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 While surfing Youtube for UC's, I came across a reference to Scheve, German born American composer.  Came to this country and was Professor of Music at Grinnell Collge in Grinnell, Iowa.  His most major work appears to have been a large oratorio "The Death and Resurrection of Christ" published in 1908.   There is a video of the final 11 minute of this lovely work in Russia several years ago and can be found here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0or0mEV6PdU.

Apparently he wrote a symphony, 2 concertos and other works.

I suspect that the entire Moscow performance must have been taped but can find no trace, at least on youtube.

Can anyone shed some light on this composer/work?

Jerry

There's an interesting 2004 album of chamber works by this obscure Spanish composer on Spotify:
https://play.spotify.com/album/3JFoANtcbw5JiX9YqRT9R3

Nothing profound here but some light, pleasant listening.   Includes a Piano Trio and Quartetino for piano quartet.

Jerry

I'm trying to clean up my recorded database and discovered I have two piano trios on R2R tapes (origin, unfortunately, unknown) that are labeled Piano Trio #2 in a and Piano Trio #3 in F.  No opus numbers.   There don't seem to be any recordings that I can find.  Grove looks like it sez there are 6 trios.  Unfortunately, Grove doesn't list the key signatures.  So, I'm baffled.   Any ideas?

Jerry

I've just been sampling a bit of this three disc set.  The performances I guess are OK.  But for the life of me, I can't understand why anyone would spend the time and energy to learn all of these complex Sonatas and Etudes and then record them on an 1812 piano that sounds something like a cross between a harpsichord and a barroom piano???  Is it just my old ears or do others find these thin, tinny sounds distracting and annoying?

Jerry

While surfing YouTube, I came across the Quintet in Bb for piano and winds by Walter Gieseking.  I was not aware that he was a composer as well as a very famous pianist.   But other than a Concertino for flute and piano, I haven't spotted anything else.  Searches are almost hopeless as they turn up hundreds and hundreds of recordings played by him.

This quintet sounds to me like it falls into our remit.  What do you think?

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=blveDIZYETU

jerry

New, I think, from Ondine:

I've just been listening to this composer's first symphony.  Advertised as a late romantic Swedosj composer, I'm wondering if he fits into our remit or not?  Alan?

Jerry

I have an old cassette tape of Weingartner's Violin Sonata #2 in f# which sent me investigating whether there are any recordings of this work.  And I discovered that a Japanese violinist name of Sato has recorded both Sonatas for something called Mittenwald.  CD # MTWD990221.  Does anyone have an idea where you might get your hands on it?  Other than Japan, that is......

Jerry

While surfing around Spotify,  Here's what Wikipedia sez about Hill:

"Wilhelm Hill was born in Fulda. He began studying piano and violin with his father at 6 years old. He devoted himself tirelessly to composing at age 14.[1] From May 1854 Hill lived in Frankfurt am Main, where he was pupil of Heinrich Henkel and Johann Christian Hauff. He gave his first public piano performance in Fulda the following year, and performed in Frankfurt in January 1858.
In the 1880s, Hill taught at Lindner Institute and Julius Stockhausen's Vocal School. His opera Alona was awarded second prize in the competition for the opening of the new Frankfurt Opera House in 1882. He married Maria (Mary) Möhring in 1887 and soon after contracted an eye disease which effected his ability to teach and compose.[1]
He composed two operas, a piano concerto, chamber music, piano compositions, choral and vocal works including numerous songs. Hill gained popularity through the song "Das Herz am Rhein" (The Heart of the Rhine; published in 1866), which was sung frequently by his friend, baritone Karl Hill. The song soon appeared in various vocal and instrumental arrangements and became standard repertoire for vocalists and musicians of the time.[1]
Hill died in Homburg, Saarland. He and his wife are buried in Frankfurt Hauptfriedhof."

His Violin Sonata in e, opus 20 and the Piano Quartet in Eb are on Spotify.  There are also recordings of his Piano Trios in G and D but not there. 

I love both the Sonata and the Quartet - both of them chock full of lovely tunes and toe tapping rhythms.  Makes me wish Hyperion would take up his Piano Concerto in c#.

Those who love good melodies should look into these recordings.

Jerry

This late romantic American composer is another that deserves to be heard.  I just discovered what appears to be the only thing of any consequence (and not much, at that.....)  performed by the St. Paul Chamber Orchestra (can be heard at https://content.thespco.org/music/composers/howard-brockway/.  His Cavatina for violin and orchestra, opus 13 - only 6 minutes.  Quite lovely.  It appears also to be on Youtube - not sure if it's the same performance.

Other works I'd like to hear - his Piano Concerto (mentioned in other posts), a Symphony in D, a Piano Quintet and a Violin Sonata.  There has to be lots more.  Wikipedia is not very helpful, listing a symphonic ballad and a "suite".  IMSPL lists 11 pieces including the Cavatina - highest opus number there is 39.

What's the matter with our American orchestras?

Jerry

I may have asked this question a long time ago but it still bugs me.  Does anyone else have the problem that new downloads do not show up in the list of unread posts?  The Raff Quintet today is an example.

Jerry

I see this gentleman composed at least 3 piano concertos (all have been recorded) plus solo piano pieces and ??  Anyone done any research on him?

Jerry

I don't see this unsung mentioned elsewhere.  I just stumbled across a recording released back in November by  La Bottega Discantica of Ferroni's Violin Sonata in F and Piano Trio in D, opus 54 coupled with a Piano Trio serenata by Zandonai.  Not masterpiece stuff, for sure but very listenable.  I especially enjoyed the lovely slow movement of the Ferroni trio.

Jerry

I've wanted to start this thread for a long time.  Everyone knows that Victor Herbert not only composed a score of wildly successful "operettas" but also wrote concertos for his cello and several other serious works.  Which got me interested in other similar composers who wrote "serious' music.  Of course, Gershwin is the first one that comes to mind but he's not very unsung.

However, we know that Rudolf Friml write a piano concerto.  And now I see someone has posted a cello sonata on YouTube by Sigmund Romberg (1887-1951).  Pretty lively piece with quite a piano part.  Are there others that I don't know about??

Here's the link to the Cello Sonata #1 in Eb   https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QuJFCv_yHg4

Jerry

Does anyone know anything about this composer?  I found this piece on the art music forum downloads and it seems to me to be very much in our realm of romanticism......

Arrigo Pedrollo: I Castelli di Remeo e Giuletta
Symphonic Legend for Piano and Orchestra (1959)

Anyone???

jerry

Thanks so much, Mike.  Just a side note.  I could not get this to download with either AOL's IE browser or Firefox.  But Google Chrome did it.

Jerry

This has nothing to do with unsung composers so flog me with a wet noodle and delete if you wish.

But you may have heard that Maestro Vanska resigned as Music Director of the Mn. Orch. last Tuesday and he and the locked out members of the orchestra are giving farewell concerts last night and today at the University of Minnesota.  I fear that this is the end of world class music in Minnesota - the end of a hundred year plus era. 

The lockout is now over a year old.  November concerts in Carnegie Hall are cancelled.  While offering musicians a significant salary cut, the Board was merrily pursuingg a $50,000,000 renovation to the lobby of Orchestra Hall, a move that had to have irritated the musicians (and many of us, as well).  IMHO this organization has been mismanaged for at least 10 years.

But, then, we're just former season ticket holders for 57 years......

Jerry

Addendum:  See also http://www.newmusicbox.org/articles/kernis-resigns-from-minnesota-orchestra/
Another great loss......

Not sure if this is appropriate here or not.  Well, fools jump in.   We have a famous music camp here in Colorado called Rocky Ridge Music Center (www.rockyridge.org.)  Pianist Josef Lhevinne played a role in the early days of the camp.  Since I have some of the early MIDI files of scanned reproducing piano rolls played by Lhevinne, I offered to make them a CD of some of these performances.  However, Windows Midi Mapper  is unbelievably bad so I tried sampling them with VirtualMIDISynth and a grand piano soundfont.   The results were noticeably improved but still left me cold. 

I happened to be corresponding with our sampling guru and forum friend, Steffen Fahl and he generously offered to resample them for me using a Steinway grand piano sound sample.  As one would expect, they turned out beautifully.  Truly amazing.

The point of all of this is this:  If there is some interest in these performances, I will zip them up and send them off to Mediafire.   I did some previous ones of Ignaz Friedheim who also composed some of the pieces.  The sound was not nearly as good but I'm not sure anyone downloaded them.

So let me know if you have an interest.   We're also collaborating on about 50 additional rolls, each by a different composer/pianist playing their owns works.  The list includes Saint-Saens, Debussy, Mahler, Richard Strauss, Ravel, von Sauer, Grieg, Terresa Correno, Grofe, Gershwin, Jelly Roll Morton, Scott Joplin, Zez Confrey and the list goes on and on.

Jerry

I don't know if it's a new CD but there is an interesting recording of Vorisek's Violin Sonata, opus 5 and other chamber works on the PraGa digital label.   Interesting stuff, IMHO, and quite into the romantic era.  At least, more than I had anticipated.

J

ALan, if you think this is irrelevant to the forum, feel free to delete it.....

Since there haven't been any comments regarding the Ignaz Friedman performances I uploaded last week, I'm wondering if some folks aren't put off by the fact that they are from "piano rolls".   We all know how klunky and mechanical player pianos are.  Mostly not worth listening to.  But these are a whole different animal - for the reproducing piano and if you aren't familiar with the difference, I offer the following Reproducing Pianos 101.   I wrote this 7 years ago for my kids.

There were a lot of wondrous inventions that changed the way folks lived in the latter years of the 19th century – the steam locomotive, internal combustion engine, telephone, photography, phonography, light bulb – the list goes on and on.  One of the most amazing, in my humble opinion, was the Player Piano.  Complex mechanically but a simple idea, it brought "real" music into the homes of millions around the world. 

But the player piano had one major drawback.  You could always tell a player piano because there was no expression.  No dynamics.  Klunky, Mechanical. Oh yes, you could press a button and activate the "soft" pedal.  In fact, many piano rolls had markings on them to instruct the pumper when to activate it.  But, it was either loud or soft: no in-between.

But it wasn't long before someone else came along and invented a mechanism that not only reproduced the notes, but also the nuances – the dynamics.  A GIANT step forward.  And these were called reproducing pianos.  They were marketed mainly by three companys – American Piano Company – AMPICO for short, Duo Art and Welte in Germany.  They were very expensive and generally only installed on more expensive instruments – mostly grand pianos.  Thus, most folks never heard of them.  Or if they did, they thought them to be just another player piano.  How wrong THAT was!

With this marvelous invention, it was now possible to convince major pianists to come in and cut rolls.  And cut they did.  Most of the famous artists of their time made reproducing rolls.  And they were in their PRIME at the time – Lhevinne, Hofmann, Artur Rubinstein, Paderewski, Iturbi, Schnabel, Levitski, Horowitz, Friedman, Carl Reinecke – another list that goes on and on.  But even more remarkable, the roll makers were able to convince some of the leading composers – both popular and classical – to cut rolls of their own music.  Some, like Rachmaninoff (who was also a concert pianist, of course) and Walter Donaldson were prolific.  Others, such as Mahler, Debussy, Grieg and Ravel probably only did one "recording" session. 

Now, it's true that these are "recordings" - but they're not recordings in the same sense as a phonograph record, or magnetic tape or even a CD.  Each of those mediums takes the original performance, converts it to some form of mechanical (as in the case of a phonograph record) or electronic image.  What we hear, at least today, is a pretty accurate reproduction of the original performance – sometimes in "surround sound".  But the reproducing piano is THE actual instrument – not a speaker, or an amplifier or some other artificial reproducer.  So, when we put on a roll and play it through, it's as if Debussy himself walked into our living room, sat down at the piano and began playing for us. And that's what excites ME about it.....

Fast forward about 80 years.  The age of the computer.  Not many reproducing pianos around in restored, working condition.  But three guys – maybe more I haven't discovered – one in Australia, one in Winnepeg and one in California – invent a device to read reproducing rolls and convert the information to Musical Instrument Digital Interface (MIDI) files.  These files are exact reproductions of the original rolls and can be played on any piano capable of reproducing MIDI files – including pianos outfitted with devices such as the PianoDisc system.  Of course, they need not be a conventional piano – it can also be a digital piano such as our Technics Digital Ensemble.  The only difference being that with a stringed piano you can see the keys moving (like the old player piano) whereas that's not possible with a digital piano. 

And a word about the Technics Digital Ensemble.  In my opinion, the very best of the digital pianos available, sadly, Technics quit making them around 2005.  Probably the competition from the big guys in the business, Roland, Kurzweill, Korg, Yamaha – forced this decision.  But Technics was the only digital piano on the market at the time, at least, with the exclusive rights to sample the Steinway Grand Piano for it's grand piano sound.  Not klunky like most of the digital pianos, the Technics actually SOUNDS like a grand piano.....

So sit back and enjoy.  Hmmmmm – let's listen to George Gershwin playing his piano reduction of the Rhapsody in Blue.  Oh, and don't be surprised at the breakneck speed that he plays it.  Well, after all, it WAS HIS composition.......

Hope this is informative for some.

Jerry