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...... The 1916 Rosa Mystica Viola Concerto (a lovely work!) performed by Roger Chase, BBC Concert Orchestra / Stephen Bell, which came out on Dutton c/w the Stanley Bate Va Concerto.

Totally agree, Peter - what a marvellous disc this is, and the Rosa Mystica was a revelation for me. It left me saying "Who was this man? Why don't we know his music?"  The list with which Giles initiated he thread is quite amazing... yet another possible treasure trove by an Unsung Composer!

I have really enjoyed this discussion regarding the reasons for the symphony's neglect.

Since the response of audiences and critics when it was performed in the early years seems to rule out a perception that it was simply not that good, my own tentative explanation is that it arrived on the musical scene just as tastes changed, and the music world was pursuing new forms; and, it was overshadowed by Bloch's subsequent works because they were more in tune with the interwar zeitgeist, they were also shorter and more amenable to being added to a concert programme and put on a 78!

The third factor - Bloch's Jewishness and his explicit musical attachment to Jewish traditions - reportedly played a part in the unwillingness of authorities in France and Germany to perform the work during the inter-war years, but it doesn't seem to have been so strong as to affect the popularity of subsequent works during that period.

Anyhoo - all that aside, I love its shades of Bruckner, Mahler, and Strauss, as noted, and I reckon it's a very fine work!

Look here for the recording.
http://www.gmrecordings.com/gm2027.htm
There is a score available at IMSLP.

Thanks for that. Gosh, there's a lot of unusual music in the GM catalogue. I need to win the lottery! 

Yes, if only the others had someone like JoAnn Falletta! She was surely an inspired choice (http://www.joannfalletta.com/biography.html)

Yes, indeed. Better late than never! In any case, my funds are already promised to so many of the new CDs mentioned on UC. Santa's sack will be overflowing as it is! 

I wasn't thinking of a commercial recording, Peter, just one that might end up as a podcast or a download - on the George Lloyd website for example. As to the Albany recordings, the use of British performers illustrates a point I was making in the thread about the plight of US orchestras - namely that they (and American composers) are often passed over in their own country in favour of Europeans.

We should not forget, however, that interest in Lloyd's music is entirely a British phenomenon, notably through the efforts of John Ogdon, Richard Itter at Lyrita, the BBC and not least Edward Downes. A broadcast of the 8th set the ball rolling. Lloyd himself eventually made some 40 recordings. According to the GL webwsite, some 30 performances of his music are scheduled (in the UK alone I think) for 2013 - his centenary year - including at least five performances of Iernin. So, there is certainly no longer any neglect of Lloyd's music in Britain, the Albany contract notwithstanding. 

...(or should I say Czern?) out as many symphonies as he wanted. .....

Nice one, John! 

Might they make a recording of their performance? 

Gosh, that is really something to look forward to, Mark. 
Do you know when it is likely to appear on the shelf?

I think many of us will have become aware of German's music through the coupling of his Welsh Rhapsody with McCunn's Land of the Mountain and the Flood, etc, on the SNO/Gibson LP. I was always keen to hear more, and was so pleased when the lovely Norwich symphony became available, and subsequently other orchestral works on several Marco Polo discs. The more recent Dutton disc, featuring the first symphony (which I hadn't heard before) and other orchestral pieces, is a delight - serious classical music but with that familiar hint of wistful charm. Obviously, I agree totally that it's time for a new Merrie England recording!

Well, it's the lack of Pistons and Crestons etc that keep me from attending concerts.

It's the plethora of Stockhausens, Boulezes, etc. that keep me away. And I too would go for concerts featuring good, tonal 20th/21stC music. But it's the restricted 19thC repertoire that's the real scandal.

Yes, my feelings too.

The Minneapolis/Vanska story was noted during our morning classical programme here in Australia, and so too was the very dramatic fall in the number of orchestras in Germany (sorry I don't have the details to hand - but the figures were staggering).

I can't speak directly to the U.S. situation, but I can't believe that it's all down to poor attendances at live concerts. Isn't it also due to globalization of the music industry, the proliferation of small CD companies, and the increased prominence of what were previously domestic orchestras? Many less well-known orchestras are now just as likely as the big named orchestras to win recording contracts with the major multinational companies.  Many  U.S. orchestras seem to have suffered from an inability to compete in such a frenzied marketplace. CBS Masterworks seems to have been their main source of recording contracts, then Sony/BMG Masterworks, latterly Sony Masterworks. A search for "Sony Masterworks"  Amazon suggests that they have taken  a crossover/pop-classics philosophy, sitting alongside their archival classical recordings, rather than using the established U.S. orchestras to make new recordings. Even less are they interested in the vast,  neglected U.S. repertoire. The main outlet nowadays, I suppose, is the Naxos American series, but even there the orchestras are often not the old top-drawer U.S. ones.  A quick look via Amazon shows they've recently used the ElginSO, the RSNO, the BBCConOrch, the Ulster Orch, the RTE Orch, a couple of Canadian orchestras, and the Detroit SO.  And the U.S. orchestras can hardly be expected to compete with the burgeoning list of brilliant European and ex-Soviet bloc orchestras which now appear not only on Naxos but also on Chandos, CPO, Sterling, Brilliant Classics, etc., etc..

In short, the market is highly competitive, global, and unmoved by reputations. It is, I'm sure, only one factor among, but  it is no surprise that good U.S. orchestras are struggling.

How good it is to have Adriano among our number on UC! 
I have never heard Brun's first symphony, only the second, but I will certainly be buying the CD.

Hmmm - I'd like to hear that, because so far I've never heard anything by Paine that I didn't like.

I have been trying to understand why this excellent symphony has been so neglected. The first two performances, in 1910 and 1915, were well received, but the timeline at the Ernest Bloch Legacy site (http://www.ernestbloch.org/) does not mention any further performances until Bloch conducted the U.S. premiere in 1918. Then there are further U.S. performances in 1918. 1919 and 1920, and several during 1927. The timeline notes that it appeared on the programme of the Bloch Festival concerts Mengelberg held in Holland in 1929, and was performed several times in Britain during 1952, with the BBC orchestra under Clarence Raybould. And that's it! Less than a dozen performances are mentioned over a roughly 50 year period.

It seems that European conductors were reluctant to champion a manifestly Jewish composer in the inter-war years, with requests from Bloch for them to play his music repeatedly turned down. In the U.S., the Symphony seems to have been rapidly overshadowed by Bloch's other early works. The "racial" (not my term!) aspect of Bloch's musical philosophy is discussed in a chapter of a book reviewed in the first of the four annual Newsletters of the International Ernest Bloch Society (http://www.ernestblochsociety.org/newsletter/newsletter.html). Although the symphony is not mentioned in any of the newsletters, they are well worth a read.

I can't find any evidence of a 78rpm recording - in contrast to Schelomo and the Israel Symphony - nor of a broadcast performance (e.g. by the NYPO or the Phil.). The Bloch discographical site (http://claude.torres1.perso.sfr.fr/Bloch/index.html) lists only one LP recording - the St Louis under Robert Hart Baker (1984, Bloch Society) and three on CD - Gunzenhauser on Marco Polo, Markiz on BIS and Atlas on Naxos.

It seems that the first symphony just got forgotten, and whenever Bloch was included on the concert programme it was Schelomo, Baal Shem or similar that was chosen. I wonder if anyone on the forum can explain it? 

I just joined this forum .....

It's a great pleasure to have you join the UC forum, Brendan. It is always heartening to learn of someone advocating for the unsung composers and urging the recordng companies accordingly (as a number of our members do).
I must listen to the YT examples of Bittner's music - of which I'm sorry to say I know nothing!