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Yevgeny Sudbin's recording, coupled with Medtner's Third on BIS is outstanding among more recent versions. Listen to the way Andrew Litton shapes the melody of the slow movement.

I couldn't recommend a particular recording of Darke's "In the Bleak Midwinter" though there are numerous excellent ones by British cathedral choirs. I don't own one myself. Once Christmas is over, lovely as it is, it has been done to death and I'm not sure I want to hear it again until next Christmas!

Although my friend wouldn't sell the manuscript, I can't help but think that there are people who would pay a fortune for it!

I didn't know Harold Darke had written a symphony. He is best known, of course, for his setting of "In the Bleak Midwinter", once voted the greatest Christmas carol of all time. In 1909 Darke dedicated it to the grandmother of a neighbour of mine who still has the original manuscript.

I've now had a chance to see this Naxos recording and have been very pleasantly surprised. Whatever you may think of the circus "big top" setting, the singing is excellent. In fact, in spite of the lack of big names, I would go so far as to say it is the most consistently well sing of the three DVD sets currently available. ( There's a new one just out from Glyndebourne. ) That bluster which is not part of Massenet's style and which so often disfigures the roles of Pandolfe and Madame de la Haltiere is largely missing. Even the small role of the king is taken by a really fine bass/baritone.

Thanks for that, Kevin. I've been listening to and enjoying Fibich's operas lately but not the symphonies. Would this disc be a good starting point? How does it compare with other performances?

I don't think there would be any copyright issues with the recording of "The Tempest" because it's listed on the Operapassion  website and they're all in the public domain.

Back to dream operas: Any of  Tournemire's: "La Légende de Tristan" en 3 actes et 8 tableaux
                                                                   Les Dieux sont morts (Chryséis) drame lyrique en 2 actes   
                                                                   Trilogie Faust - Don Quichotte - Saint François d'Assise

...simply because anyone who could a work as overwhelming as the Sixth Symphony must be worth further exploration....and the opus numbers suggest that the operas are roughly contemporary with the symphony.

Also, having been impressed by "Julien, L'Hospitalier" any of Camille Erlanger's others...especially "Le Juif Polonais" which was his best known work but which seems to have disappeared entirely although it remained in the French repertory until the 1930s.  ( Wikipedia says Mahler presented it in Vienna in 1906 but it was a "dismal failure"! )

In reply to Kevin, as far as I can see, only Acts 1 and 2 of Fibich's opera "The Tempest" in the 2007 Bielfeld performance are on Youtube but the whole opera is available from Operapassion. It's a good performance and so is the recording. So much more colour is revealed than is apparent from Vogel's 1950 version.

Thanks for that. It's a wonderful opera. Taneyev's reputation for dreary academicism is so undeserved.

Here's the first movement:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Qp2sBAZvhWg

and the slow movement:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=N8adiKwUPgI

and the finale:

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

Can't wait! Just cannot get enough Massenet! The perky tune from the overture is also heard in the Act 3 Sevillana which Jarvi and Bonynge have recorded. It seems to go better at Bonynge's speed than Romano's.

Are you thinking of Strauss's  "Ariadne auf Naxos"? A serious opera and a burlesque are to be performed simultaneously to "save time".  ( This is done for an amusing dramatic purpose, of course. )

Milhaud's 14th and 15th quartets can be played simultaneously to form an octet.

But, as regards playing two pieces one after the other, Rontgen wanted his 6th and 7th piano concertos to be played consecutively.

Here's the opening of the finale of the 'Cello Concertino....just relaxing into some lyrical material when it's cut short:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=okVJCty6tfA

I think it's a fabulous piece...and so is No. 1.

I suppose the "Symphonie Cevenole" is as close to a "sung" piece by D'Indy that there is but it's still rarely performed in the U.K. It hasn't been heard at the London Proms since 1951 when Kathleen long played it. There's a fantastically exciting if rather brash recording/performance by Nicole Henriot-Schweitzer, Charles Munch and the Boston Symphony on RCA.  It  will knock your socks off!

The Bliss piano concerto is a good piece but there are other fine modern recordings. It's a big showpiece concerto, certainly Romantic in spirit. Rubbra's concerto is one of his best works and has been crying out for a new recording for years. It's a strangely haunting piece. I know it from Malcolm Binns's fine, though rather poorly recorded, performance. It's not "Romantic", though.

Of course calling music "Romantic" sells records.  Many issues in the RPC series are of works which are not really "Romantic". I came across a set of discs the other day called "Romantic Harp Concertos"...all of which were written by composers from the Classical era. The excuse can always be that they are "romantic" with a small "r" and that's a subjective judgement.