Now that we've devoted two threads already to what might be termed an "Unsung Composers Greatest Hits" list of longer orchestral and chamber pieces respectively, why not turn it into an appropriately four-movement symphony?
Before going on to the final movement, I thought we might devote some love to the orchestral pieces that nowadays get the short end of the stick (pun intended) in concert performances. I'm talking about any work up to around 15-20 minutes: overtures, shorter symphonic poems, the whole genre of the Konzertstück and any other orchestral piece that fits the category. While they could occasionally be heard in the classic "concert sandwich" (overture - concerto - interval - symphony) until recently, they seem to have even less of a presence today - partly because that sandwich is mostly gone, and partly because even when the overture slot still exists it is typically filled with a newly commissioned piece. As a result, a whole section of romantic musical heritage threatens to get forgotten entirely.
Enough reasons to give this music some attention now. So: which are your favourite unsung shorter orchestral / concertante pieces? By "shorter", I mean anything up to 15 minutes in length (or slightly over). Like in the previous threads, could I ask you to submit a reasoned list of three works meant to be performed independently which have impressed you so much that you think the world needs to hear them again?
I'll be maintaining a Spotify playlist of the responses (https://open.spotify.com/playlist/4rHremPNs7cu4Vcnldoc1X?si=1ba10a6a3f474129) (insofar as the music can be found on Spotify, obviously) here.
Brull's op.88 (the Andante and Allegro) is a masterpiece of musical conjuring. You feel you have been on a journey of sounds and experiences. It exudes serenity in the first movement, and then you are into a rich tapestry of melodic imagination. For my money, the most satisfying work for piano and orchestra of its kind and one that always lifts my spirits and brings a smile to my face. It is probably my favourite piece of music that I have ever heard.
Niels Gade's overture Echoes of Ossian announces the arrival of a young composer with remarkable musical talents . It evokes all that is most noble,most chivalrous ,in mankind . You listen to it and are silent for a while after it ends.
And,last,and one of Bernstein's favourites. Ambrose Thomas's overture Raymond . One of the saddest books I have ever read is Dumas's Man in the Iron Mask. You really don't want your favourite musketeers to be killed off. Perhaps the unlikely hero of the book is the flawed but essentially honourable Nicolas Fouquet who is treated so shabbily by Louis XIV after his demonstration of loyalty. Sit back and wallow in melody after melody, and think of the book.
I thought this would be an easy one, but now I see I need to exclude some great contenders. Curiously, with respect to the plight of short concertante works, even celebrated composers might qualify, since even their short concertante pieces (think Schumann, Mendelssohn, Dvorak) are ignored in the concert hall, if not on record. But let's stick to our unsung friends, who need advocacy all the more.
Niels Gade: In the Highlands, Op. 7 -- I have sometimes seen Scottish-themed concert programs that open with Mendelssohn (The Hebrides) and close with Mendelssohn, too (Third Symphony). Here, then, is a chance to give The Hebrides a much-needed rest. Gade's early overture is chock-full with Romantic atmosphere but doesn't lay on the Scottishness too thickly. He waits until the spirited end to turn up the dial on the Scottish snap, an ending sure to rouse the spirits of the audience. And what marvelous orchestration! The horn calls in the transition to the development section are the very definition of Romantic. This is Gade at his best, and a fine introduction to his neglected music.
Erich Korngold: Cello Concerto, Op. 37 -- About 40 years ago Howard M. Ziff, former city desk editor of the Chicago Daily News and later long-time professor of journalism at the University of Massachusetts, hosted a classic movie program on our local public TV station, WGBY in Springfield (MA). Howard introduced me to Citizen Kane and it was through him that I encountered Irving Rapper's overwrought 1946 melodrama, Deception, starring Bette Davis as a concert pianist, Paul Henreid her love interest, a concert cellist, and Claude Rains as the malicious composer Alexander Hollenius. Howard, in his introduction, promised us a movie of pure Hollywood: fake story, fake acting, and fake music. But what fake music! For it was composed by none other than Erich Korngold.
The shenanigans surrounding the premiere of "Hollenius's" Cello Concerto play a key role in the plot. We hear only fragments, of course, but behind those fragments lies Korngold's superb 12-minute miniature concerto. As with many one-movement concertos, Korngold actually designs a compressed but continuous three-movement form. The thematic material, harmony, and orchestration are everything you would expect from Korngold: exotic, lavish, and pure Hollywood. What a marvelous ending, too, in the manner it pits the defiant statements of the cello against the declamations of the orchestra. In the movie, Hollenius laments that Bette Davis's character never played the piano concerto he had written for her, illustrating this by playing a few bars at the piano. It makes us wish that Korngold had developed that dramatic sounding excerpt into a fully realized work. He never did. He also never had to compose the rest of Hollenius's cello concerto beyond the fragments that we hear in the movie. Luckily, he did, and we are all the richer for it.
Max Bruch: Adagio appassionato for Violin and Orchestra, Op. 57 -- About 50 years ago (now that I am being nostalgic) there was a radio program called "Music at First Hearing". A panel of critics (I recall Martin Bookspan being a regular) were played newly released LPs, after which they gave their opinion of the recording and the performance. They were not told ahead of time the identity of the performers so as to avoid any bias in their judgement. One day they played something for which they not only kept the performers secret, but also the identity of the work itself. It was the Salvatore Accardo/Kurt Masur/Leipzig Gewandhaus recording of Bruch's Adagio appassionato. The critics all confessed they were unfamiliar with it, but it made such a positive impression on them that I think it was Bookspan who said the only fault he could find with it was that it was not preceded by a grand first movement and followed by a spirited finale.
And what a beautiful work it is. To say that it is an adagio by Max Bruch is almost all you need to know. The thematic material is poetic, the orchestration is transparent, and the writing for the violin perfectly idiomatic. And there is even a wonderful theme that, strangely, seems to foreshadow Harold Arlen, and which, when it returns near the end and is played in double-stops, will bring a tear to your eye. Bookspan wished for an entire concerto to surround it, but I think the ending is so ethereally perfect that Bruch was right to leave it as a stand-alone work.
This turned out to be a surprisingly hard choice, not least because I can think of at least twenty or more pieces vying for inclusion. And yes, next month my selection might be a different one, but here goes:
- Alexander Goedicke, Concertstück in D major (1900). A gorgeous, alternately intimate and ebullient piece. Sophisticated writing for the piano combines with an inventive and lush instrumentation in the best Russian tradition. Also a piece that does not shy away from going for big effects when it matters, and is very efficient at doing so. As a result, it feels much more substantial than it is - in a good way. Truly a piece to warm you from the inside.
- Max Bruch, Schön Ellen, for Baritone, Soprano, Choir and Orchestra (1867). This is Bruch's symphonic setting of Emanuel Geisel's ballad about a woman in the British camp during the Siege of Lucknow of 1857 (during the Indian Rebellion) who hears the Scottish relief forces coming in her trance. Bruch inventively recreates the sound of the Pibroch (bagpipes) using the woodwinds and the rhythmic pulse of the orchestra. The way in which the hymn The Campbells Are Coming is used to dramatic effect, and how Bruch morphs it from the distant sound of bagpipes into Ellen's hymn is genius. Every time I hear it, it's a bit of an emotional gut-punch.
- Grzegorz Fitelberg, The Song of the Falcon, Symphonic Poem after Maksim Gorky, Op. 18 (1905). For me, Fitelberg is a bit of a one-hit wonder. I don't care all that much for the rest of what I know of his oeuvre, but this is just a wonderfully evocative and atmospheric piece. There's not much of a story so I'm not sure about the "symphonic poem" aspect, but it is one of the best examples of sonic landscape-painting that I can think of. Meanwhile, it succeeds perfectly in maintaining musical tension, and while the theme is a true ear-worm it doesn't outlast its welcome.
Apologies for being later to the party on this topic. Like Ilja, I found it a difficult exercise for the best of reasons, but my top three (in no particular order) are:
Julius Rietz: Concert Overture in A major Op.7 (1840). Jorge Mester's old Louisville Orchestra recording became a favourite of mine over 50 yeas ago and, despite being rough around the edges, the open-hearted joy and lyrical generosity of the music has continued to appeal. The opening horn calls are the essence of romanticism, the slow introduction which follows has all the delicate charm of Mendelssohn's Midsummer Night's Dream music, and the fast main body of the work is so exuberantly fresh and exciting, it's guaranteed to lift the spirits. To be sure, Rietz's idiom owes a lot to the Mendelssohn of the Italian Symphony, but I don't regard that as a bad thing, and this 11 minute long piece would make a very effective concert opener.
Bedrich Smetana: Richard III, Symphonic Poem Op.11 (1858). An altogether darker work than Rietz's, this intensely dramatic portrait of Shakespeare's villainous king is a marvellous example of musical painting, there's all the grandeur one might expect from medieval chivalry (galloping horses etc.), but it's undermined by the cleverly halting and hesitant, but menacing theme Smetana employs to described the deformed king. A meltingly lyrical section gradually transforms first into pathos and then the tumultuous drama of the final battle and its aftermath. It's a terrifically effective work, and so much better than some of Smetana's Má Vlast pieces.
Joachim Raff: Orchestral Prelude to Shakespeare's Othello WoO.52 (1879). It's a toss up between this and it's companion piece on Macbeth, but I've chosen Othello because of its concision. Despite being only 8 minutes long, Raff packs into it not only musical portraits of Othello, Iago and Desdemona, but also the principle points of the play's plot. He does this through a kaleidoscopic sequence of very brief scenes, employing motifs for each of the principals, in an anticipation of film music techniques. Being Raff, one gets highly effective and varied orchestration of memorable material, a well-paced narrative, all leading to a dramatic stretta finish. Not a note is wasted.
Incidentally, I was tempted to draw up a very different list comprised just of Macbeths: Ignaz Brüll, Joachim Raff and Arthur Sullivan all wrote excellent, recommendable Macbeth overtures, but there are many more in my collection alone: Granville Bantock, Sylvan Dupuis, William Henry Fry, Ernst Mielck, Henry Hugo Pierson, Louis Spohr and Richard Strauss. Colleagues may know others.
The Rietz was the next one on my short list ,and for all the reasons Mark gives.
(Isn't this the same LP that Ilja characterised Mester as having "left something on the stove" in the finale to the Bruch?)
Personally, I regard Smetana's first set of symphonic poems (Richard III - Wallenstein's Camp - Earl Haakon) as far more entertaining than the second (yes, I'm referring to Ma Vlást; talk about "beautiful moments but awful quarters of an hour") and also more interesting in that they don't just paint a scenery but integrate it with the drama. Richard III is probably the most intricate of the three, although I do adore the sheer exuberance of Wallenstein's Camp and the lyricism of Haakon (some very Tchaikovskian string + woodwinds work there before Pyotr Ilyich got round to it himself). Both intellectually and musically, I think all three could work very well played together in concert (and in chronological order).
I feel like I may want to reserve judgment first - looking just at part of a year's programming from about 100 years ago by the NY Philharmonic shows the programming of many short-ish pieces (for example Moszkowski's first orchestral suite, programmed a number of times by that orchestra around 1919-20 alone, 30 years after its publication- or is that too long for this? - but sometimes just excerpts from it, too) - that are almost never performed now. I hesitate to advocate for any one of those works until I am more familiar with them which I am happy to become soon, of course :)