Are there any off air recordings of Oscar Straus's piano concerto in A minor?
I have it back in Minnesota on a cassette. I expect other members probably have the same performance. As I recall, not a particularly stellar quality recording but better than none.
Jerry
I was sure I had it, Giles, but I don't seem to have. Which doesn't help, I know.
I have an mp3 that I downloaded from a particularly excellent you tube channel that now seems to be defunct.
The only info I have is that it was performed by Frieda Valenzi.
If someone could confirm this was not commercial, I am happy to upload.
Thal
According to this source, it would appear to be a radio recording - scroll down to the list of recordings made for ORF (Austrian Radio) in Vienna:
http://www.soundfountain.org/rem/remvalen.html (http://www.soundfountain.org/rem/remvalen.html)
Jolly good show Sir, duly posted, awaiting approval.
Concertingly.
Thal
An enjoyable listen! I think part of the reason why we don't hear things like this in the concert hall more, besides the prejudice against obscure composers, is this idea that only "great" music is worth listening to. It's what I think Harrison Birtwhistle once referred to as "Ninth Symphony syndrome". A concerto like this is unpretentious and engaging, and therefore not "great", and therefore we should all get something "great" by Rachmaninoff instead.
Sheer musical snobbery - no less! - and one of the main reasons why classical music (to use the generic term) rates so low in the overall popularity stakes!
Spot on, Martin.
Absolutely, Martin. Well said.
I suppose the work of Oscar Straus is looked down upon because he wrote operettas rather than operas. For listeners who don't speak German maybe they are tedious, but The Chocolate Soldier is undeniably sweet.
Many thanks for this rare opportunity to hear the Piano Concerto. :)
I'm not sure it is snobbery - it is more a sort of mass delusion. People are educated to believe in "greatness" in music and never question that. I strongly suspect that people who are introduced to music say, through school, are introduced to Mozart and Beethoven first, and told that is what they should be listening to. When I started listening to music I had no-one to guide me, and all names were equal. So the reverence I have for Mozart and Beethoven is discovered for myself - and equally so for Medtner and Busoni.
in my country, this would seem to be less and less an issue as funding for music education slowly (slowly?) vanishes...
As far as I can see, many younger people have had no meaningful introduction to classical music of any kind. Would that they were even listening to Mozart and Beethoven instead of Will.i.am and Jesse J. (see - aren't I trendy? ;))
Some connection with classical - the opening to Beethoven's 5th shows up in innumerable movies, e.g.- but no argument on the "meaningful" part, no argument at all.
QuoteWill.i.am and Jesse J. (see - aren't I trendy? ;))
Nah, you just watch The Voice!
For me that's amaaaaaaaaaazingly trendy. Fantabulously dope too ;). Anyway, Tom Jones still sings 'em all off the stage.
Meanwhile back at the Oscar Straus ranch...
As I think we've noted before, tons of classical music being used in television commercials. Unfortunately, no identification is made for those who may think, Gee, that's great background music....... :( :( ::)
J
Again, I mention that even the unsungs get some love in the biz. Remember that movie with Jim Carrey and Kate Winslet The Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind? I could swear that at some point the opening of de Beriot's 8th Violin Concerto is used in there.
Well, I expect Elgar's "3rd" was mostly unknown to the viewing audience for the movie An Education. (And entirely anachronistic to the time, the 1960s, in which the orchestra in the movie was supposedly playing it. :) I still liked the movie.)
Sometimes - not often enough - one can get identification of background music from some online sources (which are often either too easy or too difficult to edit with the correct information if found and correct mistaken information- etc.- but - etc. etc.)
Poor old Oscar, he is already lost in this thread. I live in London and I can say that the Arts Council have done so much damage over the years where classical music is concerned. They killed off the D'Oily Carte opera company which was an entree for many people to opera and similarly with the move of the Sadlers Wells opera to the Colosseum and some very bazaar productions, they managed to alienate at even more people.
Back to Oscar, if there were to be a new recording, what would be an appropriate coupling
Quote from: giles.enders on Thursday 20 June 2013, 10:38
Back to Oscar, if there were to be a new recording, what would be an appropriate coupling
A good question - there are plenty of unrecorded piano concertos to choose from, but one from an equivalent figure with a light music pedigree? I'm not immediately able to find one.
How about Eduard Künnecke's (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Eduard_K%C3%BCnneke) Piano Concerto No.1 in A flat Op.36, which dates from the 1930s? Künnecke (1885-1953) was a similar figure to Straus, a writer of operattas and music for the theatre. The concerto has slight tinges of Gershwin about its otherwise thoroughly romantic, very tuneful idiom. It was available at one time on a Koch Schwann CD with Tiny Wirtz as the soloist, but I have a non-commercial recording of a broadcast performance by Ernst-August Quelle and the Munich Philharmonic under Heinz Geese, if anyone is interested.
Maybe Mackeben's Piano Concerto in B flat minor (1945) might also be a contender? Mackeben was another composer who concentrated on stage works, including at least half a dozen operettas (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Theo_Mackeben (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Theo_Mackeben)), but produced a single piano concerto in a rather different style to his other works. I seem to recall that I downloaded his concerto from UC.
That said, if I won the lottery and was going to sponsor the next Hyperion piano concerto CD, Straus would not be anywhere near top of my list.
Quote from: Gauk on Friday 21 June 2013, 10:23
That said, if I won the lottery and was going to sponsor the next Hyperion piano concerto CD, Straus would not be anywhere near top of my list.
Nor mine. But that has probably applied to most of the RPC series - and it has been an encounter with the unexpected that has so often been such a great source of joy.
my hope is that a few more companies (besides Hyperion, perhaps Naxos, Dutton, presently...) will take up the torch/flame/whatever so that when the occasional RPC relative-dud comes out there is less pulling-at-the-hair about ... well, anyway. A happy prospect of under and undiscovered country out there. I think I would never have expected those Widor piano concertos to be recorded, let alone twice, for instance. But yes. Apologies again. Thanks for uploading the Straus, I shall download it soon and look forward to it!
Quote from: Alan Howe on Friday 21 June 2013, 14:24
Quote from: Gauk on Friday 21 June 2013, 10:23
That said, if I won the lottery and was going to sponsor the next Hyperion piano concerto CD, Straus would not be anywhere near top of my list.
Nor mine. But that has probably applied to most of the RPC series - and it has been an encounter with the unexpected that has so often been such a great source of joy.
Of course - but I mean that with the benefit of having heard it, it still wouldn't be near the top. It's a nice piece, but not one to return to repeatedly.
Come back to it in 12 months and see whether you think the same. I'm conscious that first impressions, while important, are the ones most subject to subsequent revision.
This is true. I did not care for my first pint of Old Peculiar, but 12 months on, I cannot get enough.
I would certainly rather listen to the Straus PC again than the Grieg which was incredibly played for about the millionth time on Radio 3 this afternoon.
Thal
Quote from: Alan Howe on Friday 21 June 2013, 16:56
Come back to it in 12 months and see whether you think the same. I'm conscious that first impressions, while important, are the ones most subject to subsequent revision.
Seconded!!!
Thank you for uploading the Straus, my curiosity is satisfied. I did enjoy it. The point with all these little known works is that much of the enjoyment is in the exploration and sometimes finding something one really likes. There are many recordings I have which I haven't played for years and then something makes me come back to them and often I hear them in a different light. With well known war horses, I am frequently irritated because they haven't been played in precisely the manner I like and have come to expect.
Or alternatively, the interpreter fails to find anything new in the piece, which is the more common failing.
busy schedules have something to do with that too, I am guessing (personal and group - visiting conductors given 4 days or less to work with an orchestra won't get much new out of any work, well-known or otherwise; ... contrariwise Schoenberg writing about Mahler and conducting says something along the lines that (I'm not quite sure I agree entirely, but I put it forth) a 9th rehearsal shouldn't be necessary if all has been said and communicated that the conductor knows to say, by the end of the 8th...)