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Did anyone put in a word for Novak's 'Boure' [The Storm], opus 42? A huge piece for soloists, chorus and orchestra, full of wonderful music which manages wholly to transcend the lunacy of the poem it sets. The lengthy Epilogue is a very interesting foretaste of Janacek's Indian summer period, since this piece appeared in about 1909. It's taken me most of my life to find a score of this piece, but finally I have one (an enlightened German company has put out a reprint as a large-ish miniature score). The music immediately after the ship sinks (with swirling air pockets vividly captured as they come to the surface, and the sea returns to indifferent normality) is magnificently graphic and I defy anybody to ignore the thunderous opening (reprised climactically as the ship finally goes down with all on board). I just wish somebody would record the late 'Spring' and 'Autumn' Symphonies - I have the score of one, not the other. By the way, allegedly Novak wrote his orchestral overture 'Lady Godiva' in the impossibly brief period of two consecutive days in October 1907, in response to an emergency last-minute request. It lasts 17 minutes in Pesek's recording and is beautifully, also quite intricately scored. Perhaps a forum on the fastest composers around might prove interesting, even if not especially enlightening..?

Some may be interested to know that Rachmaninov transcribed Glazunov's Sixth Symphony for piano, 4 hands - so it's a case of 'DO try this at home'. It's a splendid piece and the last movement seems like a kind of riposte to Saint-Saens's Third Symphony but without the organ. I was very glad to get the Serebrier version and find that the speeds worked so well: some people do funny things with this finale and Rozhdestvensky managed to make it take almost 3 minutes longer than most others.

William Lawes stopped one fighting for the royal cause at the siege of Chester in 1645.

In his opus 31 Alkan went for 25 Preludes so that he could come round again and end where he began, in C - but there's an idiosyncratic arrangement, with pairs in which the first is always the dominant of the second. There's also the curious 'split-level' entity of the 12 Etudes by Liszt that get only halfway round the key cycle and are finished off much later as an act of homage by Liapunov.

I think Hans Gal wrote 24 Preludes (possibly fugues as well, I don't have them and can't remember).

I know this thread has gone qujiet but I've only just joined!

Amphissa suggested Paderewski - lovely piece but beware if you're listening to Earl Wild, as a lot of the embroidery is his own.

I completely agree with those who suggested Scharwenka 4 - on account of the last movement. Could I put in a word for the crazy Peter Mennin Concerto (1957) as well - the last movt as played by John Ogdon (probably sight reading, or close) is enjoyably bananas.

I must admit I'd wondered before now whether the Piano Concerto in F# minor ascribed to Bronsart himself could actually have been the one also attributed to his wife - even though the published score and the old Michael Ponti Vox/Turnabout recording both say that actually she was the dedicatee of his. By the way, I have an ancient full score of it somewhere (too buried to unearth at the moment) and I have a feeling that it refers to him as 'Hans Bronsart von Schellendorf' rather than the less plausible 'Hans von Bronsart'. I do also have a score of a Capriccio alla Tarantella for piano solo by Ingeborg, - yet again in F# minor (this key really seems to have got them going - though I also have a B flat minor Polonaise by him). The New Grove Dictionary of Women Composers (MacMillan, 1994/5/6) also goes for 'Hans Bronsart von Schellendorf' in its biog. of Ingeborg, and for her lists a substantial output, including her Concerto, which it dates as pre-1863. Nobody seems to know exactly when his Concerto was written, although Hans von Bulow seems to have been playing it in the late 1870s... I still have this nagging suspicion that he could have put his name to hers just to get it published (shades of Mendelssohn and Fanny Hensel with one or two 'Songs without Words' - not to mention their title supposedly being her idea too).

Am I cooking up a mystery for no good reason? I don't know much about them but 'his' Concerto on Vox is a lot of fun and agreeably coupled with the 2nd Concerto of d'Albert. I'd be interested to hear from someone more authoritative on this.

Hello, I've just happened upon this interesting website and joined up. I've written various notes on Bowen, Dale and others for Hyperion and if I may I'll correct you slightly about the Bowen Preludes: they were only published in 1950 but the compositional part was completed shortly before the outbreak of the Second War. I find them uneven in inspiration but the best of them are excellent - as are the performances they've now received on disc from Messrs Hough and Celis and also from Marie-Catherine Girod.