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Thanks for those comments, Mark. Very enlightening - and spot-on as to the limitations of the offerings available. For myself, I would thoroughly recommend the expansive Bargiel Piano Sonata and thought the Heller Sonata No.2 also worth pursuing.

Wow, Strauss' early Symphony with the BPO...! That must have been something!

It's Heller's Piano Sonata No.2 in B minor on the RD disc - I ought to listen to it again, although I must say that the quality of the recording is a major barrier (boxy, living-room acoustic and a hiss level which goes up and down according to how loud the music is - peculiar, but the other CD I have from this source is the same.)

Don't worry, Peter, The Bortkiewicz PCs are much more like Rachmaninov than Medtner!

Yes, why not start another thread on Heller? It'll make me listen again to his very interesting Piano Sonata on Romantic Discoveries recordings.

The Glazunov VC debate has now been made into a separate thread...

OK: Grove 4 has two entries, as follows:

- Vol.2: "Op.73 Violin Concerto in A minor" (wrong opus number)
- Supp. Vol: "Op.82 Violin Concerto in A" (wrong key)

I suggest that these two entries actually refer to the same work. Glazunov's Op.73 is in fact his Solemn Overture for orchestra (1900). The (single) entry should read:

"Op.82 Violin Concerto in A minor"

It is surely a case of two wrong entries - or maybe the VC originally had a different opus number which was later changed. At all events, there is absolutely no mention anywhere of another VC - see this full list of his works:

http://home.wanadoo.nl/ovar/glazun.htm

I understood perfectly what was meant! However, Grove online makes no mention of another VC by Glazunov, so we are no nearer to the source of information regarding this supposedly lost concerto. Do you by any chance mean Goldmark's 2nd VC? Now that is mentioned in Grove online, but I have never managed to find out anything about it...

...which just shows how different people's tastes can be. For me the Reger VC is one of the greats - but it is an immensely serious work on a grand scale. The PC I like rather less, but I would count its slow movement as one of the most profound in the whole repertoire. Chacun à son goût!

Maybe Grove online is better? There is no mention there of any 'phantom' VC by Glazunov - and his Op.77 is, of course, his 7th Symphony. Curious...

Me too, John! We should try to meet up...

I find this hard to answer. I have always thought that Raff's four greatest symphonies are nos. 2-5 and that they represent perfectly the competing tendencies within his eleven works in the genre. Thus nos. 3 and 5 contain his most vivid scene-painting, whereas nos. 2 and 4 represent his concern for absolute music at its best. To put it somewhat simplistically we find the competing tendencies of Romanticism and Classicism.

Beyond this I find it harder and harder to choose. On different days I would be happy with any one of these as my favourite - although Im Walde, and especially that wonderfully evocative first movement, probably presses the right buttons for me more than the others...

Having said which I am very fond of No.6 too. Ah well...

Of course it's improved, Jim: it's now securer than before! Do give us - Mark in particular - some credit for actually improving the situation.

I have a reasonable dub of a recording of PC1 made by Gerhard Puchelt with the Bamberg SO under Jan Koetsier. It's an enjoyable work - pretty Lisztian in its pianism, but with a vein of sentiment and lyricism typical of the composer. It's in four movements with a scherzo placed third. A Hyperion CD of Godard's two PCs would be a most welcome addition to the catalogue!

I've always been interested in music by unsung composers, without knowing about more than a smattering of them. Martucci's two symphonies were certainly formative in my own experience - followed more recently by the work of Dr Alan Krueck on Draeseke, my acquaintance with the grandson of Julius Röntgen (who lives in Holland) and then the Raff website and Mark Thomas.

I know it will embarrass him terribly, but Mark has introduced me to more music which I would never otherwise have encountered or contemplated listening to than any other source.

And finally, it has been through the members of this forum that I have gone on to consider other composers - I think particularly of John White and his enthusiasm for Spohr and (Franz) Lachner.

I try to scan all the posts to check whether someone's enthusiasm concerns music which I have previously dismissed or just don't know. The latest seems to be Henselt's Piano Trio: it's duly gone on the wanted list...

Peter: do get hold of the Draeseke Piano Sonata - a magnificent piece written, no doubt, under the influence of Liszt, but with a heroic and poetic quality all its own.