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Florence Price is BBC Radio 3's Composer of the Week at present, and today's broadcast included her Concert Overture No.1, based on the spiritual "Sinner, please don't let this Harvest pass", originally broadcast in 2019 and not available commercially. A recording of the original transmission is now available in our Downloads Board here

The first half of 2021 should see the issue of a CD featuring 29 lieder by Raff, none of which have been recorded before. Ranging from what was probably his most popular song to one discovered only a couple of years ago, they represent the whole of Raff's composing career, and are variously performed by five singers: soprano, mezzo-soprano, alto, tenor and bass. The recordings have already been made and those that I've heard are absolutely lovely, which bodes well for the complete CD. More details when I have them and am able to share.   

There's some lovely music in Siegfried Wagner's unfinished opera Wahnopfer of 1928. By the time of his death he had completed the gorgeous Prelude, Act I and the first 17 minutes of Act II, and those substantial fragments were premiered in a concert performance in 1994. A link to the recording of the performance is now in our Downloads board here. The story is so preposterous (as are those of many of his operas) that it's probably best to ignore it and just wallow in the late romantic glories of Wahnopfer, incomplete though it is.

Last weekend Raff's third opera, the comedy Dame Kobold, had its first performance in around 150 years in a production in Regensburg, Germany. It was a Covid-reduced affair with no chorus and a cut-down orchestra which unfortunately, under the current restrictions, I wasn't able to travel to see, but I'm told by those that could that it was very well received. Here's a review (in German) which confirms that. You can get a brief taste of this sparkling piece from this trailer produced by the opera house. There are plans for a full-scale production in Giessen next year (but of course these may also be affected by Covid restrictions) and the prospect, tentative at this stage, of a recording later in the year, which would be an equally exciting development.

David Hurwitz's latest review is of the Quartetto di Milano's recording on Tudor of Raff's String Quartet No.7 Die Schöne Müllerin, which he loves. First he praises Tudor's symphony box set, now this - I'm warming to Hurwitz

New next month from Naxos is a welcome CD featuring some intriguing purely orchestral works by Massenet: the late symphonic poem Visions, the Brumaire and Phèdre overtures and the suites from Les Érinnyes and Espada. Jean-Luc Tingaud conducts the Royal Scottish National Orchestra. Details here.

Hot(ish) on the heels of Dora Pejacevic, Augusta Holmés (with Henri Duparc) and Florence Price, now Marie Jaëll is this week's BBC Composer of the Week. Another welcome move in the right direction...

www.youtube.com/watch?v=h3VDGnxq8sk - ROFL, as they say  .

The Swiss Fonogram label is planning to record a CD for release later this year featuring Johann Carl Eschmann's Concert Overture, orchestral songs by Raff and the rather fine Symphony of August Walter, for which Reverie recently made such a good electronic realisation. Artists are the Swiss Orchestra, conducted by Lena-Lisa Wüstendörfer, with the mezzo Marie-Claude Chappuis as soloist in the Raff songs. This is a crowd-funded project - full details here.

Naxos are shortly to release a new recording of Rossini's French expansion of Mose in Egitto - Moïse et Pharaon, one of the first French grand operas. It was recorded at the 2018 Bad Wildbad festival. There's an earlier Hungaroton recording, but I assume that's cut as it's 20 minutes shorter than this new one which promises to be the "original, uncut version". Here's a sound bite from Act III.

www.youtube.com/watch?v=c_f6fkrSfqg

The UK's "easy listening" classical station Classic FM is featuring Raff, his mentors and successors in a two hour programme tonight at 8:00pm, presented by John Suchet. I'm not expecting any startling insights, but it'll be interesting to hear what Suchet has to say and the selection of music is appropriate. The Raff being played is D'Avalos' recording of Im Walde, bookended by music from Mendelssohn, Liszt, Sibelius and Clara Schumann.

Now available in the Downloads board here is the only recording (as far as I know) of Schmidt's second opera Fredegundis. It dates from 1979, so it's in listenable but hardly hi-def sound. It'll be interesting to compare this with the promised Dortmund performance of Saint-Saëns' Frédégonde, assuming that's broadcast and recorded of course.

Fibich's trilogy of melodramas Hippodamia, was issued a few years ago now by Supraphon on six CDs (MusicWeb Internationl review here). Much as I enjoy Fibich's music generally, the problem for me at least was that the music in the recordings, as in Fibich's conception to the works, is subserviant to the spoken text which, of course, is in Czech. I found it impossible to filter out the dialogue and focus on the music, and in the end gave my set away.

However, I've found on YouTube a set of three "symphonic suites", which appear to have been compiled by Supraphon themselves, taken from the music of each of the melodramas. Totalling 79 minutes, each is episodic but the music runs continuously and, although none is completely speech free, for the most part the handful of remaining vocal interjections are extremely short and don't get in the way of enjoying the music. I thought that the compilation from the second part of the cycle, The Atonement of Tantalus, worked best and made quite a believable and satisfying symphonic poem, reminiscent of Dvorak's late ones. The Death of Hippodamia music is perhaps the most consistently dramatic of the three, but I was less impressed with the one from The Courtship of Pelops, the first of the trio, which seemed to be composed largely of cymbal and brass-heavy ceremonial music. Still, even though they're not presented in the way Fibich intended, it's still fascinating to hear these three compilations of virtually unknown orchestral music by him. It is by turns dramatic, lyrical and blazingly triumphant - powerful stuff.

Hippodamia (1): The Courtship of Pelops https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XhQxykL-aj0&t=5s - 22 mins.
Hippodamia (2): The Atonement of Tantalus https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yBE8-0CpnHs - 26 mins
Hippodamia (3): The Death of Hippodamia https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qDqGigBLg-w&t=34s - 31 mins

This topic has been moved to Recordings & Broadcasts, as the discussion now centres on Sterling's CD issue of the opera.

http://www.unsungcomposers.com/forum/index.php?topic=7293.0

Light is slowly being shed on the life and music of that intriguingly obscure figure Adolf Reichel (see our thread on him here). I've added to our Downloads Board here three live recordings recently posted on YouTube: two pleasant but not very distinctive string quartets (one an early work judging by its opus number, the other from 1875) and a half-hour long piano work of much more strength and individuality.

I posted a recording of a symphony of his a few years ago, and it's still available in our Downloads Board here.

Zusac drew my attention to a recording on YouTube of one of Hamerik's five Nordic Suites and I've added it to our Downloads Board here. It's an old mono radio broadcast (the YouTube poster says 1968) and the sound isn't top notch, but it's good enough to get to know this attractive novelty. As far as I can establish, none of the suites have been recorded commercially.

This CD/digital download from SOMM comes as a very welcome surprise. Samantha Ward and Murray McLachlan are the soloists with Charles Peebles
conducting the Royal Liverpool Philharmonic Orchestra. Full details and audio extracts here.

[Donizetti]

Opera Rara have announced plans for these future releases:

Donizetti: Il Paria, new critical edition conducted by Sir Mark Elder  - released in Spring 2020.
Donizetti: Il furioso all'isola di San Domingo, new critical edition with additional unknown pieces, conducted by Carlo Rizzi - released in March 2021.
Offenbach: La Princesse de Trébizonde, conducted by Carlo Rizzi - released in September 2021.
Halévy: Guido et Ginévra, new critical edition, conducted by Carlo Rizzi - released in March 2022.
Leoncavallo: Zingari, conducted by Carlo Rizzi - released in September 2022.
Verdi: Simon Boccanegra in the original 1857 version, conducted by Sir Mark Elder - released in March 2023.

Does anybody have any information at all about the composer J.G. de Ranken? He appears to have been a writer of polkas (Assemblée Polka, Louisen Polka), marches (Reisemarsch) and other such light pieces, which were published in the 1840s and 50s in Germany and Denmark. Beyond that I know nothing of him, and anything more would be most welcome.