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I have gone through the archives on this composer - I am certainly a Johnny-Come-Lately here - including a very helpful list of symphonic compositions and lots of comments, but there didn't seem to be any single thread that jumped out at me as more likely to revive so I have just made this comment free-standing, although I'd welcome responses.

He's a fascinating guy to me in terms of what I've heard so far (the First Symphony and the smaller pieces) that are on you tube, and equally fascinating because of his history (at least according to Wiki - caveat lector). He's very closely associated with the town of Erfurt in Thuringia (which is otherwise known as the capital of the annual 'blond asparagus' festival, and where I've also participated in my humble way <g>), and I have my own associations (not so close, yet) with the town, which is unusually rich in opera performances of rare repertoire - I just heard a Wolf Corregidor (granted, with piano) and last year also with piano, but stage, Lady Magnesia, and they remain, in hard times, one of the most adventurous of the German theatres (doing I Medici later this season fully staged, which I am going to try to get to, and there's always a few things on the back burner). I'm surprised when I go at how vital the small music scene is as well, and there's a good specialized museum (the Anger Museum - a proper noun, not an adjective); each summer in front of the very impressive Dom there's a relative rarity of an opera performed out-of-doors for much of the summer. Last year it was Attila, though I didn't get to it.

He himself, if not an alte kampfer, apparently threw in his lot with the Nazis very early after 33, and Wiki speculates that this old-fashioined nationalism - epitomized in part by his choosing to stay in Erfurt - is in part responsible for this lack of popularity, but I'm not so sure that's so.  The connections with Bruckner seem to unmistakable that I wonder if, for a lot of folks, he is able to make a case in his own right (not that Bruckner - whom I adore far more than Mahler, still is able to do so for the general public). He seems to think in rather slowly moving melodic units (for lack of a better phrase - although if you sit with it, the First Symphony has got a scherzo which lumbers along like a Bruckner) and I think that he requires an audience, like Bruckner (and like Furt's symphonic works), which is willing to be IMMERSED in the pieces. That's not the Wagner style (and its offshoots) and it's not even the Brahms style, but it is a feature of late German romanticism which most audiences can't grapple with today.

I'd be curious to hear excerpts from the operas, although I don't kid myself that anyone is going to undertake THAT excavation.

Anyway, I seem to have more tolerance for the immersion-requirement than many (I'm a big fan of Wellesz) and I am going to try to explore this more on cd as well as what's available on you tube.

Well, at least two comments from me.

First, I think that there are obviously a lot of 'threads' in the history of philosophy, and precision of description is only one of them. There are few names more important to the later 19th and early twentieth century composers, as a philoosper, than Schopenhauer, and I don't think anyone would say that his work embodies clarity and specificity of description. Philosophy is a very broad field of activity (note - I did not say 'inquiry') and empiricism is one important element of it, but hardly the only one. This is like saying that science which doesn't fit Popper's proscriptions isn't 'science'.

The greater frustration is obviously that we don't have (and I can't find) and context for the quote, and we'd obviously be better of (perhaps <g>) if we did. But I think the gist of the statement remains viable as a point of view - even though  it's one I disagree with - and that it that there is a sense which some have in all of the arts in which there is a historical inevitability to the technical development of that art, and that however frequently the canon is rearranged, it's rearranged along lines of a certain internal inevitability. There is a specific notion of harmonic (to take one example) "progress', and works which ultimately forward that progress are 'major' works, while those which don't are not. That is not saying (assuming I understand the quote correctly) that such other works are 'bad' - it is saying that there is a 'reason' why they are at best side shows.

My own view doesn't quite extend to the physicists' view today of multiple universes (which I find laughable and primitive philosophically), but I think we have way too much of a world view today of different kinds of music in different cultures to assume that there is one specific way, even within a culture, that music 'had' to turn out. At its best, I personally think that quote is a tautology - works that are important historically are important because they are important today - and that doesn't tell us any more than 'explaining' evolution by relying on natural selection as a pat answer.

So, in summary, I don't at all endorse the perspective I think exemplified by the quote. In fact, I would put myself at the other end of that spectrum. But I think the quote, even without context, is a succinct and well put exemplar of a point of view which is perhaps way too dominant today, and which distorts our abilities to really understand and appreciate unknown (sic) composers and compositions.

No, it's fascinating (to me at least) and I don't think it's so different than, say, what Marston does (or did) or was trying to do.

I wonder what the economics of it all were when Walter Legge did his early subscriptions. Obviously they were almost unrecognizably different than now, but I would still wonder what the facts and figures were back then.

I think one of the sources, although probably not often spoken of, is when foundations for speciic composers actually sponsor productions in the hope that it leads to other things.

I wondered, for example, if Amberlin did that for City Opera when they did the combined Trouble in Tahitii I and II?

The record business generally is in a terrible fix, and we are the smallest part of it. All kinds of new deals and structures are trying to surface (some companies now try what are called 360 deals, which purport to manage the artist and book tours as well as make recordings, with mixed success).

I have spent a lot of time in the last couple of years traveling too much for my own good to small venues all over Europe to hear interesting works (almost all opera), and my impression is that in the last year or two a lot of them have pulled in their horns in terms of exposure to unknown works. This would have happened at the time of the crash, since there is always a kind of window of planning in which you can't change prior commitments. But generally now there seem to be two trends 1) fewer truly unknown works and 2) to the extent that there is rare repertoire, at least in the US and in opera, it is increasingly in 'modern' music that is not modern....I would call it bubble gum opera, though not trying to offend anyone. But safe, middle of the road music that is 'new' seems to be what people think the answer is at the moment.

I am not a 'fan' of Renee Fleming, to say the least, but she has repeatedly programmed unknown (and quite deserving works) along with popular items. What comes to mind most quickly is a recording of hers in recent years reflecting great divas of the past (Homage) , and on that cd she sings the only (as far as I know) modern performance of an aria from Rimsky's very great opera, Servilia. The work has't as far as I know been performed since its inception in about 1903, although the full score is available (as are the parts) and it is unlike any other Rimsky, period. There were excerpts about 65 years ago with Lisitsianw which still float around and a few other stray bits.

Although I suppose one can make the case that opera 'stars' singing this kind of repertoire are about the identification of the singer with the progenitor, in fact both Fleming and, to an even greater extent, Bartoli, have taken a lot of trouble to make a fair amount of such obscure music available when the 'upside' for them professionally is not at all clear.

As I said, unfortunately I did not have a direct source for the quote, although I googled it before I posted to see if anything popped up. The source I had was what was apparently a private article (a very good one) on Wolf-Ferrari (who is, if not unsung, sung far too rarely) by Carlo Todeschi, but that was the only reference I had for the quote.

Thank you both so much for this reminder. I thought I might have that disc but I don't, but have found a very similar one on Dutton played by Joseph Spooner and with Michael Jones and Kathryn Mosley as pianists performing a sonata by Wlater Macfarren, Michael Balfe (a special favorite for opera), Rosalind Ellicott, Samuel Coleridge Taylor, Roger Quilter and Bainton, and a companion disc (not really in the literal sense) on Marco Polo, with Wallfisch and York, doing Rubbra, Moeran and Ireland. The former is a bit of a curate's egg and the performances are good but a  bit generic, which is not unexpected. I recall the Wallfisch as better played but the music is not quite as much as I'd hope from those particular composers.

Since I am new here and haven't really looked through the archives yet, I hope I'm excused if I'm repeating a previously covered composer, but the Dutch Julius Rontgen is someone worth exploring if you have not.  I became aware of him initially in the book of interviews with Casals from the mid 50s (I think) called "Conversations with Casals" (and which seems to form the basis of most of the subsequent biographies. Casals is questioned in a lot of detail and gives pretty clear answers to most questions and when he's asked about contemporary (for him - he was born in 1876, you have to remember) composers, Rontgen is one of the three to whom a lot of space and time are devoted. Tovey is another (and Tovey is REALLY worth not only a listen (in the new edition on cd) but a careful read).

There seems to have been something of a Rontgen resurgence on cd in recent years, but as far as I'm aware almost nothing of the large scale works and only very occasionally do you see a chamber piece.

I am currently listening on you tube to his scenes from Faust, but the place to start I think is with the cello concerto that is there (even more than the sonata).

I will  poke around in my collection - I have a few Dutch cds - to see what more exists, but he is a composer who in style and I think, in his ability to tackle big topics (sic), reminds me of Busoni, although = Lord forgive me for saying so - Busoni can seem a little turgid, and the music doesn't always flow easily......that's not the issue to my ears with Mr. Rontgen.

Yes, totally correct. I agree. But I think the bigger issue is not that the work inserts itself - which is what Dalhaus is suggesting (assumably because of something intrinsic in the work that will 'out'), but that in my view at least there is something of a random 'natural selection' element going on in terms of what works get inserted into the canon at any different point. To me that is the more interesting and controversial (maybe) question. Dalhaus seems to be suggesting a kind of historical inevitability and 'progress' in which works insert themselves, and I am saying that I am not sure that this is true, and that, even to the extent it is true, it is true for a period of time only and then it is no longer true.

All best

"What an opera represents in itself in the immediate, aesthetic present is not the determining factor, but rather its ability to insert itself in an innovative way into the evolution of compositional methods and musical throughout. And in the end, the operas that do not do this become superfluous."

I don't have the source of the quote, but in the context of our group, I think it's fascinating. I would say it has some limitations, and my own view is that he has a view of historical determinism that I don't, and a view of an 'unseen hand' (as evidenced in implied passive voice of 'ability to insert itself"), but for all that I think it's suitably thought provoking.

I was there for the performance a few weeks ago and loved it. The tenor was ill but was serviceable and I thought the first three acts were amazing....he tended to repeat himself a bit at the end. It will be bcast and also issued as a recording under the Palazzetto Bru Zane sponsorship, and their site is worth checking out for a lot of romantic pieces. Have to run but look forward to participating more on the group shortly.