News:

BEFORE POSTING read our Guidelines.

Main Menu
Menu

Show posts

This section allows you to view all posts made by this member. Note that you can only see posts made in areas you currently have access to.

Show posts Menu

Messages - jasthill

#1
Ah! Nothing like a trip down memory lane to kindle the joys of record collecting.  I recall that in the record shop I frequented they would have the previous months Schwann catalog on the free table thus alleviating the need to spend the exuberant amount of I believe $ US 1.25 for the current month's catalog.  My oldest Gramophone is from August 1982  - Vaughan Williams The Sons of Light by Lyrita on the cover.  Don't forget by Penguin The Symphony by Ralph Hill. Of course I still have my Supraphon and Melodyia LP's - so hard to get back then - but the repertory - so intriguing - and the sleeve covers so artful - and the liner notes in 8 pt pica print. The one thing I wish existed is a photocopy(s) of the collection of the Records International Catalogs - my earliest October 1983.
#2
I too am also moved by the Litton-Dallas-Carpenter version of the Mahler 10th.  With respects to the Carpenter version some say it is really more Carpenter's 10th symphony than Mahler's.  In late Mahler I hear elements of Das Lied in the 8th symphony, but in the movement of the 10th that Mahler scored I hear a more Bergian style.  Maybe AI will formulate a version, but if a recent AI generated version of the scherzo to Beethoven's 10th symphony is any indication it will just be a hodgepodge of previous snippets of what was already composed.  This opinion doesn't really answer the question for either side but merely stokes the question of where would have Mahler's style gone?
#3
This one has caught me by surprise on CPO Walter Kaufmann - Piano Concerto No. 3 - Symphony No. 3 - 6 Indian Miniatures. Not yet listed on jpc's web site, but found else where on the web in assorted places including youtube. I guess he's a late romantic 20th century unknown - does he fit here?.  Chandos had a CD of his chamber music in 2020 on the Composers in Exile series.  The samples I've heard put him in the Korngold-Rózsa milieu.
#4
Maybe off the subject, .. but part of the problem is I think is the tendency of many modern (resident and guest) conductors to have pre-packaged interpretations of certain repertory pieces that they can "mail-in" whenever the opportunity arises.  A little tweaking here and there I.e. "strings a little dolce in bar 120, .. winds  slur the triplet in bar. 29, etc." rehearsal over, assistant conductor does the run through.  Just get up in front wave the stick, grimace at the appropriate times, bow when done.  No need to delve into compositions that deserve deeper introspection or exposure.  Maybe the audience would enjoy the excursion.  Here locally we seem to be stuck on recurrences of the Schumann 2nd Symphony,  Mozart Overtures, and Bernstein West Side Story Dances.  Sure would like to hear the Frank Symphony again, or even Chausson's Symphony, maybe even some d'Indy.
#5
Don't forget this pioneering release in 1970 by Antonio De Almeida and the New Philharmonia - Schmidt -La Tragédie De Salomé - Chausson - Viviane - Duparc - Lénore.
#6
Gotta like this forthcoming CD - some previously recorded mixed with some new unsungs newly recorded.

https://www.prestomusic.com/classical/products/9532394--aux-etoiles-french-symphonic-poems
#7
Let me be the first nay-sayer to jump in on this. I've listened to the music - its pleasant enough, nothing to offend, sort of generic tonal moderism with minimal angst.  I'm curious though - how much of this will actually enter the repertory?  For example, our local symphony makes a big deal each year of the new commissions they either sponsor or play. I'd venture to say I've yet to hear a repeat performance of any in the intervening years. Seemly a one and done type of performance - maybe a traveling guest conductor will play the piece in their stops but that's it. Of course, so much unsung(s) awaiting exposure that I would rather hear.
#8
Just found it on Presto - regardless of comments on tempo, phrasings, etc. sounds gorgeous to me.
#10
Quote from: Ilja on Monday 27 March 2023, 11:29From what I gather, there are quite a few "symphonizations" of pieces by Brahms,
Don't forget these:
Eleven Chorale Preludes, op.122, orchd. by: Detlev Glanert, Erich Leinsdorf, Virgil Thomson, Henk de Vlieger
Brahms: Piano Concerto No. 3 in D Major after Violin Concerto, Op. 77 (Arr. Lazić)
Brahms: Handel Variations: Edmund Rubbra
Liebeslieder-Walzer: Richard W. Sargeant, W. Weismann

Schoenberg probably did the most damage with his orchestration (extra composition) of the Piano Quartet, the other seem to be straight (here's how Brahms might do it) orchestrations.
I say the old man (Brahms) would be cross and a bit chippy over all this, more interventions then Bruckner got with his symphonies.
#11
Speaking as the devils advocate I would have to imagine that Brahms would be righteously pissed at the various orchestrations of his chamber compositions. They are not badly done they are just pseudo Brahms.  Brahms did only one orchestration - that of the Haydn variations, and there is more Brahms in it than Haydn.  Admittedly, maybe Schoenberg got away with it with his orchestration of the Piano Quartet, Op. 25, but I will give Schoenberg the benefit of a doubt being that he was closer to the Brahms style and era than any of our contemporary composers. Likewise, it would have been wonderful if Brahms could have composed 5 symphonies like Mendelssohn, or maybe 7 like his contemporary Tchaikovsky, or God help us maybe 11 like Raff and Bruckner.  Many people hunger for more of what Brahms might have orchestrally composed and I too am a sucker for these latest conjures.  I suggest if you want an example of the Brahms skill in orchestration listen to the recent Naxos recording Johannes Brahms: Hungarian Dances and the Hungarian Tradition (Naxos 8574424-25) and enjoy his orchestral transformations that came from those sources.
#12
Saw this on Presto's futures listings - 10 hours 9 minutes - of French women composers: known, unsung, and unheard-of till now. (10 March 2023)
https://www.prestomusic.com/classical/products/9439426--compositrices-new-light-on-french-romantic-women-composers
#14
As far as I can discern your could put all of Rimsky, Glazunov, Gliere, Liadov, N. Tcherepnin, etc. in a pot stir it up and not tell the difference from one to the other.  The real question is where did the Stravinsky of the Rite derive from? If you listen to some of the early recordings of the Rite they sound almost Rimsky-like - later versions with subsequent Stravinsky revisions and tinkering gave us the more sharper, rhythmic, atmospheric Rite we know.  Original concept or brilliant synthesis?
#15
Forthcoming CD in 2023 found here:
https://www.prestomusic.com/classical/products/9408432--betsy-jolas-bonis-boulanger-holmes-poetesses-symphoniques
Probable repertory (my guess):
HOLMES: Andromède, Poème Symphonique, Pologne, La nuit et l´amour
BONIS: Le Songe de Cléopâtre
Betsy Jolas: A Little Summer Suite
Boulanger: ??
Pic of album cover:
https://www.fnac.com/a17557899/Betsy-Jolas-Betsy-Jolas-Bonis-Boulanger-Holmes-Poetesses-symphoniques-CD-album#int=S:Suggestion|NonApplicable|NonApplicable|17557899|BL0|L1