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Just wanted to let you know that for now, the concerts in the Berliner Philharmoniker's Digital Concert Hall can be accessed for free. There's not a great deal of unsung material, but the ones I spotted on first inspection include:

   
• Berwald, Symphony No. 3 (Herbert Blomstedt)
• Hubay, Violin Concerto No. 3 (Daniel Stabrawa / Iván Fischer)
• Dohnányi, Symphonic Minutes (Iván Fischer)

And there may be others.

[Edit:]

Hi all,
I didn't see this mentioned although it was published last year, but the excellent website of the Royal Stockholm Phil put their performance of Ludvig Norman's Third Symphony online here. Great performance, and sublime registration as usual.
Edit: there are some other unsung goodies to be had, as well: Clara Schumann's concerto, Lili Boulanger's Faust et Hélène, and Berwald's Third under the direction of Herbert Blomstedt, to name a few.

Dear all,
Rolling Stone published an article that I felt might resonate with our community, "The End of Owning Music". Of course it is not focused on "classical" music, but I saw quite a few things we have discussed over the years.

Hello all,
As we have all survived Christmas by now (although in my case, barely) I wanted to ask you, as we did in earlier years, to give what you think is your biggest musical revelation of the almost-past year. By that I don't necessarily refer to a release from 2019, but your *personal* discovery of 2019, even if that concerns an earlier release.
To start things off: I still can't figure out how I missed the existence of Emanuel Moór's music for all these years, but I'm very glad those years of ignorance have ended. The chamber music, cello concertos and the single symphony I've heard are all of a quality that is frankly amazing.

Hi all,
In consequence of the "unsung female composer CD" thread on the recordings forum, I want to conduct a bit of a thought experiment with you, if you don't mind.

Submitting, purely for argument's sake, to the idea of an A-tier (Mozart/Bach/Beethoven/Brahms), B-tier (Mahler/Dvorak/etc.), and C-tier (most unsungs) of composers, what would it look like if we ignore male composers? Who would take those positions?

I am also asking because I do notice an increasing presence of female composers in concert programmes, but their choice appears to be mainly based on nationality: I've heard Jeanne Beyerman in the Netherlands, Lili Boulanger in France and Lucija Garuta in Lithuania, but much not outside their own countries of origin.

Dear all,


A while ago I invested some funds in decent software to use for creating scores - firstly of Von Brucken Fock's, Dopper's and Philipp Scharwenka's symphonies. It's a lot of work, but it's fun to do and very satisfying. As you have all been able to judge from the Thieriot Symphony which Mark uploaded a few days ago, the quality of synthetic, electronic renditions has now become such that they're actually listenable. I intend to upload the works I mentioned as soon as they're done (which may be a while yet; it's very time-consuming work).


However, I also have various older synthetic audio files, that might benefit from re-rendering using more modern software: the symphonies of Grimm, Ulrich, Reichel and Jensen, to name a few. The problem is that I can't find the source files that were used back then. If any of you might have such files, I would be grateful if you could send them to me, so that I can make more up-to-date versions. Of course, should you have other relevant MIDI, Sibelius or MusicXML files, I'm interested too.

Hello everyone,
I have unfruitfully tried to track a recording of a few obscure (and early) Furtwängler works:

   
• Ouvertüre in E flat, Op. 3/WF 84
• Festouvertüre in F, WF 108
• Adagio/Largo in B minor, WF 110a

The first and last were recorded in rather anemic performances unter Alfred Walter on Marco Polo, but it seems there's a second recording around with the Furtwängler Institute Tokyo Philharmonic Orchestra under Takeo Noguchi. However, I can't find this CD anywhere at all. I would be greatful if anyone could point me in the right direction.

Dear all,
I'm writing in the hope that someone may help me obtain an old Melodiya recording of Alexander Goedicke (=Aleksandr Gedike)'s Symphony No. 3 in C minor, Op. 30 from 1922. It was released in 1958, with the USSR Radio Symphony Orchestra playing under Boris Khaikin (Melodiya D-04786/87).
All I have seen of it is an old auction web page, so it must be exceedingly rare. Any help in getting my hands on the recording (not necessarily the LP itself) is highly appreciated. I've been something of a Goedicke fan ever since hearing his gorgeous Konzertstück for Piano and Orchestra and the Diary of a Dead Soldier, and as far as I can see this is only of his three symphonies ever recorded.

Hi, I'm not sure this fits better in this forum or the other, but I'm sure Alan will be able to transplant is should it be necessary.


The (first world) problem is this: I have quite a few CDs, most of them with works by the "unsung". Nowadays, I try to purchase only downloads as I play all my music using a computer, and never had much love for CDs as objects to begin with. However, every now and then I come up against releases that are not available digitally, or only after an interval (CPO and Acte Préalable, for instance) and I'm forced to buy another disc, which I immediately rip and then put in the attic.


Therefore: is there any institution you know of who would be interested in receiving thes CDs? I'd really be glad to be rid of them, but I'm obviously not going to throw them away or bring them to a thrift show (which would amount to the same thing). But I'd like to offer them to someone or something that can give them a purpose - they cost me enough.

Dear all,


I've asked this question a few years ago, and I thought it might be interesting to discuss it again. What composers do you think are emerging and disappearing from concert halls? In other words: is the "Iron Repertoire" really that "iron"? To be frank, I haven't done systematic research into this, but browsing through all the season schedules from the countries within my travel reach (NL, B, D, DK, SE, F, P, ES, IT) I got the impression that particularly composers from the second quarter of the 20th century were less prominent than they once were: Bartók, Stravinsky, Ravel – and certainly that the diversity of their works being played had diminished.


On the other hand, I also have the feeling that we see a small resurgence of national composers that were once firmly in the unsung camp: Stenhammar in Sweden for instance, or Braga Santos in Portugal.


What is your experience? Have you noticed shifts and if so, where?

I just found out that last Saturday, the Korean Symphony Orchestra put their performance of Rued Langgaard's (or as I have always suspected, Siegfried and Rued's) symphony No. 1, "Pastoral of the Cliffs", conducted by Jah-Bom Koo, online on Youtube. It is a very committed performance, even if the recording balance leaves something to be desired (the important quartet of French horns all but disappear in most tuttis). Good crowd, too.

Hi all,


At the moment I'm getting interested in the way that the Icelandic saga of Frithjof (or Frithiof; Friðþjófs saga hins frœkna) was picked up in European music at the end of the 19th century. There are various examples, by Bruch (the first, by all accounts), Dubois, Andreé, Wagenaar and probably most famously Heinrich Hofmann (Frithjof Symphony in F, Op. 22 from 1874).

But one of the more tantalizing ones is Felix Draeseke's symphonic poem Frithjof from 1865 (WoO 7), which follows closely on the heels of Bruch's work from 1860. There is a (competent) MIDI rendering by Steffen Fahl on this page, but can any tell me if this has ever been recorded with a "live" orchestra? Thanks in advance!

Hi all,


To me, Terry93D's question in another thread raised the question what you would recommend to new enthusiasts. A colleague asked me for some suggestions the other day, and I found myself tackling the issue more or less psychologically. This is a person that likes grand gestures and is very extrovert, and I found myself giving him Parry's and Atterberg's symphonies, but also Fauré's piano quartets (as I consider virtually all chamber music as unsung for large swathes of the populace) and that went down very well. But I would perhaps not recommend Parry to just anyone.


But it begged the question: would you be able to formulate a "canon of unsungs" - works that you would unhesitatingly recommend to anyone if you wanted them to open their minds to the breadth of underappreciated music?


Perhaps a ground rule to avoid an onslaught of lists: one work (or set of works), and with motivation, per person.


To make a start, let me mention the last two symphonies by Franz Berwald. Not only are they melodically and rhythmically attractive, but they're also quite distinctive and show an individuality that may alert people that their is something beyond the usual fare. And they're just such fun.

Hi all,

Following up on the Pfitzner thread in the other branch of the forum, I though I might direct you to a page with Willem Mengelberg's complete recordings:

http://willemmengelberg.nl/?q=discografie

There are a few unsung gems there, and the whole thing shows a fascinating insight into early-20th-century repertoire (albeit of the conservative kind). I think the site was set up about a year ago to accompany Frits Zwart's monumental (but, alas, Dutch) biography of Mengelberg.

Hello all,


Listening just now to Glass's First Symphony I found it interesting that a work from 1894 would start "in medias res" ("in the midst of the action" in cinematic terms). Schmidt-Kowalski did this in his Piano Concerto, but I assumed it was a (rare) modernist thing. Can anyone give some other early examples of a piece (or movement) beginning that way? Harold in Italie might be an example, but I'm not entirely sure.


Addition: in retrospect I might not have been precise enough. When I speak of In Medias Res, I think of a piece that begins as though it were in the middle of a movement. In the case of Glass's symphony, the (1st mvt) opening is reflected in the (4th mvt) coda.

Hi,


I keep having problems with the editor on the forum. It keeps adding seemingly random code into messages, particularly when I copy text from elsewhere (plain text, though). Would it be possible to add an HTML editing option? That would solve a lot of problems, I think. If there already is one, I have missed it and apologize for the oversight.

Hi all,

A few days ago, I noticed that the YouTube user known as KuhlauDilfEng<insert number here> posted the very recent Toccata recording of Leopold Damrosch's Symphony in A major. This caused me to re-think the prevalent ethics behind YouTube classical music uploads. On this forum, Damrosch's symphony has been described as a "magnificent failure" (or words to that effect) and I think rightly so. Yet it is an important work in its genre, and I am very glad it is for all to listen to. We don't just need the "masterpieces" recorded, we need as much music as we can get to gain some insight into the complexities of the musical landscape. Without sound, a piece of music doesn't really exist. Someone, however, has to foot the bill.


In the past, I've been involved in the recording of (IMO) unjustly ignored music, and there are a couple of productions that I contributed to in a small way, and that I am also rather proud of. The margins for such recordings are slim; it takes years to break even on investment. Moreover, the market is smalll, and it mainly consists of collectors. Typically, these buyers of unsung music are driven by curiosity – by the thrill of discovering something they don't know yet. It is here that the problem with YouTube channels such as KuhlauDilfEng's occurs. Youtube offers the same satisfaction that commercial releases offer, but at a much lower cost. Moreover and crucially, the party that invested time, money and effort in getting a work recorded, sees nothing of this investment returned. In the end, this is an unsustainable situation. The impetus to record new works will suffer from the impossibility of getting any realistic return on investment.


Seeing such recently published works being uploaded on YouTube makes me wonder whether we don't have a responsibility to react as a community, or at least discuss ways to do so. There's no point in attempting to police the internet, and I have no immediate solution, but it pains me to see it because I can't imagine that such practices don't undermine the likelihood of new initiatives.


N.b. 1: I know copyright holders may monetize Youtube videos if they have a claim, but the revenue is in no way comparable to what they would make if they sold a CD or download.
N.b. 2: Yes, it is the primary responsibility of the copyright holders to tackle this problem, but considering the amount of uploads and the way Youtube is organized, just keeping up can be quite a chore.

Hi all,


Today I re-watched the Alfredo Casella 2nd Symphony on Youtube, played by the HR-Sinfonieorchester (Frankfurt RSO) under Gianandrea Noseda (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KDslVGf7OTQ). I was present at that concert, and (to use a very over-used term) remember being truly blown away at the time - a deeply emotional experience. Here we had a top-notch orchestra led by one of the most promising young(er) conductors of today, giving their all in a work that was unknown to most of the people in the theatre, and being amply rewarded by the audience's reaction (something we're often told is a hopeless cause).

Therefore, my question: what was the most best concert experience you ever had of an unsung composer's work? What I'm aiming at is not so much the best work you heard in concert, but the most rewarding evening in terms of performer and audience commitment, and the greatest concert result.

HI all,

Listening to the First Piano Concerto by Marie Jaëll it dawned on me how blatantly its first theme was copied - and subsequently used as the main motif - in Asger Hamerik's Fifth Symphony. The opening of both works is virtually identical. A bit of research reveals that Jaëll started at the Paris conservatory in 1862 when she was 16 - the same year that Hamerik, age 19, arrived in Paris to study with Berlioz.

I haven't been able to track much more information, but this goes way past a coincidence. However, it made me wonder whether Hamerik made use of such tributes (I'm sure it is that) more often, also because I always had the sense that I heard the main theme of the Third Symphony (1884) before. There is not a lot of published material on Hamerik's work, but if there's a forum where the members might have noticed this sort of tributeit is this. Anyone?


For comparison:

   
• Marie Jaëll, Piano Concerto No. 1 in D minor (1877): https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2f0M-VJ1zI0
• Asger Hamerik, Symphony No. 5 in G minor, "Symphonie sérieuse" (1891): https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BIkwnW4FKVo

Hello all,

Leafing through the online catalogue of the Tiroler Musikmuseum I saw that they recently released a CD containing the symphonic poems of Ernst Tschiderer (http://shop.tiroler-landesmuseen.at/cd-dvd/klingende-kostbarkeiten-aus-tirol/klingende-kostbarkeiten-aus-tirol-93.html). It sounds like exactly the thing that I might like. There is a news report on Youtube (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FBjfHRE4au8) that contains some of the music, but it's only bits and pieces even if it sounds interesting. Has anyone heard this CD and if so, would he/she care to comment?