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Last weekend the Doric String Quartet played the Op. 35 Chausson quartet at our Hoxne Music Festival. What a performance! I'm familiar with an excellent recording on a Hyperion disc by the Chilingirian which was issued (I think) in about 2000. I've also got lurking on my shelves a performance on a Warner Apex disc by the Quatuor Via Nova - which I recall being a pretty good one.

However I confess I hadn't quite grasped before what a very fine and utterly beautiful quartet it is. And I owe that realisation to the Doric - their performance was quite something else. I'll also stick out my neck and assert the Chausson to be a superior work to the Debussy quartet composed at much the same time. Is that heresy?

Good news is that the Doric are coming this way again in mid June to record (for Chandos) the Chausson quartet at Potton Hall (increasingly wonderful to see who goes in and out of that recording venue!). John Myerscough, the cellist in the Doric, told us Chandos are going to couple the quartet with the Op. 21 Concert for Vn, Pf & St Qt. My order is already in before the CD is made!

The less good news was a chat with them about repertoire and possible recording plans. I was busy buttonholing them about works which, if recorded, would make the heart skip and jump with joy. And, at the same time, works that would further enhance their reputation as one of the brightest young quartets around, fill glaring gaps in the 'market', sell more discs, and works that a company like Chandos should be real chuffed to add to their catalogue.

My suggested candidates were Draeske and Peter Racine Fricker - not much in common perhaps, but both would meet the rough criteria above. Judged by the Doric recordings of the Schumann quartets, it is almost as if the Doric was designed to perform Draeske. I think they might do these three quartets marvellously. They have only been recorded once before - very well indeed, but on the AK/Coburg discs which seem to be only intermittently available (and expensive when they do appear). With a bit of a push by the Doric and a splash by Chandos then people outside this forum might come to realise that the Draeske quartets are unquestionably among the finest quartets composed in the second half of the 19th century.

Second candidate - the PR Fricker quartets. I once heard the Amadeus perform the 2nd, and almost fell off my chair staggered by the melodic richness of the work. That was 45 years ago (shiver me timbers!), and I've never encountered any other performance let alone recording. I rate enormously highly the Doric recordings of the Korngold (and Walton) quartets, and if those recordings are so good on account of the clarity of their playing and balance between all 4 parts then just imagine what they might do with PRF.

The response to these suggestions? Lots of welcome and real interest. But (and here comes the depressing bit) if we're an ambitious quartet, aiming for the top, want invitations to prestigious music festivals in Vienna, Salzburg etc, lucrative broadcasting and recording contracts etc etc then we simply can't do works outside the central mainstream. In order to compete we have to be associated with Haydn, Beethoven, Schumann etc (which of course we love playing anyway). The nub of it is that if our reputation develops as a quartet which is especially committed to works that lazy journalists and FM Classic presenters have taught the punters, whose access to music is via such things as the pages of Gramophone, is 'second best', 'second rate or inferior' or 'marginal', then in turn we become thought of as a second rate quartet with complacent ambitions and no wish to aspire to the peaks in string quartet literature. Survival and reputation demand we wear out our fingers on e.g. the Op. 131 Beethoven quartet (of which they gave a performance in the second half of the concert that conveyed to me far more than I've experienced in the countless performances of the work I've heard in the last half century!)

Apologies to all - for Die Walkure must be at the extreme other end of the spectrum from the 'unsung'. But just as Wagner once expressed (in a letter) indignation that a particular mountain was bigger than himself, I'm sure he would also consider himself a perfect exception to the general rule that the proper subject matter of the UC forum should be the undeservedly unsung.

My afternoon is being devoted to the new Halle recording based on performances in Manchester in July 2011. Utterly b*****y glorious thus far, and now up for a breather after Act 1.

What might be of interest to others is that I received my copy through MusicWeb International (it seems to come direct from Wyastone Estate, and not from the good Len in Coventry) and at a price below all advertised prices elsewhere. And it arrives well in advance of its official 'release date' in the UK. All hats off and thrown high in the air to Mark Elder, the soloists and the Halle forces. And, of course, to MusicWeb!

Hardly an unsung piece - but this version is, I believe, quite novel. A few days ago I read, with growing interest, the review by Dominy Clements on MusicWeb of an Oehms CD of a transcription for organ of Holst's The Planets.

I have an insatiable curiosity (and of course a perilous bank balance) for this CD just had to be got. Wow! Like Clements I was bowled over. What quite amazes me is how the piece works and sounds a fully unified piece. As Clements puts it, you sense the whole work is being pushed along by a powerful juggernaut rather than (in its orchestral version) by a team of Ferraris. The way the organ is used brings quite astonishingly rich and varied colour to this well known score. Recommended to all.

But hugely serious grumbles about the booklet notes, written (in German and translated into English) by the organist in the recording, Hansjorg Albrecht. Or rather, given that his notes dealing with Holst's composition of the piece and its individual movements are detailed and often illuminating, the grumble is directed more towards Oehms and the lack of any other information. For example, the performance is of a "transcription by Peter Sykes". Maybe I'm plain ignorant, but who is Peter Sykes? Should we not be told? And on what basis has he made his transcription? We know Holst originally wrote the work, in his music room at St Paul's Girls' School in Hammersmith, for two pianos. Does that two piano version form the basis of the transcription by Peter Sykes? Or has he somehow reduced the orchestral version? Again we should know. And again we should know just how the transcription was performed. I'm confused by the booklet notes. They mention two distinct organs, both in St Nikolai in Kiel. Were the two organs used separately for individual movements? Was, for example, Hansjorg Albrecht, kept busy running down the aisle in the church between different movements so that he could get from one organ to the other? Or with a clever bit of recording technology was the recording of one organ grafted onto the other? These sound like silly questions, but in the absence of further information, they become perfectly serious ones.

Argh, maybe this curmudgeonly commentator on the CD should just shut up and simply encourage others to sample the disc! But whoosh, it does annoy me when record companies simply spoil their product by not providing such information, the lack of which is hugely obvious in this case. I also suspect Oehms have been remarkably rude in not telling us about Peter Sykes.

Given his very recent post, I don't think Mark is going to persuade me to acquire the Simax discs of Tellefsen. (Though you never know!)

But in terms of 'complete piano works' I'd encourage forum friends to investigate the release of Erkki Melartin's 'Complete Solo Piano Works' on Crystal (N 67 048) performed by Maria Lettberg.

The 2CD set contains all manner of goodies. For a quite stunning thing that leaves the listener, let alone the performer, breathless there is Melartin's 15 minute sole Sonata of 1920, subtitled 'Fantasia apocaliptica'. Wow indeed.

I've also much enjoyed the 24 Preludes he wrote between 1913-20. Some lovely things here. Each short prelude (of between 1-2 minutes) has a descriptive title such as 'Cherry Blossoms in Japan', 'Evening Before the Storm', 'Autumn Night' and so on. But the music easily stands on its feet without those titles.

For me best of all is the collection of 5 pieces called 'The Melancholy Garden' (1908). The notes explain that Melartin originally intended it as a set of tone poems for orchestra, but in my view we don't need a full orchestra to interfere with the deep effect of these pieces (a controversial view!). Melartin dedicated the work to Sibelius, the accompanying letter reading "Dear big brother Jean....". Big brother replied, "I thank you for the Suite, the letter, and for the kind words. The Suite is an outstanding poetical work. You have there found a very apt expression for solitude. I understand you very well." In my view, it is a lovely work.

I don't think I've heard Maria Lettberg before. But like those proverbial London buses, two come along at the same time. Early days yet and I'm still working my way through it, so shall reserve comment save to say that thus far I'm mightily impressed, but Capriccio (49586) has released an 8 CD set of Scriabin's's complete solo piano works (or rather all the Scriabin pieces with opus numbers) played by Lettberg. Scriabin isn't everyone's composer, but I consider him as important in the history of piano literature as Chopin (ho, ho, that will set them flying). These Lettberg performances seem to me pretty much the best Scriabin I've heard. And the boxed set (a rather shoddy, inferior box, but no matter) can be had at a not unreasonable price. Use the DVD accompanying the set to hang on the fruit trees to scare off the marauding pigeons. It is a useless thing, made up of Lettberg playing bits of things and going on about the meaning of life.

Hey ho, time for frivolity (whilst forum administrators frown!)

I don't know if anyone has noticed, but a rapid search around Amazon this morning shows a considerable number of CDs marked with the warning "explicit lyrics".

Now I've always thought this phrase indicates something a fellow might be rather cautious about in showing to his aged aunt.

And since the phrase appears on CDs of at least Cesar Franck, Grieg, Tellefesen, Hans Huber, Kuhlau and many others I rather wonder if, after all these years, I've missed out on something possibly important?

I wonder if any erudite member can offer some clarification over the Debussy work list?

For some time I've always identified particular works by using the Lesure numbers. I believe Francois Lesure published a revised catalogue in 1977. In recent years the Debussy 'industry' has really hummed, and a considerable number of additional works have been added. Some are new discoveries such as the charming 2 minute trifle that Debussy dedicated to his coal merchant in gratitude for a supply of coal in the bleak 1916-1917 winter. Others are reworkings of earlier works. All these additions and revisions would seem to be incorporated in the IMSLP/Petrucci music library work list which uses the Lesure numbers.

So far, so good. Puzzles arose when I bought the collected Noriko Ogawa discs that BIS has now issued in a 6CD boxed set. I noted the reviews of individual discs as they were released, and the Ogawa performances became more and more tempting to the point where the availability of the whole set at a generous price was irresistible despite many Debussy piano discs already on the shelves. Having dipped in throughout the box, the purchase is amply vindicated - performances and recordings are up there with the best.

But that's just autobiography, and why the puzzle? The detailed booklet notes by one Leif Hasselgren also give what are claimed to be Lesure numbers - but in the majority of cases they are significantly different from what I've thought of as the standard and widely accepted Lesure catalogue. Thus to take just one example, Book 1 of the Preludes is (on the standard catalogue) L117, but in the BIS set it is referred to as L125. And, without counting, there must be at least 100 other examples of lack of fit between the 'standard' and the 'BIS' lists.

Of course in one sense all this matters not a jot, and doesn't interfere with the enjoyment of the music. But then of course it does! Maybe all those years ago I was subject to rigorous potty-training, but I do like classifications to be correct. They must be in order to be reliable.

So what is going on here? BIS surely can't be wrong - this Debussy collection is obviously something prized by them and they would take care to present it correctly. On the other hand I'm not aware of any radical revisions or rather re-numberings in the Lesure catalogue.

Can anyone cast light on the issue? And apologies for undoubtedly being boringly pedantic!

There clearly isn't anything 'odd' about a concerto for orchestra. Rather than a solo instrument engaging in a dialogue / conversation / confrontation / interrogation with an orchestra, we have here an orchestra engaging in such with itself. After all, I don't have to talk to another: in working out a problem, finding a way out of a conundrum, assessing a thesis and weighing it up against an antithesis, I am in effect talking to myself. And I suppose the form of the modern concerto for orchestra ultimately derives from the earlier concerto grosso.

After that little prolegomenon, I've much enjoyed getting to know two Concertos for Orchestra (1953 and 1956-57) by Arthur Meulemans - out on a recent disc from the new Royal Flemish Philhamonic label with the orchestra conducted by Martyn Brabbins (in terms of his energy, range of commitments and versatility Brabbins is surely becoming a kind of Neeme Jarvi Mark II). I've, as it were, 'earmarked' Meulemans ever since listening to the earlier Marco Polo discs of Symphonies 2, 3 and 7 and wanting to hear more of his music.

The insert notes compare the first Concerto with the Bartok Concerto. Absolutely right, but in terms of exuberance and busy excited orchestral activity it also reminded me of Tippett's 1938 Concerto for Double String Orchestra and the 1962-63 Concerto for Orchestra but perhaps without the almost aching lyricism to be found in Tippett.

Yes, very glad to have got to know these pieces, and a positive thumbs up to the disc (which also contains the orchestra's second recording of the Jef Maes Overture Concertante from 1961 - the same work is also to be found in less superior sound on a Marco Polo disc with his Symphony No. 2 - and another Concerto for Orchestra, this time by a composer new to me, Norbert Rosseau).

Question to Flemish friends: is Meulemans a composer often encountered in Flemish concert halls? What sort of status does he hold? Is his music performed with some frequency? If I happened to own (pure fanciful indulgence!) Chandos or Hyperion (and was free of the company accountant waggling his finger at me), what works of Meulemans ought I to be busy recording?

I'm probably being very naughty, but all the way through my life I've always wanted to kick out against what struck me as nonsense.

How about this, from a 'blurb' promoting a new CD from Aeon:

"Raphaël Cendo's music seizes us bodily or, more precisely, captures all our senses! His biography is a legend. Upon graduating from the Paris Conservatoire, the jury dared not grant him his full legitimacy. The institution bestowed only a second prix, but his music was already first. He had turned his back on his peers quite some time ago and chosen shortcuts at the risk of being misunderstood. The radical nature of his thinking asserted itself, and he invented the saturation.

The principle of this music is 'a thwarting of the limit, thanks to an excess of energy'. Releasing the instrumental energy, bringing the performer's body into the field of the composition, making the concert no longer a simple disaffected representation but a basic musical act, a sound ritual in which the performer is the officiant. This calls for mad virtuosity from the performers. The sound is metamorphosed. It is no longer a matter of planning but of losing oneself; it is no longer a matter of organising but of cutting a path in an unstable, wild and unknown world, for what is written as much as for he who plays it and he who receives it."

Just in case others are dithering over a possible acquisition, I offer an unqualified thumbs up to the first volume (of a projected series of four) of Martin Roscoe's new disc for Hyperion.

Some of Dohnanyi's piano works have been recorded elsewhere - Naxos, for example, and with two different pianists, seemed to have got as far as a Volume 2 but then the series has fizzled out.

But Roscoe would seem to fit Dohnanyi admirably - these are fine and commanding readings, and with the considerable advantage of Hyperion's recording.

I've never encountered before the Four Rhapsodies, Op 11 (1902-03). As Dohnanyi himself conceded these four pieces, although independent, can almost be thought of as a sonata. His last composition for piano, the Three Singular Pieces, Op. 44 (1951), can also be heard as a single unified work. And I thought it a very amusing and humorous work.

Yet more evidence that Hyperion is certainly part of the indispensable furniture of a happy universe. Roll on, volumes 2, 3 and 4!

Hurrah! The new Avie disc (AV2231) of Gal's Symphony 4 is scheduled for release on 19 March.

I've found the exploration of Hans Gal over the last couple of years especially rewarding - we've been fortunate in having had a string of first class recordings, the symphonies, concertos, string quartets and all of the piano music.

As with Symphony 3, this one again is the Orchestra of the Swan / Kenneth Woods. If anyone doubts the credentials of this band try their recent Somm disc of the Schoenberg arrangement of Das Lied von der Erde. Stunning!

Symphony 4 is coupled with Schumann 2. There was extensive debate on the forum over the +'s and -'s of Avie's coupling the Gal symphonies with those of Schubert or Schumann. Fortunately I don't have the powers of a policeman on the site, but my suggestion here is that everything that could be said has been said already and there's no great point in extending that debate. For myself, of course I don't like having to buy double the number of CDs to get the four Gal symphonies. But then when they are coupled with such readings of Schubert or Schumann that we have here, then, heigh ho, my doubts disappear!

The particular association of ideas that led me to the question is irrelevant, but earlier today I found myself asking: what has happened, so to speak, to Berthold Goldschmidt?

I have the impression that most forum members are in their, er, hum, post-teens and will probably remember the huge revival of interest in Goldschmidt, what, 20-30 years ago? Given that, I imagine most will have a basic familiarity with the biography. In brief, he was held to show enormous promise in Germany throughout the 1920's and early 1930s. Then the jackboots began to stomp, Goldschmidt was declared 'degenerate'. Career promptly ended.

He then (and thank heavens for it, for what otherwise might have happened to him?) moved to England in the mid-1930s. He went on composing for some years, but sadly seemed to be confronted with absolute damned indifference. In spite of, for example, the full scale opera Beatrice Cenci (based on Shelley) being awarded a prize in a Festival of Britten competition in 1951 and then, scandalously, never being produced. In following years one heard of whiffs of Goldschmidt - he sometimes worked within the BBC, and collaborated with Cooke in the 'completion' of the work somewhat misleadingly called 'Mahler's tenth symphony'. Haven't checked but I think it was Goldschmidt who actually conducted the first public performance in London in the mid-1960s.

But otherwise complete silence, and little wonder Goldschmidt gave up composition.

However round about 1990 there was (for reasons I'm not quite clear about) an enormous revival of interest, and he resumed composition. For a few years until about 1995 or so, a tremendous amount of activity was going on. I recall feature stories in the press (well at least The Guardian!) about his life story, and we gazed at photographs of this very small, animated looking man, who was by then in his 90s. There were performances galore, and a string of recordings of the orchestral works by prominent conductors such as Rattle, Dutoit, Zagrosek and others. Likewise high calibre performers such as Chantel Julillet, Yo-Yo Ma, and Sabine Meyer took up and recorded the violin, cello, and clarinet concertos. There were sumptuous recordings of Der gewaltige Hahnrie and Beatrice Cenci by Decca and Sony. The Mandelring recorded the four string quartets. Kolja Lessing performed and recorded much of the piano music. In short Goldschmidt was riding very high and he resumed composition for the last decade of his life until his death in 1997(?).

Question: what on earth has happened since?? Maybe I just live in a vacuum, but I get the impression Goldschmidt has very suddenly dropped out of sight. I can't recall recent performances in concert halls or opera house (at least here in the UK), nor broadcasts, nor recordings. Is my impression correct? If so, what can account for this quite sudden reversal of fortune? For Goldschmidt was a hugely gifted composer writing works of permanent significance, and there is not a trace of a 'gimmicky' or 'merely fashionable' composer who might well disappear as times and fashions change. I'm puzzled!

One final point. In a crude, hopelessly unscientific way, one can use Amazon as a kind of rough barometer of taste and demand. When a composer 'drops out' and it is only the likes of us stalwart chaps who try to keep a reputation going, all those wide boys and spivs on Amazon move in, buy up recordings from church fetes or the estates of the deceased, and then put them on Amazon with a 500% increase in price. Given what I've written above I expected to see, for example, the two recorded operas offered at magnificently silly and exorbitant prices. So I looked at Amazon and found that prediction quite false. To my puzzlement there is a whole range of Goldschmidt recordings (at least on the UK site) almost in the giveaway or bargain basement category. What has happened? Is there no demand at all for recorded performances of his works? And even worse a complete lack of interest: has he, alas, dropped totally out of the public consciousness? Is he even unknown to the Amazon spivs?

Ambroisie are set to release a CD of the Quatuor Cambini (Paris) performing two string quartets of Felicien David at the end of February.

I don't know these quartets - and indeed I'm ignorant of any other works by David other than two Piano Trios on a Marco Polo disc (which proved delightful). Anyone know whether the quartets are any good?

And to put a second question: I note the Quatuor Cambini also have a disc of quartets by Hyacinthe Jadin. Again, any good? Would I be a dreadfully naive fellow in supposing that because the Jadin quartets are contemporary with the final quartets of Haydn and (so I've read) that he adopted the form of the Haydn quartets as a model, then they must have some interest and merit?

Apologies - two separate questions in a single post. Must learn to make distinctions!

One has better things to do with time than consult Classics Today. Nonetheless, just like Faust, the desire for just a trifle more knowledge leads a chap to an occasional glance at that site.

I happened to take a glance this morning. Heavens! The first thing I encounter is Hurwitz's response to Rufinatscha. Utterly no need to make comment on the thoughtless dribble produced.

However it is a perfect example of that occasional tendency to ill considered rudeness of which I complained recently. There is, to my mind, a very clear difference between, e.g. 'X is drivel / boring / far too long / unmemorable' and 'X produced in me feelings of boredom / irritation / or whatever'. The latter is simply reporting a subjective personal reaction. Nothing wrong with that, but there is no particular point in telling others of your own subjective state unless they happen to be your psychologist, wife, or someone interested in your own particular consciousness.

However the former kind of statement isn't so much reporting a private state: it is attributing to X some quite objective characteristic. In other words someone who says it is, in effect, saying that any other sensitive, well qualified, and rational person ought to think the same.

And that's where I take issue with another who says 'Rufinatscha (or Walter) is dull, boring, unmemorable or whatever'. If you don't happen to like a work then by far the best thing is to keep silent. Withdraw your support, as it were, and see how the piece fares in the market place. If it is any good then it will prosper. If it really is incompetent, insincere, silly, merely fashionable or whatever, then it will soon fade away.

But Mr Hurwitz has clearly made up his mind, said some rather hurtful things about Rufinatscha, and worst of all, thinks he is right and that other right minded folk should agree with him. End of debate, and no need for further comment.

Has anyone yet caught sight of a new CD in which the Israel Quartet perform the Bruckner C minor and Hans Rott string quartets?

The CD is issued by a label new to me - Quintone - and it was advertised (by MDT and more cheaply by HMV) as being available from the start of January.

My usual supplier keeps telling me 'out of stock', and I presume that means supplies of the CD have not been received. There is no sign of it on Amazon UK. Hopefully the CD exists in the real world rather than subsists in an ideal world.

I'm not losing too much sleep over the early Bruckner quartet (there is a very splendid recent recording of it by the Fine Arts Qt on Naxos). But I am starting to foam at the mouth by being frustrated in hearing the Rott quartet.

Triggered by remarks of Albion and then Alan on the current thread about 2012 Naxos releases, I suspected that many Maxwell Davies compositions are not available on current CDs and therefore more or less unavailable to those less long in the tooth than myself. Given a quick glance at Amazon this suspicion quickly became a cause for considerable dismay. Much of Max's work was recorded by Collins and Unicorn-Kanchana, and when these labels folded a few years ago many works promptly became unavailable (apart from to those with bulging cheque books willing to satisfy the greed of certain Amazon sellers).

Some may remember the good old days (around 2005) when it was possible to compile CDs of one's own choice by selecting works from just about the whole corpus on the MaxOpus website. That was before such things as downloading - and great fun it was. The duration of all works was given, down to the second, and you then selected individual works up to around 75 minutes. I can remember the anguish of working out you still had 6 mins 49 secs of free space on your CD and wondering how to fill it. In my own catalogues I've got down a payment of between £6-7 for each full length CD - and a few days later a physical CD accompanied by full and lengthy notes dropped through the letterbox. Marvellous - you had a physical CD of high quality, and none of the tiresome problems associated with current ways of obtaining music. That way, together with all the CDs from Collins and Unicorn, I built up several feet of Max on my shelves.

Somewhat of a diversion, but this source was discontinued at about the same time as when one of Max's associates was detected dipping in the till in quite a big way. Only scanty details got into the press, and as far as I know no criminal charges were made.....but alas, at that time Max's music became hard to obtain.

To the point: we now have a situation where the music of the Master of the Queen's Music (another notion, along with knighthoods, that will puzzle friends overseas!) is pretty dangerously close to being generally unavailable. I'm aware that some just don't get on with this music, but nonetheless the situation is surely something of a scandal?

True, we have the series of the 10 'Naxos' quartets (wonderfully performed by the Maggini) composed from 2001 to 2007. There's the promise of some of the symphonies once recorded by Collins being released on Naxos. But what else? Browsing along my shelves I'll stick out my neck and proclaim that nearly all the following are either major works or at least deserve serious attention by those with ears and minds:

Worldes Bliss (1969)
Eight Songs for a Mad King (1969)
Miss Donnithorne's Maggot (1974)
Ave Maria Stella (1975)
Five Klee Pictures (1976)
Runes from a Holy Island (1977)
The Martyrdom of St Magnus (1977)
To the Lighthouse (1980)
Piano Sonata (1981)
Black Pentecost (1982)
Image Reflection Shadow (1982)
Sinfonia Concertante (1982)
Into the Labyrinth (1983)
Sinfonietta Accademica (1983)
Resurrection (1987) [But, sorry, Max, try as I might you've quite lost me with this extraordinarily batty work]
Trumpet Concerto (1988)
Time and the Raven (1995)
The Beltane Fire (1995)
The Doctor of Myddfai (1996)
Piccolo Concerto (1996)
Piano Concerto (1997)
The Jacobite Rising (1997)
Sea Elegy (1998)
Commemoration Sixty (2005)

Apologies for tiresomely producing a mere list. For the sake of brevity I've left out the truly marvellously inventive (IMHO!!) 10 'Stratchclyde' concertos written for members of the Scottish Chamber Orchestra from 1987 to 1994. Plus again all the symphonies - the 8th, the Antartic Symphony of 2001, I consider a staggering masterpiece.

So there you are. Master of the Queen's Music (however one estimates that!), a vast range of work including orchestral, chamber, instrumental, choral and opera, some of it admittedly peculiar (the same can be said of late Tippett, but I love it all the same) but much of it splendid stuff that makes at least me glad to be alive......and vast amounts of it pretty much currently unobtainable. Is that not a scandal?

Peter

Easy question - which doubtless doesn't admit of a simple answer:

As far as I'm aware I've never heard a note of Jaon Guinjoan. Is that my loss, or what? Would appreciate any views!

Peter

Should be of interest to those in the UK that within the 'special offers' category on the HMV website can be found all the recent Dutton releases - at £4.99 (post free), plus many other real bargains.

Always makes me wince when I spot CDs I've bought in recent months listed in sales at substantially lower prices!

Wishing everyone on the site Happy Everything for 2012!

Peter

Anyone encountered Gebel? Franz Xaver Gebel (1787-1843), and not to be confused with three other Gebels (1685-1750, 1709-1755, and 1715-1775) all called Georg!

I've come across him via a MDG recording of the two String Quintets Op 20 and 25 performed by the Ensemble Concertant Frankfurt - an 'impulse buy' of some unknown music, but which has turned out a winner. The two works are scored for 2 vn, 1 va, and 2 vc - but performed here with a db instead of 1 vc. They were written in Gebel's last years. Marvellous works - and thoroughly Beethovenian.

Reading up around what little is written (in English) about Gebel, he appears a paradigm case of an unsung composer who deserves to be sung much more. He was taught by Albrechtsberger and Vogler, in 1810 became Kapellmesiter at the Leopoldstadt in Vienna, and was acquainted with Beethoven. In 1817 he moved to Moscow, one of many German musicians who set themselves up as music teachers in Russia before the founding of conservatories in Moscow and St Petersburg in the mid-19th century. And it seems that in Moscow he gained prominence as a teacher, instrumentalist, and composer. Along with a body of work composed in Germany, his output in Russia included 4 symphonies, 8 string quintets, a double string quartet, 2 string quartets, a piano trio, much for piano, a mass and an oratorio. I'd certainly like to hear more, but it seems that this MDG disc is the sole recording of Gebel. (Darwin pointed out that diversification rather than competition ensures biological survival - and record companies could usefully learn from that!)

Gebel surely also has a significant historical significance? For it is through German composers such as Gebel that the Viennese classical tradition becomes absorbed into Russian music, and thus makes possible composers such as Borodin, and later Rubinstein and Glazunov? That is to say, without Gebel there would be slightly fewer threads on the UC site!

At last!!! There is an announcement on the Erik Chisholm Trust Spring Newsletter that Hyperion are to record the two Chisholm concertos in City Halls Glasgow on 8-9 June. The soloist is Danny Driver, and Rory MacDonald conducts the BBC SO. Great news, eh? Alas, we have to wait until 2012 for the CD.

I recall a slight brouhaha on the site (about a year ago?) when we got the news that CPO were going to issue works by Gunter Raphael. But since then - unless I've missed out - I can't recall any subsequent postings. (There has also, of course, been a Toccata disc devoted to some works for violin & piano, and also a few months back a detailed and enthusiastic article by Martin Anderson on Raphael in International Record Review).

So any reactions here? At the time of their release I put both CPO sets on the lengthy wants list. But it has only been this week that I've acquired the 2 CD set of works for violin. Early days yet, and I'm still exploring the piece and trying to work out my responses to it, but I think I'm quite bowled over by the 2nd Violin Concerto composed near the end of Raphael's life. A most unusual piece, commencing with a very extended cadenza for the solo violin, and then quite remarkable and tightly organised development of materials over its four movements, leading up to an ending of absolute silence in which I could scarcely draw breath. And here a real stunning dazzling performance by Christine Raphael - cripes, I'm not a string player but the work strikes me as being fiendishly difficult to play.

I think I'm going to end up putting it in the category of great 20th century violin concertos, and it is no more 'difficult' to get into than, say, the Britten Vn Concerto (though of course that's a very different work). On the basis of this I'm itching to explore other works by Raphael. The 3 CD CPO set of symphonies moves straight to the top of that wants list (trouble is, it is a very expensive set, and curiously, considerably more so than other CPO 3 CD sets).

I express my enthusiasm - but I'd much like to read reactions of others.

Peter