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Dating form 1952-5, this is due out in the New Year:
https://www.jpc.de/jpcng/classic/detail/-/art/scherber-iii-symphonie/hnum/11633211

Apparently I'm not supposed to approve of this 'completion' by Clinton A. Carpenter, but I'm finding it very moving - and incredibly well played and recorded by the Dallas Symphony under Andrew Litton:
https://www.amazon.co.uk/dp/B00006IXH5?psc=1&ref=ppx_yo2ov_dt_b_product_details
https://www.prestomusic.com/classical/products/7923990--mahler-symphony-no-10-in-f-sharp-major

Review (negative) here: http://www.musicweb-international.com/classrev/2003/Jun03/Mahler10_Litton.htm

But oh, the sound here is so beautiful...

I have read somewhere recently (and it seems to me to be true) that César Franck's Symphony in D minor, while not exactly unsung, has suffered a major eclipse over the past 30 years or so (and maybe longer). A work that was once a staple among the great conductors of, say, the first 50-60 years of the last century appears now to have dropped off the radar of the conductors working today. For example, standard recommendations include recordings by Pierre Monteux (1961) and Charles Munch (1957, I think), i.e. ones made well over half a century ago. The Symphony has certainly disappeared from the concert halls and hardly ever gets any air time on the radio - in contrast to Saint-Saëns' virtually contemporaneous Organ Symphony which is almost on repeat play, it seems to me.

I'm sure that Franck's Symphony (which I grew up with and am inordinately fond of) divides opinion, although its emotional excesses (critiqued in the past) must surely now be viewed as minor when compared with those of, say, Mahler. I do occasionally wonder what the music industry's obsession with Bruckner and Mahler has done to the repertoire...

...forthcoming from Chandos:

If you don't know it, Delius' Piano Concerto is well worth a listen:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MyVbpMjT6ko

It has some absolutely stunningly beautiful passages, particularly the intensely memorable lyrical second subject of the first movement. The recording on Chandos with Howard Shelley is of the earlier version, I believe.

OK, it's probably like Haydn (under whom Pleyel studied), sitting as it does on the cusp of the romantic era, but it's fascinating to hear this magnificent Symphony, dating from the same year as Beethoven's Eroica (1803), especially in this lively recording under Matthias Bamert:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=k30v5RYuvck&t=484s
CD/Download available here:
https://www.prestomusic.com/classical/products/7946766--contemporaries-of-mozart-ignaz-pleyel

Worth listening to - even when he's off-base:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7-SKkcfv7ZA

These are the details at Boosey & Hawkes:

"To the dear master Jean Sibelius in reverence and friendship – Wilhelm Kempff – 23 May 34." Thus the handwritten dedication on the piano score kept in "Ainola House," the Finnish composer's residence. When the piano virtuoso Wilhelm Kempff (1895–1991) was on tour in Scandinavia in 1920, Sibelius invited him to his home. Preserved is a chair on the underside of which his wife Aino wrote: "Sitting on this chair, Wilhelm Kempff played wonderful compositions by Bach on 19 February 1922 and moved us all to tears." Since then, Kempff was a friend of the family and played Sibelius's music in concerts. A decade later, a large-scale composition by Kempff emerged from the relationship between the young German musician and the Finnish master: his Violin Concerto op. 38. It is today no longer well known that, in addition to his career as a pianist, Wilhelm Kempff was a successful and very prolific composer. He wrote six operas, many orchestral works, including two symphonies, chamber music works, religious organ and choral works, art songs, and naturally numerous piano pieces. No performance material has been preserved for the Violin Concerto. The conductor Joe Yamaji has now reconstructed the orchestral part from the information in the original piano reduction, thus making possible the acquaintance with Kempff's music, and with an original late-romantic work infused with traces of modern style and tributes to Sibelius.

So: this is a reconstruction by conductor Joe Yamaji.

The Italian label Opera Discovery is releasing recordings of (mostly) verismo repertoire:

Alfredo Catalani: La Falce (1875)
Pasquale Di Cagno: Maremma (1929-31)
Gaetano Luporini: Nora (1908)
Mascagni: Cavalleria Rusicana; Pinotta (1932)
https://www.opera-discovery.com/

The singing is pretty variable, but others might disagree!

I'm hoping that our new member Petteri Nieminen will tell us more about Joahnna Senfter's symphonies...

Wikipedia has this listing (no dates, unfortunately):

Symphony No.1 in F Major, Op. 22
Symphony No.2 in D Minor, Op. 27
Symphony No.3 in A Major, Op. 43
Symphony No.4 in B♭ Major, Op. 50
Symphony No.5 in E Minor, Op. 67
Symphony No.6 in E♭ Major, Op. 74
Symphony No.7 in F Minor, Op. 84
Symphony No.8 in E♭ Minor, Op. 107

...but there also seems to be: Symphony No.9, Op.117

...so a nine-symphony cycle indeed!

...now out:
https://www.amazon.co.uk/gp/product/B0BZ5645Y1/ref=ox_sc_act_image_1?smid=A3P5ROKL5A1OLE&psc=1

Review at MusicWeb:
https://www.musicwebinternational.com/2023/10/lekeu-franck-dupre-violin-sonatas-austrian-gramophone/

These are coupled not with Franck's Violin Sonata, but with his 'Mélancolie' for violin & piano from 1886.

Has anyone tried listening to the finales of Parry's 4th and Elgar's 1st one after another? It seems to me that Elgar's 'nobilmente' was impossible without Parry's example. Or was it the other way round (Parry's 4th was revised two years after the Elgar)?

Or is it me - again?

A question: all Bruckner's symphonies have been recorded multiple times, but is No.2 really all that familiar? I couldn't identify it when it suddenly popped up on YouTube after I'd been listening to something else. Is it just me - again?

Please check out the opening of the 4th movement (Allegretto) of Clara Schumann's Piano Trio:
https://www.prestomusic.com/classical/products/9371327--brahms-double-concerto-clara-schumann-piano-trio

Is it Franck's Violin Sonata that this reminds me of - or is it something else? Or is it just me?

... forthcoming from MDG:



https://www.jpc.de/jpcng/classic/detail/-/art/chamber-music/hnum/11602094

...just announced by cpo:
https://www.jpc.de/jpcng/cpo/detail/-/art/friedrich-von-flotow-klavierkonzerte-nr-1-2/hnum/11166101

Forthcoming from Toccata Classics:

Ferdinand Thieriot: Chamber Music, Volume Two

• String Quintet in G major
• Suite for Three Cellos
• Four Fantasy Pieces for Violin and Piano, Op. 28
• Larghetto for Viola and Organ
• 2 Adagios for Viola or Violoncello and Organ, Op. 41

The Hamburg Chamber Players

According to one works list the String Quintet dates from 1914. If so, it could be interesting to compare this with Gernsheim's equally late work (both are for string quartet plus second cello, as in Schubert's great work).

...forthcoming from Acte Préalable:
https://acteprealable.com/catalogues/composers/ap0565/

Composed by Matthew King based on various sketches made by Wagner towards the end of his life:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xm2D1nmOQA4
https://www.edinburghmusicreview.com/reviews/richard-wagner-in-venice

Recording available as a CD or download here:
https://mahlerplayers.bandcamp.com/album/richard-wagner-in-venice

This recording has been mentioned in passing in previous threads but friends may like to know that it has been reissued - and is exceedingly enjoyable:
https://www.amazon.co.uk/dp/B0C28PFGB4?psc=1&ref=ppx_yo2ov_dt_b_product_details