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[Das Unmoglichste von Allem]

Anton Urspruch's comic opera Das Unmoglichste von Allem (1897), which was broadcast on German Radio last year, has popped up here:

http://premiereopera.net/das-unmoglichste-von-allem-by-urspruch-leverkusen-2011%e2%80%a1/

I don't know if the original performance was complete, but the broadcast is descibed as excerpts with commentary.  Still, substantial chunks, if it fills 2 discs...

(Hope this doesn't violate any guidelines.)

David

Somewhere in the wilds of my apartment are 10 or so xeroxed pages of the c minor piano concerto by this Weisbaden-born, Boston-based, Liszt pupil (also said to have studied 6 months with Raff).  The copy is of the published 2 piano score (1886?) in the Library of Congress.  I remember it as an rather advanced piece in the heroic manner.  I wonder if anyone knows if the full score survives.

Maas also wrote a fair bit of chamber music, but perhaps his early death cast his mss to the winds.  Has anyone encountered anything else?

David

[Henri viii]

This summer Botstein and Co. devote 2 weekends to Camille Saint-Saens (and his contemporaries): there will be works for orchestra, chamber ensembles, piano, chorus, and a concert performance on Sunday, Aug. 19 of the opera Henri viii.  Le deluge is featured on another program (along with Florent Schmitt's Psalm 47, etc) and the 1st and last symphonies will get an outing.  Either the 4th or 5th piano concerto will be played (the brochure says one thing, the web another) the soloist TBA.

There will also be 5 staged performances of Chabrier's Le roi malgre lui (co-production with Wexford.) 

Here's the link to the Bard Festival webpage:

http://fishercenter.bard.edu/bmf/2012/

David

[Henri VIII]

I saw this item on the new list from Records International, and it's a must buy for Saint-Saens fans.  Not only the (relatively) familiar ballet music from Henri VIII (borrowing a tune that also appears in Brian's 'Jolly Miller' if I remember correctly), but also the less-often encountered Etienne Marcel ballet.  The 'familiar' dance music from Ascanio, has up to now been, I think, limited to one flute piece, and no trace of the late Les Barbares has ever appeared on disc in the modern era.  On the Melba label, which has altready given us Saint-Saens' Helene and Nuit Persane.  Promises to be fascinating.

http://www.recordsinternational.com/cd.php?cd=12N043

David

Another release in this interesting series...I know several UC fans bought the earlier entry devoted to Saint-Saens' Prix de Rome works.  Two discs of Charpentier this time: some unusual, some more familiar:

http://www.amazon.fr/gp/product/B005PZFEDI/ref=pe_98791_27483541_snp_dp[/url

David

Can anyone tell me more about this piece?  I understand that it was unpublished, and has been (at some point) reported lost...however, a friend who teaches piano at Juilliard told me this morning that the score exists in Paris (recent discovery?) but the work is early, somewhat uncharacteristic Moszkowski. 

More information, please.

David

...from Fabio Luisi and Vienna Symphony's Nov. 13 program at Avery Fisher Hall.  The rarely-heard Beethoven 7 is replacing it.  I guess all the ticket buyers who didn't flock to hear Vienna's #2 orchestra play Schmidt will now rush out to hear them run through this warhorse...

Good thing I didn't buy my tickets early. 

David

This opera recording does not seem to be available in the US.  I have it as a private recording made off a Radio Montpellier (or whatever it's called) broadcast a few years back, but here it is in official form.

http://www.amazon.fr/Edouard-Lalo-Fiesque-op%C3%A9ra-actes/dp/B005CX78ZA/ref=pd_sim_m2

Those who love Lalo will find plenty to enjoy here, especially since much of the opera was later reused in more now-familiar contexts.  Alagna is the star and is in good form (I believe his ex-wife was originally scheduled to take part, but their personal problems intervened.)

David

[Thalassa Symphony]

The Wikipedia page for Arthur Somervell has a note that the composer's Thalassa Symphony has been recorded by the Malta Symphony for future release on Cameo Classics.  Has anyone heard anything about this?  I'd love to hear the piece, though I suspect this wouldn't be a first choice ensemble to bring it forward....

David

[A recording of overtures by British and Irish composers conducted by Richard Bonynge is planned to take place during July 2011. The rise of a distinctive English opera movement started with John Barnett's The Mountain Sylph in 1834. Opera lovers will now be able to trace the development of its style over a period of 60 years and appreciate its influence on later music. The overtures will include:- The Mountain Sylph (Barnett, 1834) The Siege of Rochelle (Balfe, 1835) Le Puits d'Amour (Balfe, 1843)The Night Dancers (Loder, 1846) The Amber Witch (Wallace, 1861)The Lily of Killarney (Benedict, 1862) She Stoops to Conquer (Macfarren, 1864) The Golden Web (Goring Thomas, 1893)]

The Naxos release of Robin Hood sent me back to see what Victorian Opera Northwest had in mind for the future.  It's mouth-watering stuff:

A recording of overtures by British and Irish composers conducted by Richard Bonynge is planned to take place during July 2011. The rise of a distinctive English opera movement started with John Barnett's The Mountain Sylph in 1834. Opera lovers will now be able to trace the development of its style over a period of 60 years and appreciate its influence on later music. 

The overtures will include:-

The Mountain Sylph (Barnett, 1834)

The Siege of Rochelle (Balfe, 1835)

Le Puits d'Amour (Balfe, 1843)

The Night Dancers (Loder, 1846)

The Amber Witch (Wallace, 1861)

The Lily of Killarney (Benedict, 1862)

She Stoops to Conquer (Macfarren, 1864)

The Golden Web (Goring Thomas, 1893)  

Unbelievable.  Overture's to Barnett's The Mountain Sylph & Macfarren's She Stoops to Conquer?
Be still my heart...

David

[Helvellyn]

Finally, it cometh, in October:

http://www.naxos.com/catalogue/item.asp?item_code=8.660306-07

Can we also hope for Helvellyn?

David

[Carol Symphony]

I actually bought the Dutton disc of Montague Phillips Piano Concertos for this delightful bit of filler.  I've loved the Hely-Hutchinson Carol Symphony for years and can't imagine a holiday season when I don't play it, so I had my curiosity piqued by The Young Idea for Piano and Orchestra.  The word insouciant seems perfect for this little bit of Jazz Age nose-thumbing.  Like the accompaniment for a scene by Wodehouse, and at 8 minutes, not a moment too long.  An expensive 8 minutes, but there you have it...

David

PS. The Phillips concertos are equally delightful, in a different way...

[Jerusalem]

3 billion worldwide heard excellent performances of Jerusalem and Blest Pair of Sirens at the Royal Wedding.  Brilliant!

David

Bless the person who did this!  Hyperion's Kullak concerto with the 2 piano score running alongside, for those of us who don't have a score handy

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=diprvpWfD1o

David, who loves this piece

This is a recording in fine Austrian radio sound of a broadcast concert performance from 2010.  Simone Kermes and Vivica Genaux do the honors.  There is no studio recording of this rarity from Meyerbeer's Italian period.  A very interesting work, well performed:

http://premiereopera.net/?p=3856

I've dealt with this source on several occasions with happy, if slow, results.

David

[Mark]

[I've split this topic off from the discussion about whether we should allow advertisements. Mark]

This reminds me to start a thread about the upcoming NY performance of Meyerbeer's Africaine Now that's unsung!

David

[Ivanhoe]

If Sullivan and Rossini haven't satisfied your craving for Ivanhoe(s), maybe you should try this: Saint-Saens' music written to satisfy the Prix de Rome committee.  It includes various cantatas and sacred works, starting off with Ivanhoe.  Fans of the Urbs Roma symphony and the many fine works by the young, and almost supernaturally gifted Camille should find this interesting...I know I will!

http://www.amazon.fr/gp/product/B004FH48XO/ref=pe_4171_23648871_snp_dp
David

[Mireille]

The Paris Opera raised eyebrows two years ago by opening their season with a very traditional production of Gounod's Mireille, once famous, now languishing.  It was a tremendous hit, with an audience for the tv broadcast of over a million.  Now the production is out on dvd, as well as cd, but the dvd is the thing here, since few of us will ever see this opera staged, and certainly not in a staging Gounod might have approved.
The NY Times went to Paris to review it:
http://www.nytimes.com/2009/09/23/arts/23iht-loomis.html
Here's the item itself.  Naturally it's also available in Region 2:
http://www.amazon.com/Mireille-Mula/dp/B003Z420MY/ref=sr_1_2?ie=UTF8&qid=1295803092&sr=8-2
A well-reviewed cast, with a Albanian Mireille and an American Vincent! 
David

[Psalm 47]

Not a new recording by any means, but certainly a classic:
http://www.highdeftapetransfers.com/category/197/ 
It sounds marvelous, as you would expect from this source, and with great recordings of Psalm 47 and La Tragedie de Salome not exactly thick on the ground, pretty much self-recommending (though I'll recommend it anyway.)

David

[Mathilde von Guise]

Brilliant has released a 2 cd World Premiere recording of Hummel's 'big' operatic success (comparatively speaking) Mathilde von Guise.  No libretto, but great stuff none the less: the 1821 revised Weimar version sung in Italian in a translation commisioned by Hummel.  There are some extras: 2 different overtures, the 1810 original and a jolly noisy one Hummel borrowed from the ballet Sappho of Mitilene in 1821.  There's also a little duet that somehow never made it into the published vocal scores.  I haven't seen this set anywhere but Records International, those champions of the unsung:

http://www.recordsinternational.com/cd.php?cd=07M048

This is a delightful piece.  Not very dramatic, maybe, but full of vigorous high spirits.  Mozart is the primary influence, but plenty of Haydn, Cherubini and some Beethoven too.  There are a surprisingly small number of arias: three, plus an additional Romanza for the soprano.  The cast is excellent, without being starry.  The period orchestra is Slovakian (fitting for a composer born in present-day Bratislava), as is the chorus: this is a Slovak/ French co-production.  All do a fine job, once the horns settle down.  The recorded sound is admirably clear.

All this at Brilliant's super-cheap prices!

David