Unsung Composers

The Music => Recordings & Broadcasts => Topic started by: navy.p@voila.fr on Thursday 23 October 2014, 18:08

Title: Light music - romantic music: are they compatible?
Post by: navy.p@voila.fr on Thursday 23 October 2014, 18:08
Yes, if you discover the so british Montague Phillips (1885-1969) : 2cd of light pieces incl. Sy. and a third of his 2 piano concertos -1907,1919- on Dutton Epoch.
orch pièces are in theCoatesian mood, concertos are russian oriented romanticism (to my continental taste)
Title: Re: Light music - romantic music: are they compatible?
Post by: eschiss1 on Friday 24 October 2014, 03:35
erm, to even understand why the answer could possibly be _no_, I'd have to ask you to define your terms? (at five paces and yes, you may choose a second :D ) Surely Glazunov's fine ballet scores are "light" and also quite Romantic (and, after Tchaikovsky's, perhaps among the best of their kind*- in my opinion.)

*from the standpoint of "suitability for independent listening even when not excerpted as a suite, without utter and complete boredom and falling over in the absence of visual cues".  A very subjective judgment but then I tend to avoid much ballet when it turns up on - well, what used to be "the radio" and is now the (oddly rather good) classical TV channel(s)...
Title: Re: Light music - romantic music: are they compatible?
Post by: semloh on Saturday 01 November 2014, 09:24
Well, yes, I would like to think that the labels we apply to music are not necessarily mutually exclusive. I have always loved "light music", but have treated its borders as indistinct - a view strengthened by the release of the LP "The Lighter Elgar". IMHO many composers of light music have been unjustly neglected and marginalized by "classical" music fans, writers, radio stations, orchestras and CD producers. Thank goodness for John Wilson, I say!

Light music is only relevant here if it fits with UCs very clear remit, so my apologies for straying....  ::)