

SO some cuts need to be made.

As I said it opens well, very atmospheric with the hunting horns and leads into the 6/8 allegro. (2 minutes so far)

This moves to the start of the full blown horn section with echoes ( 4 mins 30 secs)

Into a delightful waltz 2/4 against 6/8 (starting at 5 mins) which ends at bar 221

END OF EXPOSITION (6 mins)

So then it's 6 mins for development and another six for the recap making 18/19 mins in total.

........................

Maybe the middle section needs cutting and the recap needs pruning to bring the total down to about 12 mins?  Thoughts?

CUT version (lasting about 10 mins - link below)

Max Erdmannsdörfer was born in Nuremberg. He studied at the Leipzig Conservatory, becoming concertmaster at Sondershausen. In 1874 he married the pianist and composer Pauline Fichtner, a student of Franz Liszt.

Erdmannsdörfer corresponded with Liszt and he premiered Liszt's symphonic poem Hamlet at Sondershausen on 2 July 1876. He also once owned at least parts of the score of Liszt's lost Piano Concerto No. 3, which was finally pieced together only in 1989 from separate manuscript pages that had been dispersed as far afield as Weimar, Nuremberg and Leningrad.

Max Erdmannsdörfer also had an association with Joachim Raff. He and Pauline were the co-dedicatees of the two-piano version of Raff's Piano Quintet, Op. 107, and they premiered it at Sondershausen on 22 September 1877. In 1870, Pauline had been the dedicatee of Raff's Piano Suite in G minor. Erdmannsdörfer completed Raff's unfinished Symphony No. 11, Op. 214, after its composer's death, and had it published.

In 1882 he became the principal conductor of the Russian Musical Society concerts in Moscow, and professor at the Moscow Conservatory. He and his wife remained there until 1889.

He had a significant association with Tchaikovsky. While Tchaikovsky wrote that Erdmannsdörfer was "inclined to indulge the public's taste of exaggerated nuances" and "offhanded in his attitude to Russian music (except my own)", he nevertheless considered him "a very skilful, experienced and expert conductor". Tchaikovsky permitted him to conduct the premiere performance of his Symphony No. 1 (revised version, 1 December 1883)

His compositions are few in number and now completely forgotten. Until now, of course:

Prinzessin Ilse (1872) The overture to a secular cantata.

LINK:  https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rpS8GGWvxT8

Answered thank you - 

[Franz Kessel]

I'm after a photo/image of the composer Franz Kessel (1862—1931)

All my searches have been fruitless. Help would be appreciated.

Thank you.

A beautifully crafted website. A wondeful resource! Thank you.

[Ouverture Fantasie (1907)]

Vasily Zolotarev (1872-1964) was born in the Russian city of Taganrog. He studied at the St Petersburg Conservatory with Rimsky-Korsakov and Mily Balakirev. He taught at the Moscow Conservatory for a number of years and then in Belarusian Academy of Music in Minsk.

Ouverture Fantasie lasts for about 14 mins and has, for me,  glimpses of the Russian masters,  Rimsky-Korsakov, Tchaikovsky and even Stravinski (listen 05:40) who was a contemporary (a little later maybe)

Ouverture Fantasie (1907)  https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NgcWpvKLumY