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Thank you for posting this. Are you familiar with any recordings of his music you could recommend?

Back, if I may, to the Piano Concerto. John Boyer called the outer movements "vulgar" and that's a very apt description. It's almost as if Draeseke is deliberately parodying the worst excesses of the virtuosic Lisztian concertos of his contemporaries. The bombast, oversized gestures and unsubtle orchestration of these movements are in stark contrast with the central Adagio, which is indeed lovely, but so out of keeping with the rest of the work. It really is the oddest, inexplicable piece.

Ok, now I really am intrigued to listen to that one... Don't remember the last time somebody wrote about a piano concerto in terms of it being "the oddest, inexplicable piece"...

Oh dear.

Apart from the Serenade, the finale of the Piano Concerto is one of the few compositions  of Draeseke that I enjoy.

I can sense Lord Charteris's comments about the Duchess of York echoing in my ears.   I must be irredeemably vulgar.it seems.

Are you familiar with the symphonies? Not necessarily just the Tragica, but Nos.1 and 2?
While certainly not "light" Draeseke, these are masterly works while at the same time being more accessible then the 3rd symphony. The 4th, Comica, is also a wonderful shorter symphony.

I think Alan's analysis is correct, that it's largely down to his music being a "tough nut to crack". I must confess to finding it so, there aren't many of his works which give immediate pleasure in the way that a more accessible composer's do

Unfortunately, I tend to agree with this. Draeseke sometimes strikes me like a Bruckner who only wrote his 1st, 2nd, 5th and 8th symphonies... (in the sense of having written just the least overtly "beautiful" and accessible works).

One work of his that I know well and I would argue would be among the exceptions is the wonderful Serenade for orchestra.

Something of a confession: I do prefer symphonies 1 & 2 to 3 & 4, and more generally early Draeseke to late Draeseke. It seems to me that his earlier works were imbued with a contagious energy that often went missing later in his career. I can see why people would consider No. 3 the objectively better work, but I honestly don't enjoy it quite as much as its predecessors. Although I also think the work would benefit more than most from a really top-notch recording; the ones that we have are okay, but certainly not stellar.

Well, this aligns very much with my perception of the symphonies over the years as well, but it is a the same time a strange thing: even though I (heretically) perceive Nos.1 and 2 to be more "rounded" masterpieces then the Tragica, that Scherzo in the 3rd is to me just one of the most mesmerizing Scherzi in all of symphonic music.

Just one among so many rich details in that movement - the way in which that descending flute line is taken over by the celli, as they set in "too early" and overtake it with a kind of brazenly charming mischief... what an incredible compositional moment.     

And when the opening of the Classicstoday article is "Felix Draeseke is best known for his monumentally long (and dull) oratorio Christus"...

Wow. Talking about casually dismissing a first class composer in as smug and shallow a way as possible...

The Violin Concerto was now mentioned several times, and I must confess that I am not even aware of its existence - is there a recording of that piece that you would recommend? "Orchestrated version" -  was it originally composed as a piece for violin and some sort of chamber ensemble?

Not a symphony, but an orchestral work, the Gudrun Overture, to be performed in Coburg this season: this. (The Coburg orchestra has some interesting programming, even including Bacewicz violin concertos and thelike...- so does the Wuppertal orchestra with which Hanson recorded the symphonies, now that I look at that, too! Good orchestras both, apparently.)

Astonishing. This is the first time I have actually seen a major orchestral work by Draeseke on a concert program in Germany, and I have been living in Berlin for the last 20 years. Probably only happened due to Coburg being the town of his birth.

How does the East of US fare in performing Draeseke's orchestral music? Did you ever have the opportunity to hear his symphonies (or even just overtures) in concert in New York, Boston or any other major city (relatively) nearby? 

I share your astonishment and your frustration. Unfortunately, despite the existence of excellent recordings, Draeseke's music is rarely performed in public, which is an absolute scandal. However, you may find this website useful: https://www.draeseke.org/

Thank you for the link. I see you are based in England - did you ever have an opportunity to hear a Draeseke symphony in concert there (or in Britain in general)?

That the name of Felix Draeseke will be widely known among the members of this forum is, I believe, a reasonable assumption. And most likely the same assumption can be made about his most prominent works, not the least among which is his Symphony No.3, "Tragica".

But what about Symphonies Nos.1, 2 and 4? I myself have known his Nos. 1 and 2 for almost 15 years now, and every time I return to them, I end up being in disbelief that music of that kind of depth and compositional substance, of that level of beauty and craftmanship can be so utterly absent from our concert programs. I am not aware that there exists even a small Draeseke festival of some kind that would at least once in a year (or two years) perform a selection of his major works.

Did anybody here ever have the opportunity to hear his Nos. 1 and 2 in concert? And in general, what is your opinion of these works?