cpo have also announced a recording of the Symphony No.2 by Gerhard Schjelderup (1859-1933)...
http://www.jpc.de/jpcng/SESSIONID/fb2168f227aec203db41480801eeeed3/cpo/detail/-/art/Gerhard-Schjelderup-Symphonie-Nr-2/hnum/2482341 (http://www.jpc.de/jpcng/SESSIONID/fb2168f227aec203db41480801eeeed3/cpo/detail/-/art/Gerhard-Schjelderup-Symphonie-Nr-2/hnum/2482341)
Here is some info about the composer...
http://www.mic.no/mic.nsf/doc/art2002092514511563384756 (http://www.mic.no/mic.nsf/doc/art2002092514511563384756)
Evidently this symphony dates from 1924...
http://no.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gerhard_Schjelderup#.C3.98vrige_verk (http://no.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gerhard_Schjelderup#.C3.98vrige_verk)
I wonder just how many unsung unsungs there are? "Who?" indeed...
Schjelderup is a Norwegian composer. I have never heard any of his music, but from written descriptions of it, he seems to have been a bit under the Wagner spell.
There seems to be a lot of music from Norway entering the market right now. Sterling is releasing the two Alnaes symphonies and are planning to release symphonies by Ole Olsen and Johannes Haarklou. Great news for lovers of Scandinavian music! :)
The cpo CD is well worth investigating if you like this post-Wagnerian stuff (which I do). Brand, a 33+ minute 'Symphonic Drama from 1908-10, is all powerful, brass-laden doom and gloom, with some towering climaxes, but also with some beautiful lyrical episodes. Not particularly distinctive, but very enjoyable. If you like, say, Boehe, you'll like this too.
The Symphony from 1923-4 begins in much the same very sombre mood as the symphonic poem. It is, however, generally more chromatic, and angst-ridden - some of the opening movement even reminded me of the first movement of Brian's Gothic. Very powerful. The scherzo, placed second, is lighter, but still very chromatic; the slow movement, beginning in a string haze with woodwind and brass chords, soon develops into more passionate material before subsiding once again. The atmosphere, despite the attempts of folksong-like chirrupings to lift the mood, still seems predominantly melancholy. Passionate string-led material soon rises and leads to a climax which fades away, without resolution. The finale begins in more determined mood, but takes a while before the clouds start to clear. The coda is hard-won and very beautiful.
The Trondheim SO, by the way, plays superbly for Eivind Aadland. It is a substantial orchestra of 90 players - well up to the demands, in other words, of this late, late-Romantic music.
Well, after spending some time with Goldmark's Merlin, today I turned attention to a spate of CPO disks, and the Schjelderup disk was on top. Does anyone know the correct pronounciation of his name?
Anyway, I have to say I was mildly disappointed. It's pleasant enough, well orchestrated and played. The recording is good, but the music went in one ear and out the other. Just nothing really memorable or cathartic in any of it. Brand is the better work on the disk. I don't want cpo to stop recording this really off-beat music, but after two hearings it's pretty clear why this never made the classical hit parade.
It's the never-ending quest for that elusive, unsung masterpiece...
...if there are any. ;)
Is it possible that the bounty of great music we have is all there is? That there are no more masterworks to be discovered? Certainly there will be music worth hearing, but music that the vast majority of music lovers will never hear, and won't be any the poorer for it.
I dunno, man. That Rufinatscha is a real find. Maybe there are at least a couple more out there in some backwater European museum archive waiting to be discovered...
Another interesting sounding composer to add to the wishlist...