So, here's a brand new unsung, for me anyway: Michele Carelli (1838–1911). Three Funeral Marches (!) due out at jpc next week. The German blurb at jpc, when run through an online translator, reveals this below (and the translation is not as amusingly awkward as sometimes!):
https://www.jpc.de/jpcng/classic/detail/-/art/cantore-del-dolore/hnum/9276107?lang=en (https://www.jpc.de/jpcng/classic/detail/-/art/cantore-del-dolore/hnum/9276107?lang=en)
His numerous funeral marches, which have been very popular in Italy for a long time, have earned Michele Carelli (1838-1911) the meaningful nickname "Cantore del Dolore", Singer of Pain. The Orchestra Sinfonica di Fiati "Davide delle Cese" Città di Bitonto introduces some of the composer's marches here. These are by no means callow utility music, but rather elaborated works, which, as in the case of Marcia funebre No. 14, may well be inspired by Stations of the Cross. The partly unpublished manuscripts were carefully revised for the production in order to come as close as possible to the original intentions of Carelli.
Can be found on Youtube now, but I see no evidence that it is posted there by anyone with the authority to do so. So.....perhaps ignore this post. 8)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ViQBGFx-VFw (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ViQBGFx-VFw)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ssuuKoM6v5s (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ssuuKoM6v5s)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LGFHFfGWQHw (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LGFHFfGWQHw)
Well this release should cheer us all up. Not only a CD with three funeral marches, but such long and suitably lugubrious ones: 16, 19 and 35 minutes long! I assume that they were intended to be played during funeral processions - long ones.
Sorry, but I find this tedious in the extreme. I'm currently 8 minutes through No.3 and wondering how much more I can tolerate...
I gave up after 13 mins and 40 seconds.
You have remarkable staying power! I really can't imagine why anyone would want to sit down and listen to the pieces on this disc. The music (maybe appropriately) is harmonically dreary, melodically unimaginative and, in this recording at least, dynamically relentless. Add to that the fact that it's interminable and you have a recipe for narcolepsy. Sorry, but I can find nothing in this release to recommend it.
As we've said before, some music's deservedly unsung...
Anyone who can write 14 (maybe more; I don't know) funeral marches, at least one of which lasts over half an hour seems to me to have had serious emotional problems. I have no inclination to listen to these.
You incline in the right direction, Gareth.
From what I have found, all 14 of Carelli's funeral marches are performed exclusively in Bitonto, Italy, where this recording was made and where Carelli lived.
http://lamiasettimanasanta8b.blogspot.com/2012/04/blog-post.html (http://lamiasettimanasanta8b.blogspot.com/2012/04/blog-post.html)
But hey! The 14th march got a standing ovation back in January of this year in Bitonto: https://youtu.be/fGcYhzIsGPs (https://youtu.be/fGcYhzIsGPs)
As a side note, Carelli wrote his own adaption of "Ave Maria," performed in 2011 in Bitonto: https://youtu.be/OIPAl2IDRMU (https://youtu.be/OIPAl2IDRMU)
I'm sure everyone who attended got a good night's sleep that evening! ;D
Well, according to the blurb: these compositions are the highest representation of his artistic style.
To be fair to Carelli, they're surely not intended to be listened to as concert pieces. As I understand it, they are intended to accompany a procession that focuses attention on suffering, as the band passes crowds lining the streets of an Italian town. People would hear just the bit that was audible as the procession went by. I think they are well suited to that purpose.
Having said that, I must be a sad case because I actually enjoyed No.1 - I kept thinking of The Godfather! ;D