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For me the Natursymphonie is a magnificently orchestrated piece of late romantic exotica, but not terribly memorable. If you want this sort of thing Strauss, Schoenberg, Zemlinsky and even Marx do it rather better. Nevertheless, an enjoyable wallow - and a marvellous recording on cpo. In that respect it's a must-buy.

I completely agree with this statement. The poverty of the melodic material is alas very disappointing and contrasts very much with the high purpose and the orchestral treatment. Too bad.

My major 2014 discovery is... an incredible German post-romantic symphony, never recorded...

I'd like so much to record it one day that I'm afraid to share this discovery in public...

 

I've read Ferdinand Hiller's Symphony "Es muss doch Frühling werden", and I agree it's worth a good recording!!! 

Interesting upload... but rather strange music  it remembered me the bad things Klemperer wrote 

It would be good to have a REALLY COMPLETE recording of Braunfels' Fantastic Apparitions!   

Yep, this symphony was on my list of "never recorded symphonies which could deserve to be". 

Widor's 2nd Symphony??? Argh... Too bad for me. 

Yes, I'm talking about this disc-book conducted by Hervé Niquet.

Received today!

Good news for non speaking French, the very interesting libretto -texts by Alexandre Dratwicki and Patrice d'Ollone- is now also in English.

Gorgeous romantic music, especially "Les villes maudites", a kind of symphonic poem written in 1899 for a very large orchestra.

That's kind of you 

Of course I have new good projects but for the moment I'm looking for money to finance them. 

Well, Bruckner's 8th is a real puzzle, as most Bruckner's symphonies are.
In fact there are more or less 4 and a half versions of this symphony:
-the original version of 1887, which was discovered long after Bruckner's death
-the revision from 1890 published by Nowak, which is the "normal" version we know.
-Haas's edition, who mixed the 1890 revision with some cut portions from 1887 (imho the best version even if not very "pure")
-the last revision from 1892, the first published edition, very interesting in the way Bruckner indicated in this edition many changes of tempo and rubatos as well, indications absent from the other editions.
-an intermediate version of the adagio, from 1888, was recently discovered and one recording is to be published next, conducted by Gerd Schaller (Profil).

Some conductors didn't hesitate to make their own edition, for example Furtwängler or William Steinberg.

 

Well, Mr. Howe, I am the conductor of this Rabaud recording (I don't fully agreed with the term "superb" but anyway thanks for the compliment).
By the way, Rabaud and d'Ollone were best friends and I could listen to some pieces of the D'Ollone while being with Mr. Michel Rabaud, grandson of Henri and incidentally one of the best friends of Patrice d'Ollone, grandson of Max. Life is full of surprises!

Dear all,

I had the occasion to listen to some extracts of this 2 cd book, and I'm looking forward to be able to listen to the whole thing.
One curiosity of the set is D'Ollone's orchestration of Spozializio by Liszt, an orchestration I found a bit strange and stylistically questionable.
I specially recommend the cantata Frédégonde, with which D'Ollone won the Prix de Rome.