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I was recently sent Bruch's 2nd and 3rd Symphonies in performances by separate forces (the 2nd by Masur and the Gewandhaus, the 3rd by Hickox and the LSO).  While researching the 3rd online I encountered another performance by Honeck with the Hungarian State Symphony on Naxos.  My question is this: in comparing the timings of the final movement between the two CDs, the Hickox is a full minute and 50 seconds shorter than the Honeck!  Did Hickox (and Chandos) take cuts from the finale, or does Honeck crawl through the finale at a snail's pace?  Also, I used to have the old Louisville Orchestra LP of the 2nd with Mester conducting.  It seems to me that the finale of Masur's 2nd is longer, and there seems to be a passage that I don't remember from my old LP.  Did Mester take cuts in his recording?

P.S. Don't get me wrong.  I'm happy as a clam.  This is the first time I've owned all 3 violin concertos and all 3 symphonies of Bruch at the same time.

I'm listening to the Piet Hein Dutch Rhapsody for Large Orchestra by Pieter van Anrooy (1879-1954) on the Time-Warner Cable Classical Masterpieces channel.  I thoroughly like the piece, but can find only a very short Wiki article on the composer (which needs translation, and you know what Wiki translation is like).  The list of works accompanying the article is small, and I'll bet there's a lot more.  Can anybody provide any more information?  This guy's right up our alley.

P.S. I think I can hear a snatch of Wilms' anthem Wien Neerlands bloed in the piece.

Several months after getting a download of Ignaz Brull's only extant symphony I finally had a chance to burn it to CD and familiarize myself with it (in my car, of course).  What an attractive work it is!  Unfortunately, the sound quality of the recording is quite poor (I believe it was from a radio dub).  I'm wondering if there is any buzz about recording this extraordinarily fine (if slight for its period) work?  Also, if anyone has access to the movement titles could you post them here so I can put them in my (expanding) mp3 library?

I just caught the tail end of the Lange-Muller Violin Concerto in C of 1902 on the Time-Warner Classical Masterpieces Channel (followed immediately thereafter by Chadwick's Melpomene Overture).  I'm assuming it was the Dacapo recording, since I know of none other.  Some of these Scandinavian violin concertos would be ripe pickings for Hyperion's series, and I really think they should consider this one based solely on the scrap of the finale I heard.  I'm wondering about the reactions some of you have had to this piece, since that topic hasn't been posted in for months. 

I'm listening on the Classical Masterpieces Channel to the Variations and Fugue for Piano and Orchestra of Gunnar de Frumerie.  He seems to be quite an interesting composer, according to his Wiki.  His music sounds like a blend of Rachmaninoff and Ravel.  Although Swedish he seems more cosmopolitan.  The variation I'm listening to right now sounds vaguely Chinese.  He composed a cello concerto adapted from his cello sonata, then adapted it for trombone!  I kid you not.  Anybody have more on him?

An email from Naxos of their new releases supplied information on the following composer on a disc of cello and piano works:

SCHUMANN, CAMILLO 
(1872 - 1946)

I wonder if he was a cousin or nephew of Robert?  He has a catalogue of over 300 works in almost all genres, much of which is unpublished.

Hi Mark!

I've tried to send you a personal message a couple of times, and I'm not even sure the function works.  I'd like another brief tutorial on how to hide hyperlinks in posts behind "here", or "this review", or whatever, because I forgot one of the things I have to do to conceal the link.  I would like to know if you got those personal messages, because if you didn't, then the function doesn't work.

J:D

This review was finally posted on MusicWeb International.

I'm pleased to say that I'm the guy who notified Len that this CD needed a review.  Not a bad review, although I wish he had plugged the 3rd Concerto a little more - that one was the real find for me (although I already knew the 2nd).  In any event, if you have a favorite CD (like the Bortkiewicz PC 2 & 3) that goes unreviewed on MusicWeb International for a while, if you notify Len Mullenger he will see to it that it gets into a reviewer's hands.

P.S. Mark, if it isn't kosher to do this, I'm counting on you to let me know. 

P.P.S. The Bortkiewicz was just tossed out as an example.  Actually, Rob Barnett has already given it a glowing review here.

Well, I got the CD a couple of days ago, and I've listened to all 3 works more than once.  So far, my favorite seems to be Jadassohn 2.  I'm starting to warm up to Jadassohn 1.  Oddly, it seems to bear the same kind of relationship to its immediate successor as Goetz' two concertos bear to each other: the first in a very unorthodox one-movement form, the second in a more traditional framework.  The Draeseke, considering the advance hype, I find slightly disappointing, although maybe that's not the word.  It just strikes me as so damned earnest that it seems to end up ultimately rather perfunctory, like he's just going through the motions of a "happy piano concerto".  Maybe it's all those dotted notes in the first movement.  Even Steven B. thought it was a little over the top.  Does it seem like that to anyone else, or is it just Steve and me?

I just ordered the last 2 Naxos CDs of the Ries piano concertos, to get current.  That would be the 3rd (C-sharp Minor) and 7th (A Minor) concertos.  In addition, I picked up the Jadassohn/Draeseke release on Hyperion.  Also, a peek at the Hyperion website disclosed that there will be a CD of the 2 extant PCs of Julius Benedict coming out in a couple of months.