Messages

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!

Great sleuthing, Eric! 

[Graener, Paul]

Biographical entry for Paul Graener from New Grove:

Graener, Paul
(b Berlin, 11 Jan 1872; d Salzburg, 13 Nov 1944). German composer and conductor. He was a self-taught musician who received some formal instruction in composition from Albert Becker at the Veit Conservatory in Berlin. Much of his practical experience was gained working as a Kapellmeister in Bremerhaven, Königsberg and Berlin. In 1896 he settled in London where for a time he was conductor of the orchestra at the Theatre Royal, Haymarket. When his contract was terminated after a conflict with the director, he remained in England teaching privately and secured a position at the RAM. He returned to the Continent in 1908 and taught composition at the Neues Konservatorium in Vienna. From 1910 to 1913 he directed the Salzburg Mozarteum, and he spent the next seven years teaching in several German cities. In 1920 he succeeded Reger as professor of composition at the Leipzig Conservatory, a position he occupied for five years. In 1930 he moved to Berlin where he directed the Stern Conservatory, and four years later held masterclasses in composition at the Akademie der Künste. In 1932 he became active in the Berlin section of Rosenberg's Kampfbund für deutsche Kultur. Joining the Nazi party in 1933, he was appointed vice-president of the Reichsmusikkammer by Goebbels, and replaced Strauss as director of the composers' division in the same organization in 1935.

Graener attained technical fluency in most areas of composition, though he never established an individual identity in the manner of his immediate contemporaries Strauss, Pfitzner and Reger. A staunch traditionalist, he remained opposed to modernism, and was generally overlooked during the Weimar Republic until the late 1920s, when his mystical opera Hanneles Himmelfahrt (1927) was embraced by conservative music critics and administrators as a healthy alternative to then popular Zeitoper. Of his many orchestral works, the suite Die Flöte von Sanssouci became well known and was performed by such conductors as Toscanini.

Graener's fortunes changed dramatically after the Nazis came to power. Elevated to a position of some influence, he was able to secure more frequent performances of his compositions, and received a prestigious commission from the Berlin Staatsoper for his opera Der Prinz von Homburg (1935). The work, however, proved to be fatally flawed in terms of its dramatic and psychological impact, and soon disappeared from the repertory. This failure undoubtedly undermined Graener's prestige, and although he remained loyal to the regime for the rest of his life, his later work was greeted more with respect than genuine enthusiasm.

Thanks Eric. So - same performers (+1) as for the Piano Quartet, broadcast two weeks later. Both fine pieces.

Yet another to go on the 'must buy' list! I cannot resist the pleasure of Paine. 

I keep hearing hints of the Dvorak and Tchaikovsky serenades... then I'm thinking English string music .... then Grieg and the Scandinavians. But in the end they are just utterly charming pieces. I think the Wolf Serenade is especially sweet. Thank you three times over, Mark. 

[1) "Matthew"Wielhorski [Vel'gorsky, Viyel'gorsky], Count Mateusz [Matvey Yur'yevich]]

This is a really obscure, but most attractive piece, thanks Mike.

Entries in Grove as follows:

1) "Matthew"
Wielhorski [Vel'gorsky, Viyel'gorsky], Count Mateusz [Matvey Yur'yevich]
(b St Petersburg, 15/26 April 1794; d Nice, 5 March 1866). Russian cellist and patron, brother of michał Wielhorski. He pursued a military career, fought in the war of 1812, and retired in 1826 with the rank of colonel. He studied the cello with Adolph Meinhardt and Bernhard Romberg, and became well known as a performer both in Russia and abroad, partnering such eminent musicians as Liszt, Henselt and Vieuxtemps. From 1826 he lived with his brother in St Petersburg, maintaining the house as a centre of musical culture. A number of leading composers of the day dedicated works to him, including Anton Rubinstein (Third String Quartet), Mendelssohn (Second Cello Sonata) and Romberg (Seventh Cello Concerto). After his brother's death in 1856 he continued his work as an impresario, and was instrumental in inaugurating the St Petersburg branch of the Russian Musical Society in 1859. His extensive music library and many of the important instruments in his private collection were donated to the St Petersburg conservatory.

BIBLIOGRAPHY
B. Shteynpress: 'Matvey Yur'yevich Viyel'gorskiy', SovM (1946), nos.8–9, 73–80

L.S. Ginzburg: Istoriya violonchel'nogo iskusstva [The history of the art of cello playing], ii (Moscow, 1957), 278–330

GEOFFREY NORRIS


2 "Michael"
Wielhorski, Count Michał [Viyel'gorsky, Mikhail Yur'yevich]
(b St Petersburg, 31 Oct/11 Nov 1788; d Moscow, 28 Sept/10 Oct 1856). Russian composer and patron. Son of a Polish diplomat at the Russian court, and brother of Mateusz Wielhorski, he received a broad musical education from several famous teachers, notably Martin y Soler. He played the violin and piano, and when only 13 composed his first pieces, a set of songs with orchestral accompaniment. Later he wrote a number of sentimental ballads, including Otchego ('Why?') to Lermontov's poem, and settings of Pushkin, Myatlyov and Prince Pyotr Vyazemsky. In 1804 he travelled with his family to Riga, where he studied counterpoint with a local organist and played in quartets with his father and two of his brothers, Iosif and Aleksandr. He then moved to Paris (1808), took lessons from Cherubini and met Beethoven in Vienna. When he returned to Russia (1810) he settled in St Petersburg and swiftly established himself as a patron of music; but in 1816 he was banished from court for marrying his first wife's sister and had to live on his estate, Fateyevka (later renamed Luizino), in the Kursk government. Even here he did much to promote interest in music, performing in concerts himself and arranging for his private orchestra to play major works by Western composers, including Beethoven's symphonies. In 1823 he was given permission to move to Moscow, and in 1826 he returned to St Petersburg, where he lived with his brother Mateusz Wielhorski and became friendly with Glinka: in fact a number of Michał Wielhorski's suggestions were incorporated into A Life for the Tsar and Ruslan and Lyudmila; he was highly critical of the latter. In 1856 he moved to his estate, Sennitsï, near Moscow, where he died.

The Wielhorski brothers were at least as important to concert promotion during the first half of the 19th century as the Rubinstein brothers were in the second. They introduced many contemporary Western composers to Russia, and they encouraged Liszt, Berlioz, Schumann and other important composers and artists to take part in their concerts. As a composer Michał Wielhorski is known for an unfinished opera, Tsïgane ('The Gypsies'), symphonic and chamber music, keyboard pieces and numerous songs.

WORKS
many MSS in RU-Mrg, SPsc

Stage: Tsïgane [The Gypsies] (op, 5, V. Zhukovsky and others), 1838, orch inc.

Orch: 3 syms., no.1, B, 1822, no.2, F, 1822, no.3, D, ?inc.; 2 ovs., D, 1822, b, 1836; Air varié, vc, orch, before 1823; Thème varié, c1830–33

Inst: Str Qt, C; Str Qnt, 1856; pf pieces, other inst works

Vocal: Ave verum corpus, motet, chorus, orch, after 1839; Vernost' do groba [Faithful to the Grave], male vv, orch, 1822; Les adieux des artistes italiens, chorus, orch, c1840–50; Pilgergesang, cant., chorus, orch, inc.; other choral works; songs


BIBLIOGRAPHY
IRMO

N. Findeyzen: 'Graf M.Yu. Viyel'gorskiy', RMG, ii (1906)

T. Trofimova: 'M.Yu. Viyel'gorskiy', SovM, no.5 (1937), 61–70

B. Shteynpress: 'Mikhail Yur'yevich Viyel'gorskiy: blagozhelatel' Glinki' [Wielhorski: Glinka's patron], M.I. Glinka, ed. Ye.M. Gordeyeva (Moscow, 1958), 368–83

GEOFFREY NORRIS

Interesting - 3 symphonies!

Sorry, I rather lost track of this because of domestic duties - 40th wedding anniversary, two family birthdays, etc etc! I'll try and follow it up.