Here are a few American unsungs with little information. Foster doesn't have a Grove's listing, and the others have rather minimal details (except Strube).
Busch, Carl (1862-1943)
String Quartet (1897), String Quintet (1897), 4 string trios, Violin Sonata, 26 works for woodwind ensembles
Symphony (1898)
Cello Concerto (1919)
6 Orchestral Suites (1890-1928)
4 symphonic poems (1898-1924)
2 Rhapsodies (1897-1905)
Fairchild, Blair (1877-1933)
Piano Trio in d minor, Op. 24 (1912)
String Quartet in g minor, Op. 27 (1911)
Piano Quintet in d minor, Op. 20 (1909)
Violin Sonata No. 1, Op. 16 (1908)
Violin Sonata No. 2, Op. 43 (1919)
Legende in e minor for violin and orchestra, Op. 31 (1912)
Etude symphonique in d minor, vn and orch, Op. 45 (1922)
Rhapsodie, vn and orch (1924)
Tone Poems: East and West, Op. 17 (1908), Tamineh (1913), Shah Feridoun (1915), Zal (1915)
Foerster, Adolph Martin (1854-1927)
2 Piano Quartets (opp 21, 40)
Piano Trio in g minor, Op. 29 (1894)
2 String Quartets (Opp 33, 41)
Faust Overture, Op. 48 (1898)
Pittsburgh Suite, Op. 47
Thusnelda, symphonic poem, Op. 10
The Falconer, Op. 31
Symphonic ode to Bryon, Op. 35
Sigrid, Op. 50
Gilchrist, William Wallace (1846-1916)
Nonet in g minor for pf, fl, cl, hn, str
Piano Quintet No. 1 in c minor
Piano Quintet No. 2 in F (1914)
Suite in G for pf and orch
Symphonic poem in g minor (1910)
Symphony No. 1 in C (1891)
Symphony No. 2 in D (1916), completed by Happich, 1933)
Strube, Gustav (1867-1953)
2 String Quartets (1923, 1936)
Cello Sonata (1925)
Piano Trio (1928)
Viola Sonata in d minor (1925)
Concertino in D for vn and pf (1909)
Violin Sonata in e minor (1924)
Symphony in b minor (1910)
Sinfonietta
Symphonic Poems: Narcissus and Echo, Lorelei, Eine Walpurgisnacht
Overtures
Violin Concerto No. 1 in f# minor (1907)
Violin Concerto No. 2 in b minor (1927)
Violin Concerto No. 3 (1943)
Elegie for cello and orchestra (1907)
There's a lot of songs and other works by Gilchrist at IMSLP - a catalog of his music exists (Martha Furman Schleifer's "William Wallace Gilchrist, 1846-1916: a moving force in the musical life of Philadelphia" contains this.) A few works by Fairchild have been scanned in here and there that I've seen that look interesting to me.
Foster- do you mean possibly Adolph Martin Foerster? The name and date coincidence is just too close... Have also seen some brief works of his, scanned by LoC, from earlier in his career. I don't think I was aware of the quartets, trio and symphonic works, but count me as interested.
Gilchrist is the best represented at IMSLP. I do mean Foerster (corrected above). There's quite a bit more in his oeuvre:
Chamber
Opp.
24 Ein Albumblatt for cello and piano 1888
39 2 pieces for cello and piano
21 Piano Quartet No. 1 in Eb 1888
40 Piano Quartet No. 2
29 Piano Trio in g minor 1894
61 Trio Serenade 1907
83 Piano Trio in D
33 String Quartet No. 1
41 String Quartet No. 2
15 Fantasie in F for violin and piano 1885
17 Romance and Melodie for violin and piano 1891
26 Novelette for violin and piano 1890
36 Suite for violin and piano 1896
Orchestral
8 Marche Fantaisie 1879
32 Festival March 1893
43 Dedication March 1895
48 Faust Overture 1898
47 Pittsburg Suite
10 Thusnelda, symphonic poem 1881
31 The Falconer
35 Symphonic Ode to Byron
50 Sigrid
9 Festival Music
Piano
3 Andante in A 1876
5 Valse Caprice
7 Nocturne in F# major 1877
11 2 Compositions (Valse brillante in F, Hunting Song in Bb) 1879
13 Sonnet
14 3 Sonatinas (d minor, F, Eb) 1889
16 2 Sonatinas
18 2 Sonatinas (F, D) 1889
27.2 Etude
37 2 Concert studies
38 12 fantasias for piano
46 Piano Suite in F 1898
52 Romanza
62.1 Prelude in f minor
Vocal
4 The Fairy Boat, choruses 1876
19 2 lieder, TTBB 1891
20 2 part songs
22 Bedouin's Prayer, male voices; Jung Song, mixed voices
56 Te Deum in D
58 Lead Us, Heavenly Father; The Spring Tide Hour
1 3 songs
2 2 Songs
6 6 songs 1878
12 3 songs
25 2 songs
28 Among Flowers, 11 songs
30 4 Songs
34 2 Songs
42 3 Songs 1897
45 4 songs
49 6 songs
53 10+ songs
55 6 songs
57 6 songs
60 Tristam and Iseult
64 Garland of Songs, 12 songs
67 Child Lyrics, 5 songs
69 14+ songs
70 A Wreath of Songs, 6 songs
72 2+ songs
76 3+ songs
23 Love Song, dramatic aria 1889
44 Hero and Leander, dramatic aria
51 Verzweiflunir (call to Charon), dramatic aria
others
85 The Enchanter's Dream (Des Zauberers Traum) 1922
Blair Fairchild has made a brief appearance here before, I believe. Let's see....ah, a mention of a 1985 concert here in NYC, which included Fairchild's Concerto de Chambre...I had lobbied for it, provided the scores and I'm pretty sure I wrote the program notes. It was not liked by Tim Page of the NYTimes:
"...The program closed with a misfire - Blair Fairchild's Concerto de Chambre for Violin, Piano, Double Bass and String Quartet - which seemed a dreary exercise in formal rhetoric..."
Well, I liked it, anyway.
Foerster, the 'Beethoven of Pittsburg', actually wrote 3 piano trios, all at Library of Congress. 2nd was published (as Trio-Serenade?, I think...) and has been recorded, if I remember. It is slighter than the other 2. The 3rd, also published, is a big, passionate work with a lot of sequences, but really good tunes in the Rheinberger (Foerster's teacher) manner. The texture, if I remember (all three scores are here somewhere in the storage bins of my apartment, lord knows where) was rather symphonic, with a big piano part and the strings belting out the melodies in octaves.
Carl Busch wrote a ton of choral music, much of which was published by Carl Fischer. When Fischer closed their Astor Place store about 25 years ago, there were stacks of his scores piled up for practically nothing. Ditto similar works by Charles Wakefield Cadman. Am I correct in thinking that Busch taught out at the University of Kansas for many years?
David
PS. I see the original list has been revised to include these other Foerster trios...
I'd also perhaps add Oscar Weil, (1840-1921), a Reinecke pupil - will see if I can gather a worklist put together... and definitely Frederic Louis Ritter (1834-1891) (a few works published but quite a bit interesting in his manuscripts - concertos, etc. - that looks interesting) - and from a later generation, David Stanley Smith (1877-1949).
Quote from: edurban on Thursday 28 February 2013, 03:13
Am I correct in thinking that Busch taught out at the University of Kansas for many years?
He studied in Copenhagen with JPE Hartmann and Gade, and in Brussels and Paris with Godard. He emigrated to US in 1887 and founded several musical organizations, including the Kansas City SO (1911-1918).
Naxos has made a good start, and Albany are helping - but these posts suggest that a vast amount of U.S. music is being neglected and awaits (re)discovery. UC, especially in its old guise, alerted me to much sadly neglected music, and yet there's more, and more, and more ..... I know it won't all be of the highest quality, but goodness I'm sure we would all relish the opportunity of finding out! :)
New World Records, Louisville First Edition (well, ok, you mentioned Albany), and Composers Recordings, ("for all their faults" taken as-read and as-said, and I know that New World Records at least is still around...) did (do) their yeoman's work (or more!) on behalf of American and other (e.g. that Rietz overture, and other examples, on Louisville First Edition) music. Yes, and other labels too, but thought I'd mention those three...
(I know, the most recent New World Records new release to feature obvious Romantic music was that with Victor Herbert's Eileen in October, but...)
LoC's American Memory scans, with music by composers (American and otherwise) published in the US between 1830 or so and 1885, has quite a lot of names that are unfamiliar to me or have only become familiar to me since I saw them there; I've found here and there (and there and there) biographies for a few. I first saw Foerster's music there, as I mentioned (and - outside this thread- Helen Hopekirk's). Still know very little or nothing about a lot of them (though what one learns about some is intriguing, for instance Henry Rohbock, a Pittsburgh organist who (assuming one is not dealing with Sr. and Jr.) was alive as early as 1833 and as late as 1874 (if this is the H. Rohbock who he signed to a friend a manuscript copy of some Buxtehude organ works (here (http://opac.rism.info/search?documentid=000110447) @ RISM (BuxWV 148)-
"Presented to Mr Chas. C. Mellor / by H. Rohbock / March I. 1874. / this piece came in my possession 1833 / from Gottfried Moeller, a pupil of / Kittle. the piece is said to be a M. S. / of the composer Boxtehude. / H R.")
Here are a few American names from my 'search for' files in alphabetical order:
Homer Bartlett (b. Olive, New York 12/28/1845 d. Hoboken, NJ April , 1920) Pupil of, among others, Sebastian Bach Mills. Author of the Grand Polka de Concert, a hugely successful salon piece, as well as a Dance of the Gnomes for flute and string quintet, a violin concerto in G, a cantata The Chieftain, an oratorio Samuel, Also wrote several music theatrical works about which I know next to nothing: La Valliere (3 act opera) Magic Hours premiered in the Astor Gallery of the Waldorf Astoria Hotel (2/18/1909) and Thetis and Vulcan Cort Theatre, 11/5/1916, as well as a symphonic poem Apollo, given in Sept, 1914 by the Orchestral Society of New York
William Kipp Bassford (b. New York, 4/23/1839 d. Belleville, NJ, 12/22/1902) Author of the opera Cassilda, vocal score was published in the 1860's, iirc, Mass in E flat, piano pieces, songs. Completed Wm Vincent Wallace's unfinished opera Estrella at the request of Wallace's widow, according to Baker's
Johann Heinrich Beck (b. Cleveland, 9/12/1856- died there 5/26, 1924) a pupil of Reineke and Jadassohn. Works incl. string quartet in c minor, string sextett in d minor, Deukalion (cantata), overture to Byron's Lara, Frei's Sehnsucht (orch), Der Freude Kuss (orch), 2 orch Scherzos, Meeresabend sop and orch, Aus meinem Leben, tone poem for orch, and others. Mss. are in the Cleveland Public Library...
Willard Burr (b. Ravenna, Ohio 1/17/1852 d. Boston, 5/12/1915) studied in Germany under Haupt, 1879-80. Ms. "Grand" violin and piano sonata in B flat at L of Congress
Rossetter Gleason Cole (b. Clyde, Michigan 2/5/1866 d. Lake Bluff, Ind 5/18/1952) pupil of Max Bruch...he taught at Columbia University until 1939. opera: The Maypole Lovers 3 acts 1927-31, won David Bispham Medal, but not performed. Ballade cello and orch (1909), Symphonic Prelude (1915) Pioneer Overture for the Illinois State Centenary (1919), Heroic Piece for Organ and Orch, 2 pieces for narrator and orch: Hiawatha's Wooing and King Robert of Sicily Several cantatas, a violin and piano sonata in D, piano pieces and songs. I have published scores for King Robert (narrator and piano) and the Ballade (vc and piano)
I could go on like this for pages and pages. Back in the 80s I tried to track down the (largely unpublished) mss of these and many other American composers through probate records, I was largely unsuccessful, although in the online era, it might be easier to find a few things.
I'll post more anon.
David
One can find at least selections from Cassilda scanned in online, as I recall.
Hrm. How about musical theatre composers (if that's not way outside our orbit) like the Irish immigrant David Braham (1838-1905), Ludwig Engländer (operetta/musical show 1776, e.g. - with libretto by impresario Leo Goldmark- possibly of that same Goldmark family, as a Leo Goldmark was uncle to Carl)...
also
*Charles (Karl) Wels (Bohemian-American composer of church music and piano/harmonium music, generally light in the latter case, said to have composed a piano concerto also);
*Frederick Brandeis (German immigrant (again, German-American sounds rather like American born but of German ancestry- doesn't matter so but to be picky not true either) (1835-1899, as well as various works for piano, cello and piano, for chorus, etc. wrote one for piano or for string quartet which is one of the earlier works I can find published in the USA by an American composer for quartet, at least in the 19th century ?... admittedly, Anthony Philip Heinrich's (worth mentioning again...) compositions, even his published ones, were wider-ranging, but no published string quartets that I know of... )
*Theodore Felix von la Hache (1822?-1869) - see e.g. brief bio (http://www.vonlahache.com/en_kort.php)... (turn sound off or at least be aware that a sound file launches as soon as you open the page)
*Oley Speaks (1874-1948), Ohio-born singer, director of ASCAP in the 1930s, and composer of quite a few songs...
For what it's worth, my criteria for this (and the Austrian) post was composers with multiple large-scale orchestral works (preferably symphonies) and substantial chamber works (string quartets, etc.). The thought process was that if they were able to publish multiple works in many different forms, this should elevate the potential quality of their work, all other things being equal... If there is interest, I just started with the A's - there are many more...
Frederick Brandeis (Born, Vienna 7/5/35, d. NY, 5/14/1899)
Composition pupil of Rufinatscha.
I had an extensive correspondance with his grandaughter Irma Brandeis ca. 1985-7, an elderly, retired professor of romance languages at Bard College. She loaned me copies of a few published piano pieces she had inherited, but knew nothing of the whereabouts of Frederick's larger works. Alas, each piece she sent me (I seem to remember that one was a 'Doll's Funeral March') contained a patch of melodic 'borrowing' from some more famous composer obvious enough to be embarrassing. Ms. Brandeis' NY Times obituary is here:
http://www.nytimes.com/1990/01/31/obituaries/irma-brandeis-professor-84.html (http://www.nytimes.com/1990/01/31/obituaries/irma-brandeis-professor-84.html)
David
In response to Balapoel:
"...if they were able to publish multiple works in many different forms, this should elevate the potential quality of their work..."
Alas, publishing serious works, for orchestra or chamber forces is one thing most Americans of this period were unable to do. There was no market for such things until the very late 19th century, and then only in a few exceptional cases (ie. MacDowell). Choral works were sometimes published in piano reduction (there was some hope of sale of those to choral societies), and piano works or songs likely to have a ready sale might also appear in print. Note that none of Gottschalk's larger works were published, dispite his vast popularity, and Fry's operas Leonora and Notre Dame of Paris were only published in piano/vocal score at the composer's expense. Similarly, the only one of Horace Wadham Nicholl's chamber works published was the cello sonata...again, at his own expense.
David
Quote from: edurban on Sunday 03 March 2013, 05:19
Alas, publishing serious works, for orchestra or chamber forces is one thing most Americans of this period were unable to do. There was no market for such things until the very late 19th century, and then only in a few exceptional cases (ie. MacDowell). Choral works were sometimes published in piano reduction (there was some hope of sale of those to choral societies), and piano works or songs likely to have a ready sale might also appear in print. Note that none of Gottschalk's larger works were published, dispite his vast popularity, and Fry's operas Leonora and Notre Dame of Paris were only published in piano/vocal score at the composer's expense. Similarly, the only one of Horace Wadham Nicholl's chamber works published was the cello sonata...again, at his own expense.
David
True enough, particularly for the American composers. From my perspective, it is one way to focus one's energies. I have "The Universal Handbook of Musical Literature" in PDF format - 19 volumes, each 400+ pages, and there are vast amounts of unknown (and unsung) composers. Too many for one lifetime - but the folks that have successfully composed many large-scale works, at least have potential. Not to say that others do not...
Not for nothing - and correctly- is it pointed out that the first symphony published in full score in the USA (something along those lines) was not so published until 1886. A look through the LoC scans shows a lot of piano works, vocal scores, and parts for larger-scale works (including many- often incomplete alas; they scan what they have..., preservation is the rule - sets of parts for small-ensemble with piano usually, small-orchestra, salon-orchestra, brass-band, etc. works- but parts, not scores, again...), but very very few full scores for large-ensemble works, because, I am guessing, one emphasis was on publication for performers' needs specifically, whether the at-home or salon or concert-hall performer of a piano piece or song, or performer of a small-ensemble work, etc. - not for listeners to follow along with a score... (I seem to recall Haydn's symphonies were published slowly this way first, then later in score. Some of the scans at LoC, unsurprisingly, are arrangements for piano or organ of movements of symphonies or chamber works by Haydn, Mozart, Beethoven, Hugo Ulrich, Alexander Fesca, etc.- you know, those famous fellows.)
There are some violin sonatas etc. there that were published by Schuberth (Edward Schuberth, the New York branch) and others, not just self-published works. (And unsurprisingly, a number of organ sonatas...)
"...There are some violin sonatas etc. there that were published by Schuberth (Edward Schuberth, the New York branch) and others, not just self-published works..."
Yes, but my guess would be that most composers had to underwrite the costs of publishing. A modern equivalent would be Naxos records. Naxos is a real record company, but my understanding is that they expect the performers to bear the cost of production...in most cases.
David
Or pay them a once-only fee instead of royalties, in the latter case, if I recall. But that seems probably true, even if it also was probably hardly unique to American composers of the 19th century :)
Here's a good one:
Fidelis Zitterbart (Pittsburg: 1845-1915) The Zitterbart Collection at the University of Pittsburg has about 1,500 works in all forms including a Richard III overture (the prize winner in a contest juried by Arthur Foote, Victor Herbert and Walter Damrosch) and a symphony in D. Here's a link to a delightful article about Zitterbart and the donation of his mss and papers in the early 1960s:
http://news.google.com/newspapers?nid=1129&dat=19600731&id=qslaAAAAIBAJ&sjid=PWwDAAAAIBAJ&pg=4768,6979518 (http://news.google.com/newspapers?nid=1129&dat=19600731&id=qslaAAAAIBAJ&sjid=PWwDAAAAIBAJ&pg=4768,6979518)
Ca. 1934, there was a brief flurry of interest in Pittsburg's greatest composer not named Stephen Foster. This article of the day describes it:
http://news.google.com/newspapers?nid=1129&dat=19340120&id=wMNRAAAAIBAJ&sjid=MWkDAAAAIBAJ&pg=5147,2665350 (http://news.google.com/newspapers?nid=1129&dat=19340120&id=wMNRAAAAIBAJ&sjid=MWkDAAAAIBAJ&pg=5147,2665350)
Zitterbart liked to write string quartets, in all he left about 125. In April, 1985, Bernard Holland of the New York Times reviewed a Carnegie Recital Hall revival of one called 'The Water Carriers of Nazareth': "This four-movement work is a pleasant, flowing, well-organized piece with moments of interesting harmony to go with its patches of awkwardness and blankness."
I didn't hear the performance, sad to say. I don't know how likely I am to hear another and form my own opinion (Holland says the performance was poor.)
David
Well, Sousa's teacher, the elusive George Felix Benkert (1831-after 1877), wrote at least 3 string quartets in manuscript (held by Pennsylvania libraries)...
Then there's Armin Schotte (fl.1860s-fl.1910s) (nationality unknown (to me...), but resident in the US for most of his life, I think)- his op.1 was a piano quintet (from some notes I took based on this and that-- "the opus 1 piano quintet of this "blind composer in New York", identified just as Schotte (but his first name is given in other sources, assuming this opus 1 is the same work in both places), was performed in Chicago in or around 1877 according to a concert review in Dwight's Journal of Music, and then published by 1887.")
Hrm. Worldcat lists at least 16 works by Zitterbart, and the Carnegie Library of Pittsburgh has at least one manuscript of a score for string quartet by him (Adagio cantabile) and 18 items at CLP "and all libraries" in all (not all listed by Worldcat, I guess. Only that one quartet item unless I need to move to another catalog of theirs.)
Hrm, I was thinking about Georg Matzka, who wrote a somewhat interesting series of violin works including a sonata, and seems to have been a violist also. According to this site (http://www.thefreelibrary.com/The+Viola+in+America%3A+two+centuries+of+progress.-a0290191846), Zitterbart's first viola sonata was dedicated to Matzka. Connections...
I'm delighted to hear about the Benkert quartets, I've hoped that something large-scale of his survived. He had a piano trio performed in the inaugural concert of the very short lived New York American Music Association (1858), iirc. Some years ago I was browsing through a now-gone bookstore around the corner from City Hall and found a manuscript music book Benkert had put together for a pupil (I'm assuming, based on the contents--arrangements, little piano pieces, that sort of thing) that had one extended piece..a duo for violin and piano. I had come to think it was the only piece by Benkert I was likely to see...Thank you!
David
I hope I'm right. Hrm. From Franklin (University of Pennsylvania Library Catalog) there's Ms. coll. 217 (contains quartet in E-flat, 1849, Musical Fund Society of Philadelphia Collection of Music. Item 311 ; quartet 3 in D, 1850, Musical Fund Society of Philadelphia Collection of Music. Item 310) ; also another quartet in E-flat from 1849, M452 .B466 E♭ maj. 1849 , which may be a 2nd copy of the other or another work in the same key (all are sets of parts)? (in which case, "quartet 3" makes one wonder... but it might be that one of the three is just missing.)
Speaking of Philadelphia: there resided in the 1830s and 40s a greatly talented man by the name of Charles Hommann (various spellings exist). I have heard one of his string quartets, a work clearly patterned after Beethoven's opus 59, but by no means dry or uninspired. It sounds like the natural voice of one filled with the love of a musical language that almost no one else spoke in his city of residence. There are more colorful American composers from that period, but none I know that can match the quality of his music. With all due respect to Fry and Bristow, Paine is the first American composer to match Hommann in both craft and style.
Have seen a little of Hommann's (maybe 1803-maybe 1872) music at LoC, also in connection with his maybe-relative and I think sometime publisher Hupfeld (ok, ok, ok...) I agree.
Fry's biographer William Treat Upton, in a moment he conceded was "pure conjecture" suggested that Fry may have had a few lessons with Homman. I mention it for what it's worth, which is little, imo.
"...With all due respect to Fry and Bristow, Paine is the first American composer to match Hommann in both craft and style..."
Dealing only with Fry, I can say that his craft was perfectly adapted to his interest: writing grand operas in a style that references Bellini/Donizetti, Weber and Meyerbeer/Auber. His instrumental compositions are no more than sidelines...tone poems full of opera and opera tunes...intriguingly orchestrated, to be considered in the same light as purely instrumental compositions by Bellini, Verdi, Donizetti, Meyerbeer et al. (Weber was another kettle of fish...a genuine instrumental composer, however opera-soaked the concertos and symphonies may be.)
This also applies to Fry's surviving string quartets, one of which uses a tune from Leonora. Fry had no interest in writing quartets patterned after Beethoven or symphonies on the German model, and he never tried. It's apples and oranges.
David
Ironically, at the moment, while I don't despise his other works or anything, the only Verdi work I really especially like is his string quartet. I expect this will change and I hope it will- the more the merrier... erm- sorry. Right. Anyway.
After op.69? ...
59? Razumovsky? (A Robert Wilfred Levick Simpson reference?)
I take your point, David. Sobriety isn't everything -- unless you're a depressive like me. ;-) Even as they elevated the musical discourse of their place and time, Fry and Bristow in their works verged toward the rich vein of uniquely American artistry such as one finds in Foster or Twain or Gershwin or Ben Shahn, voices that remain treasurable even after we lose the contexts that their populist inflections originally addressed.
When I was younger, I appreciated these populist voices more. In my declining (though not yet reclining) years, I'm personally moved more by what in music reminds me of striving and idealism. There's no dearth of formulaic striving and idealism in 19th-century music, of course. But Hommann's sounds fresh and unforced to me.
69 was an unfortunate typo, Eric. Virtually a wipe-o.
I find myself returning to my show-tune roots (maybe?) and appreciating the music in the American Heritage collection, extremely variable in quality, more than I once would have done- I mean where the styles themselves of so many of the works, the parlor songs, the brief unadorned dances, etc. would have put me off and bored me quickly- for whatever reason I'm bored by many things but not by this so much now. Don't know... Ah well. Part of it is the hope, sometimes realized, of finding something remarkable in the middle of anywhere if I look in the right way at the right angle (not phrasing that quite right) but mostly it's just the personal, unuseful, subjective experience of my tastes changing (43's not too old for that, though. Anyway, irrelevant. Irrelephant. Something.)
Clara Kathleen Rogers (1844- March 8 1931). She's been mentioned, if not in this thread, somewhere in this forum, right? I knew I'd remember her name eventually. Her violin sonata, I think, went unpublished during her lifetime- I think (though not some other works of some interest, mostly songs etc.) but has been published fairly recently... there were also 2 string quartets and a cello sonata (Op.23 Italiana), according to Wikipedia. (There's a CD of her cello and violin sonatas, and a book "Clara Kathleen Rogers: Chamber Music" produced by A-R Editions in 2001 with her cello sonata and her quartet in D minor op.5.)
She published two (published posthumously in 1932) memoirs, books on singing technique, at least 37 opera (op.nos. I mean, op.37 being If we but knew, published by the redoubtable Arthur P. Schmidt in 1906) (AP Schmidt a publisher which one should know about historically speaking if one doesn't, re Paine and also Chadwick, I think. See IMSLP (http://imslp.org/wiki/Arthur_P._Schmidt), e.g.)
(Ok, actually, her violin sonata was published, op.25 in 1893... and has been scanned by archive.org.)
Clara Kathleen Rogers (who sang under the name Clara Doria, iirc?) pops up here from time to time, but lately it's been her father, John Barnett who's been on our minds! The Mountain Sylph overture may be his first work on disc, no? Certainly the first I've come across. Kind of ironic that his daughter had been better recorded...maybe that will change...
David
My favourite 20th Century American composer has to be Don Gillis. I find his music both entertaining and inspiring. The trouble with many modern composers is that they take life and themselves much too seriously. I am deeply grateful to the Albany Record company for putting Gillis on the discological map.
Cheers,
John.
I am surprised that with so many rich patrons in the US no one there has set up an organisation to print and publish early American music scores. They can't all endow galleries!
Hell, no one would play them anyway. Why bother? We can't even keep our orchestras alive. The Minnesota has been locked out this entire season with financial difficultys with no end in sight. They are spending $50M to renovate Orchestra Hall but at the moment have no orchestra to play in it. Strange priorities. Very sad......
End of rant.
Jerry
Quote from: John H White on Thursday 07 March 2013, 11:25
My favourite 20th Century American composer has to be Don Gillis. I find his music both entertaining and inspiring. The trouble with many modern composers is that they take life and themselves much too seriously. I am deeply grateful to the Albany Record company for putting Gillis on the discological map.
Dutton also released a Gillis CD recently. His music is hugely entertaining. And who else would write a march called the "January February March"?
It had to be written very dulcetly, quickly, for a harmonica, you know, toot sweet... (I fortunately gave up on the idea, back in my composing days years ago, of a whole, well, suite of such punnishly titled pieces. Not because puns are bad, but... eh, anyway!)
Another I mentioned in another thread: Olga v. Radecki, pianist/conductor/composer (Raff among her teachers- not to the extent he taught Urspruch, but he did teach her, as Clara Schumann also did, according to what sparse biographical information I have)- born in Riga in Latvia, died there, but spent a lot of the intervening time in Boston associated with Harvard. (1853-1933.) Her published music seems to be piano works (including a fun-looking... to me... Tarantelle) and songs, but there was a piano trio performed according to one biography, I think, that may be in ms. still somewhere... ?
(She sometimes in the early 1900s performed wiith the Boston Symphony (conducted by Karl Muck), and with the Kneisel Quartet.)
(Dates 1853-1933 from a Google Snippet view of obituary, so may be wrong. Will have to check original source. Also see http://books.google.com/books?id=JM1RAAAAYAAJ&pg=PA191 (http://books.google.com/books?id=JM1RAAAAYAAJ&pg=PA191) , an earlier (during lifetime) bio.
David,
This is in response to your posting on: Sunday 03 March 2013, 16:42.
Being new to Unsung Composers I couldn't reply when I was supposed to...
I cannot make any statements regarding Zitterbart's string quartets but I surely can regarding his piano trios as I have copies of all of them...even the hacked up 'Scotch Suite' that was published. All of the published material from the 1930s (some 15 years) after his demise was butchered. The "original" manuscript version of the Scotch Suite is a delightful 5 movement romp that appears easy to the eye but is in fact rather tricky to play, this is especially true of the fugue in the last movement. The published version is reduced to 4 movements, changed keys, removed measures and phrases and in places rescored. The original manuscript has rich harmonies, delightfully flowing themes (some are quite Scotch in fact) that paint visual pictures to the listener. His C.E.D. piano trio written for his grandson "CEDric" is probably the closest to a Kindertrio written by an American, at least from that time period. The CED is equal in difficult to the more advanced kindertrios by M. Klengel. The "Pastoral Trio" is again a visually provoking composition. In the third movement, "The Mill" one cannot help but see water pouring down the sluice and merrily slapping its way over the spinning water wheel in order to grind the wheat.
In fact, these trios (including the first four which are truly Grand in nature) are wonderful compositions which run the gamut in difficulty. Some are listed as "amateur;" although way I haven't a clue since the musical language is quite complex. Zitterbart was unusually fond of 9ths and 10ths (piano score) and in many cases almost cruel to the pianist with awkward chords, runs etc. However, from everything I have read and in one case heard (from a now deceased family member), F. Zitterbart was also a virtuoso on the piano, not just the violin. In short, his trios (there are about 28) are well written, playable, flowing, compositions with rich and at times strange harmonies. It would be interesting to revive more of his music. Heaven knows there is enough to select from...well over 1500.