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Topics - HerbieG

#1
Composers & Music / Weinberger
Thursday 17 September 2009, 02:13
Has anyone here mentioned Jaromir Weinberger?  When I was a kid, I was hooked by the Polka and Fugue from 'Schwanda the Bagpiper' - deliciously noisy upbeat stuff - but was never able to locate anything else by him on record.  As time went by, a few more works trickled through, most significantly two complete modern recordings of 'Schwanda' and historic recordings of the Czech Rhapsody, the Variations on Under the Spreading Chestnut Tree and the Christmas Overture (the latter conducted by Barbirolli with the NY Phil, an unhappy association as I recollect).  This could hardly be described as a feast, and even in these days of independent labels determined to unearth and record everything, Weinberger remains terra incognito so far.

The poor guy had to flee Europe to the USA to escape the Nazis and eventually, in 1967, ended his life with a bottle of aspirin tablets after suffering depression at the neglect of his works and a terminal illness.

What little I have heard convinces me that it's high time that some of his works (other than 'Schwanda') received modern recordings. This is surely prime Naxos or cpo territory.
#2
Composers & Music / Kuula and Suolahti
Tuesday 08 September 2009, 00:52
Following on from Melartin, has anyone come across the works of Kuula or Suolahti?  Both died young and both were formidable composers.  I have a couple of orchestral works by Kuula in recordings from the radio and a piano trio, recorded by BIS. 

Hekki Suolahti was only 16 when he died - complications of a hernia, I think - and the only work I have ever heard was written the year before he died - the Sinfonia piccola, which has been broadcast several times on 'Through the Night' on Radio 3.  It begins just like Sibelius's First Symphony - two solo clarinets - but it's an amazingly compact and masterly work for someone of that age - most memorable. He left several other works but I have never been able to get hold of any of them.  Have any of you heard this work, and if so, what do you think?