Messages

I just ordered a recording of a Hummel oratorio Der Durchzug Durchs Rote Meer on CPO cheaply and I'm curious to hear it. I know Hummel is not particularly obscure, but my understanding is that his music has been far overshadowed by Beethoven's. Grove says that "Hummel's music reached the highest level accessible to one who lacks ultimate genius." Any Hummel fans out there?

I like Glazunov. He was a very good orchestrator who wrote an excellent (in my opinion) violin concerto, but I haven't been too impressed with his piano music. I would not say though that I prefer Glazunov to other relatively unsung Russian composers, like Balakirev or Glinka. I'm also interested in Dargomyzhsky (or however you spell it), but I've only heard a few minutes of his work.

I don't have too much to add to this thread, but I would definitely agree about Nicolai, Arriaga, and Boulanger (the three mentioned composers I am familiar with). It is quite something to think of what might have happened had people like Mozart, Chopin, Schubert, or Mendelssohn who died young and were famous lived to a ripe old age.

I can't say to much about less-famous symphonies that are specifically German/Austrian from that period, but if you are looking for some other symphonies which were influenced a lot by German composers, the symphonies of Berwald and Farrenc are excellent.

The budget 10-CD Smetana set.

Eh? What's this?


Edit: Aha, this: http://www.amazon.com/Bedrich-Smetana-B/dp/B000GFKUEA
Bleh, old mono stuff. Ah well. Someone really needs to release a nice full set of Smetana's piano music that isn't mono with different music on each channel (no lie!)

I got it because the perfoamances looked OK and it was cheap.

Some of which I bought myself and much of it not unsung:

The set of 5 Russian operas on Bravissimo/Opera D'Oro
The budget 10-CD Smetana set.
Several $1 CDs from Goodwill, perhaps the most interesting of which is a set of MacDowell's piano concertos.
Parkin's set of Bax's piano music on Chandos. It was pretty much the only good deal at the one (terrible) used CD store in town where almost everything is overpriced and the Sound of Music songs are in the "Classical" section.

I wouldn't say that Farrenc is "better" than composers like Berlioz or Raff, though to me she is undoubtedly in the top tier of composer unsungs.

Chaminade was indeed a very unique composer. She was a master of writing huge quantities of "salon" music which could make her lots of money, yet she was also perfectly capable of writing more "serious" works of high quality. It's too bad that her reputation as a "salon composer" has diminished interest in her better works.

Two  female composers who are better known for their piano music wrote symphonies .They were Cecile Chaminade, (1857-1944) Dramatic Symphony -" Les Amazones ", and Louise Adolpha Le Beau, (1850-1927) Symphony in F minor.
These works have never been recorded to my knowledge.

Re The Le Beau: You aren't missing anything. The symphony has not been recorded, and I do not believe that it has received a modern performance. After hearing her poor piano concerto I discussed the symphony with my professor who has seen the score. She has an amazing ear and can "hear" scores in her head, and she told me that it was not worthy of performance, just one giant boring sequence with no real development of themes otherwise. Le Beau was in fact jealous of Clara Schumann's success and her narcissistic complex seemed to, in my opinion, make her feel entitled to the same success without even objectively assessing her music and fixing some basic problems. I gather that Le Beau's cello sonata is the "best" of her works, which probably isn't saying all that much, but I am not familiar with it.

Chaminade is not among my favorites, but I imagine that her symphony might be interesting. Her piano concerto bears some uncanny architectural similarities to Rimsky-Korsakov's work in the same genre.

In terms of Woman composers, I still advocate Elfrida Andree. Her second symphony and the suite from her (unperformed) opera have been recorded on Sterling. The symphony is good, though not particularly memorable, and the suite is excellent.

I'm sad that the production has finished. It was so much fun! I even feel like I'd be happy playing in opera pits for a career if I wasn't going into musicology, but anyway I'm not good enough to be a professional violinist. It was for me a much greater experience than playing in a symphony usually is, and I am sad that I know of no future opportunities for a non-professional like me to be in opera pits. I guess I can play vocal scores on the piano, but that's not the same.

About the music, Merry Wives really grew on me. It is not a work of genius musically or dramatically, but a very good and clearly enjoyable opera. Is anyone here familiar with Nicolai's "Il Templario"? I heard some short excerpts on youtube and was quite impressed, but 10 minutes of excerpts does not give an impression of an opera as a whole.

I believe there is a good recording of the Gaelic symphony on Chandos coupled with some Barber.

Opening night tonight!

I'm very excited. I love playing in opera pits, but fear that I will never have another opportunity after graduating.

After having lived with the music for a while, I like Merry Wives more. However, it seems to me that Nicolai had too many musical ideas when writing this opera. He has lots of wonderful melodies and motives, but pretty consistently fails to develop them. I just find it disappointing how some of these great 8 bar melodies get sung once or twice and then disappear. Some of the best of these melodies could have been made into full arias.

The Swedish National Library is slow largely because of distance, but they are usually very cooperative. I once tried to get an opera manuscript copy from them, but I didn't get it because my university library decided that it cost too much and I'm too cheap to pay for it myself. When I have gotten stuff, they have sent very nice scans on PDFs on CD.

I play violin in most of my college's pit orchestras. Today we started rehearsals for Otto Nicolai's Merry Wives of Windsor. It does not seem particularly musically profound or thrilling, but is nevertheless a lot of fun, even if not as much enjoyable as Mozart's Cosi fan Tutte was two years ago. Any thoughts on Merry Wives or Nicolai? I do not know much about the composer.

I would consider myself fairly knowledgeable on the topic of women composers, but I'm not sure if the most "famous" ones are the best.

In my opinion, the most talented woman composer was Louise Farrenc. The first woman to teach at the Paris Conservatoire, her three Symphonies and two Piano Quintets are appealing works which show high technical mastery as well as significant innovation and individuality of style. In my opinion, these works hold their own well when compared even with the more famous chamber music and symphonies written by contemporaries such as Schubert or Mendelssohn.

Amy Beach was also very gifted. I would agree that the Gaelic Symphony is an excellent work, but I would also recommend the Piano Quintet, the Violin Sonata, and the Piano Concerto. A good version of this concerto is coupled with the symphony on Naxos.

Lili Boulanger's cantata Faust et Helene was a phenomenal achievement for a teenager. Too bad she died so young.

Rebecca Clarke wrote some very good chamber music. The sonata and the passacaglia for viola and piano are possible her best works.

I would agree that Ethyl Smyth's "The Wreckers" is a good opera, but I'm not as convinced of her other works. Maybe I should give them another listen.

Never been much of a fan of Fanny Mendelssohn. Das Jahr is OK, but her output from before her last years was generally not that good. I also have no strong feelings about Clara Schumann, but I think she was a much better composer than Fanny.

Marion Bauer was inconsistent but she wrote some excellent impressionistic piano works. (I would recommend the Stephen Beus CD, coupled with some works by Barber).

My preference among woman composers is Elfrida Andree, but I am possibly biased because I am researching her. I wrote a post about this in other thread if anybody wants to know more about my opinions.

Women composers don't generally get the credit they deserve. The only women composer I have looked at at all who is "bad" is Luise le Beau. Her music is just awful. One long sequence. The best I can say about her piano concerto is that the orchestration is not dreadful.