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Ok so please excuse me for the question, I was just surprised by the ID3 tags of the mp3 file. By the way, a nice concerto...

ewk

Hi all,
I don't want to disturb your joy over this violin concerto, but as I open the .zip file and regard the Id3-tags of the mp3 files, it really looks like ripped frome some CD, as there are other violin concertos mentioned in the title and movement no.1 is indicated as title number 7. Any copyright worries? As far as I had understood, only recordings which are not commercially available are allowed here due to copyright questions?

ewk

Hi all,

After Waghalter's Music was so intensively recommended here, I just had to buy a copy as well – and as far as I can judge after listening twice, the piece is really great. I hope his further music will be published on cd on day!

ewk

Hi all,

thanks for the hints so far!

On IMSLP, i found the autograph of a triple concerto (Violin, Viola, Cello) and strings by Julius Röntgen – does anyone know anything about the piece? I don't think there's a recording as very few works of Röntgen are recorded so far – in relation to his enormous output...

Hi all,

It seems that no specific thread about this has been started so far?

I play in a local string orchestra and different than for symphony orchestra, there are not so many "classics" or "must-plays" for string orchestra, maybe exept the tchaikovsky serenade.
Now I was searching for romantic pieces (I know that there is plenty of Bach, Vivaldi etc. but I think that there is a lot of music for Strings in the Romantic era as well) under a few conditions:
1) only strings playing
2) not too difficult (even the famous tchaikovsky serenade is too difficult at some places, remember it's an amateur orchestra)
3) arrangements are totally ok for us
4) would be nice if the work was public domain, i.e. composer is dead for at least 70 years (ore a little less, so we could play it in some years)
5) not too important: score is available on the internet (e.g. imslp)
6) every kind of composition is welcome: concertos (soloist and strings), symphony or sinfonietta, serenade, little pieces...
7) composers not necessarily unsung, but unsung ones are equally welcome

My personal favourites so far:
finzi: romance, eclogue
grieg: 2 elegiac melodies, peer gynt arrangement
willy ostijn: nocturne
barber: adagio (maybe too difficult because it's so high!)
atterberg: suites
William Lloyd Webber (the musical composer's father): serenade
Herzogenberg: Die Geburt Christi (with choir and organ)
shchedrin: carmen-suite
eric withacre: everything he wrote for strings

and a lot more, i have collected everything which came across my way in a big list, if someone is interested, please contact me.

So lists are welcome in this thread, but some explanation is always nice in case you know more about a piece.

Thanks in advance,
ewk

edit: on youtube, there is an arrangement of grieg's piano concerto for strings (first movement), definitively one of my favourites: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aj-wKTNIdis

Hi all,

Korngold is one of these composers (I still think he's unsung even if his violin concerto is performed quite often), his symphony in F Sharp is a pure masterwork, the slow movement is one of the greatest symphony slow movements since mahler. The symphony dates from the early 50s, when he returned from America, it was one of his (Failed) attempts to regain his reputation as a composer of concert music. It makes excessive use from themes from his film scores, for example, in the slow movement, one of the main themes from »the private lives of elizabeth and essex« with Bette Davis as queen elizabeth is used.
Korngold wrote a sinfonietta op. 5 which is in fact his first symphony (it's as large and as long as a real symphony), but korngold didn't call it symphony, so I don't count it in that way.
He started a second symphony, but couldn't complete it until his (far too early) death in 1957, only 60 years old. According to Brandan G. Carroll (I hope I got his name right), the sketches are uncompletable due to some kind of shorthand used which noone except Korngold himself could read. I still hope that someone will be able to read it some day!

(as uploaded/typeset by his nephew, I think!-

It is really his nephew, I already had mail contact with him. He spent years on typesetting his uncle's works...

I'm sorry,  I was writing the previous post without research, only from memory – and you're right, there is no Rach 2 in Lyapunov's Rhapsody or vice vers.

But however, there is a little bit of Rach 3 in it! It is only one melody and the end is different, and the orchestration is not at all similar, that was just wrong:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dzR-c4ELTOs#t=0m40 (lyapunov)
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lusMu2LGIUM&feature=related#t=12m40 (rachmaninov)

So it's not the big parallel as i promised in my last post but still, when first listening to the Rhapsody (I bougth the reprint of the vox box with michael ponti some months ago), the first thing to cross my mind was "wow, that's like rachmaninov!
But this is not the only reason to love this piece!

ewk

Hi all,

first of all, I have never experienced such a broad knowledge about unsung composers as here on this board. The first night I discovered the board was quite a long one

I started a thread about jazzy concertos/symphonies and it wasn't permitted, the reason is obvious: it's too far away from the board's definition of romantic music.
I can absolutely understand this as it is obviously a board for romantic unsung music and not for example for the music of, let's say Shostakovich.

I just wondered if maybe a special folder for threads like these could be created? Somethink like an "off-topic"-folder? I think most of the useres of this board have a huge knowledge wchich doesnŦt stop 1918. So I think it would be fantastic to share this knowledge as well, what do you think?

In the "suggestions and problems" folder, there was no such suggestion, but I nearly can't imagine that this topic has never been discussed?

And again, the knowledge concentrated on this board is extremely fantastic!
ewk

I do absolutely Agree with the beauty of the lyapunov Rhapsody – do you agree that the beginning is exactly the same as a melody in some Rachmaninov Concerto (i think second concerto)? I think that even the orchestration is very similar – it's only a few bars, but that's the stunning thing about this piece: the beautiful Rachmaninow melody that everyone knows, but composed quite some years earlier as far as I know.

ewk

[Moderator's note]

I think Erich Wolfgang Korngold is becoming more and more sung here in Germany – he hasn't been absolutely unsung (nearly all of his works are recorded, most of them have multiple recordings), but in concert halls, his music was relatively absent. Nowadays, his Violin Concerto is performed quite often (I think only in Germany at least 20 times per year) and his big late-romantic opera "Die Tote Stadt" is getting performed quite often as well – I think you  can watch it at least at three different opera houses in Germany alone every year (there are 80 opera houses in Germany, so this is still not very often, but it's a beginning). The same thing happens with Franz Schreker, whose operas are more and more often performed.
My last example ist Mieczyslaw Weinberg, a polish-jewish composer who fled to Russia after the Nazis attacked Poland. He was a close friend of Shostakovich, their music is very similar, they learned from each other. After his music was center of the important Salzburg music festival some years ago, his music is at least recorded quite often, chandos has started a series of his symphonies and concertos. But maybe his music is not romantic enough for the "unsung composers"-board. Both other composers definitively are.

ewk

Moderator's note: I have allowed this post to stand because it contains important information about composers relevant to this site. However, we would be grateful if posters would refrain from bringing up music beyond the revised remit of Unsung Composers.
Alan Howe