This sounds like pure delight: https://www.jpc.de/jpcng/cpo/detail/-/art/carl-milloecker-orchesterwerke/hnum/8455675 (https://www.jpc.de/jpcng/cpo/detail/-/art/carl-milloecker-orchesterwerke/hnum/8455675)
....quite.
This is a great disc. Unfortunately the liner notes have an entry for a track that's not on the disc: "Valerie, polka mazurka" (there's also a pair of tracks swapped in order in the notes....not a huge deal but odd). -And this is just a GUESS -- I'm guessing they recorded it but perhaps someone wasn't satisfied with it? Who knows....it's certainly not a space issue (disc is 65 minutes).
But yes, "pure delight" describes it well. All fans of Viennese light music would want this.
I suppose others may think it's poor man's Strauss, but I love this music, so in my view Millöcker is unjustly neglected. This sounds like a splendid disc. Thanks for bringing it to our attention, Gareth.
'"Music!" Dr. Krokowski commanded; and then the Czech, standing just behind the doctor and his nearest neighbor, turned the gramophone on and let the needle down. "Talk!" Krokowski commanded again at the sound of the first bars of an overture by Millöcker; and they obediently set to work to get a conversation going, about nothing, nothing at all – this winter's snowfall, the menu at supper, some new arrival, some wild or authorized departure.'
Thomas Mann, "The Magic Mountain"
--
Encountering this strange composer's name near the end of Thomas Mann's novel, I wondered to myself if he were a real composer or not. Knowing Mann's love of music and his detailed descriptions of the works of Bizet, Schubert, Debussy, I decided he would not have suddenly invented someone, even though it was someone I'd never heard of.
I looked him up and, indeed, he was real. Then I wondered if anyone had ever heard of him here at the site. Sure enough: my new discovery is someone else's old news.
I keep thinking of buying this CD,but, every time I listen on Presto to the excerpts,they fail to persuade me to act.
Same result today!
IMSLP has so far only operettas and the like by him and one work that is probably an arranged excerpt of some sort - I wonder if the orchestral works are also excerpts from.
Quote from: eschiss1 on Monday 20 October 2025, 16:55IMSLP has so far only operettas and the like by him and one work that is probably an arranged excerpt of some sort - I wonder if the orchestral works are also excerpts from.
Did you even look at the tracklist?
Guilty, though that doesn't account for the others (ok, Quecksilber was published by Bösendorfer-Verlag in piano solo form, and Austrian Library has that... RHUL Hofmeister seems to be down, but will check the others later.)