Daniel Jones(1912-93)-a prolific Welsh symphonist

Started by Dundonnell, January 16, 2009, 06:23:43 PM

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cilgwyn

It doesn't bother me,but I suppose there is a possibility that more people might be able to see this mind boggling list,somewhere else? The DJ items,excepted.

Lethevich

Good lord, I wish I was alive during such a time when orchestras actually widely performed music of this kind, and it was broadcast to boot :(

I began a list of the most interesting-looking items, but it looked like turning out almost as long as the original list.
Peanut butter, flour and sugar do not make cookies. They make FIRE.

cilgwyn

You've got,(gulp) non British s-stuff as well?!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

J.Z. Herrenberg

Quote from: cilgwyn on September 06, 2011, 06:31:47 AM
You.ve got,(gulp) non British s-stuff as well?!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!


The man's a completist par excellence, cilgwyn. It's an open secret.  ;D
Music gives a soul to the universe, wings to the mind, flight to the imagination and life to everything. -- Plato

Dundonnell

Quote from: cilgwyn on September 06, 2011, 06:31:47 AM
You've got,(gulp) non British s-stuff as well?!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Oh yes! ;D ;D

Albion

Fabulous list, Colin - your reel-to-reel was probably draining the National Grid at the time.

:o
A piece is worth your attention, and is itself for you praiseworthy, if it makes you feel you have not wasted your time over it. (SG, 1922)

J.Z. Herrenberg

Quote from: Albion on September 06, 2011, 06:49:19 AM
Fabulous list, Colin - your reel-to-reel was probably draining the National Grid at the time.

:o


;D
Music gives a soul to the universe, wings to the mind, flight to the imagination and life to everything. -- Plato

Dundonnell

To give you the history......

Taping started in April 1973 when I bought a reel-to-reel machine; my father got hold of another one. Each week I would go through the Radio Times and identify music i wanted to tape. My father had retired by then and so he taped some of the music for me.

I, on the other hand, was a young school teacher. God help me........but I used to have the tape machine and the radio at the back of my classroom and would periodically set the recording up while the class was working on something or other :o ;D  Ah...those were the days :) :)

The overwhelming majority of the tapes are still in their very solid, hard plastic boxes which open out to reveal the tape inside. They were kept in huge cardboard boxes in a pretty dry environment. They have not been played for years. They LOOK ok.........but that means nothing, I realise :-\

Yes...Johan, as you know ;D I am a completist but I also see myself as a collector, with a collector's obsession/mania. I don't usually possess more than a couple of versions of the great classic musical masterpieces because I have always wanted to hear more and more music which was new to me. Admittedly, orchestral and choral music and, admittedly, from the mid-19th century onwards and, admittedly, of a certain cast. No apologies needed or required, I know ;D

J.Z. Herrenberg

Quote from: Dundonnell on September 06, 2011, 07:09:28 AM
I, on the other hand, was a young school teacher. God help me........but I used to have the tape machine and the radio at the back of my classroom and would periodically set the recording up while the class was working on something or other :o ;D  Ah...those were the days :) :)


What a man! Marvellous story.
Music gives a soul to the universe, wings to the mind, flight to the imagination and life to everything. -- Plato

Albion

Quote from: cilgwyn on September 06, 2011, 06:26:44 AMIt just shows what the Beeb were capable of years ago & how far they have fallen.

Quote from: Lethe Dmitriyevich Pettersson on September 06, 2011, 06:30:34 AM
Good lord, I wish I was alive during such a time when orchestras actually widely performed music of this kind, and it was broadcast to boot :(

I began a list of the most interesting-looking items, but it looked like turning out almost as long as the original list.

Those - were - the - days my friend
We thought they'd never end ...

:D


... and then they did.

:'(
A piece is worth your attention, and is itself for you praiseworthy, if it makes you feel you have not wasted your time over it. (SG, 1922)

cilgwyn

I can remember doing that,with the old ball point pen. Going throught the pages of Radio 3 & circling items that interested me. Then one day,the interesting items seemed to dry up & the Radio Times was just full of Celeb and soap gossip.
The R3 schedules do seem to have livened up a little,lately,so there is hope. Of course,these days,allot of the more esoteric stuff seems to get released on cd,so there's not the same urgency to recording off air repertory as there used to be.
Nevertheless,my cassette deck has been relatively busy over the last couple of weeks,saving me money on a Rossini opera,Mahler & Bruckner symphonies. I've even rewarded it buy buying a couple of pre recorded box sets from a very nice,honest seller on ebay! He must thank god for anoraks like me who still use these things.

cilgwyn

#131
That reminds me. I've got some Mary Hopkin cds in a box,somewhere,and singing,appropriately for this column,in Welsh. She's still very popular here in Wales.
A very pretty voice.
Anyway,the moral of this story is,it does pay,sometimes at least,to be a hoarder.
By the way,I totally agree with you,'Lethe'!

Dundonnell

Looking at my own list again....

I am really excited at the prospect of hopefully hearing Fricker's "The Vision of Judgment" and Jacobson's "The Hound of Heaven" -two choral works which Rob Barnett on Musicweb has, I think, often mentioned as among the British choral works most in need of revival.

I can't get over how much Fricker and Cooke was played back in the 1970's :o Two composers who have virtually(or, in the case of Fricker, completely) disappeared from the musical firmament :( >:( I don't think ANY Fricker has been recorded in decades?

cilgwyn

#133
Those two works Do get talked about quite allot
Fricker's Symphony No 5 for organ & orchestra was once 'released' on the pirate Aries label. I remember thinking about buying it. At the time I was unaware that Aries Lps were pirated. I remember Michael G Thomas,who had ads in Gramophone,sold them. This is probably the same performance!
I'm going to have to print you're list of recordings out & look some of these works (and composers) up. There are few I haven't heard of.

Lethevich

#134
Quote from: Dundonnell on September 06, 2011, 07:37:23 AM
I don't think ANY Fricker has been recorded in decades?

Indeed - aside from the Simpson/Fricker/Orr disc, if it wasn't for the enlightened advocacy of Susanne Stanzeleit recording two of his violin sonatas, I'd never have heard of the fellow.

Incidentely, I highly recommend the twofer licence which reissues those volumes: link

Edit: I forgot how mad that review on Amazon made me when I first read it. It's amazing how signally wrong on every point the guy was.
Peanut butter, flour and sugar do not make cookies. They make FIRE.

cilgwyn

#135
I have an off air cassette of his 3rd symphony. It impressed me. Very exciting. Severe,but,in it's own way,very approachable.
If you like Jones,I think Fricker is a composer you are going to like,although Daniel Jones is more romantically inclined.
Frickers strikes me as a tougher nut!!!
Actually,I did have his First on an old Lp.
I have read allot of posts from people,on various,forums,over the years,grumbling about the absence of Fricker recordings.
I will have a look at that Amazon review. If they annoy me I usually end up buying the d*** thing!

Dundonnell

(With apologies to the shade of Daniel Jones! Sure he wouldn't mind ;D)

I thought about starting a thread about Fricker two years ago but never got round to it :(

I do think that he now has claim to being one of the two most scandalously neglected of mid-20th century British composers(along with Iain Hamilton)-certainly in terms of his representation on disc.

Yet the remarkable thing is that in Hugh Wood's chapter on 'English(sic) Contemporary Music' in the famous "European Music in the Twentieth Century"(Pelican, 1958/1961) Humphrey Searle, Fricker and Hamilton alone occupy a quarter of the space and are clearly regarded as among the most important figures just behind Britten, Tippett, Berkeley and Rawsthorne(Bliss, Walton, Malcolm Arnold are dismissed with contempt!). Wood talked with evident huge admiration of the 'brooding intensity', 'the dark commanding power', the 'integrity' and 'purpose' of these composers.

Ok....they are not 'easy' in the way that some composers who have come back into fashion are. I love the music of, say, Richard Arnell but its romanticism is of a much more accesible sort. There is-or should be-a place for both.

We should be grateful at least to CPO for recording all the Searle symphonies. I have difficulties with Nos. 3-5 which are exceedingly 'tough' but Nos. 1 and 2 are tremendous pieces in my opinion.

Out of date, I know, but still useful:

http://www.musicweb-international.com/fricker/index.htm

Dundonnell

Oh.....

I have just discovered that I have Robin Orr's Symphony No.2 and Symphony No.3 on tape as well :)

J.Z. Herrenberg

Music gives a soul to the universe, wings to the mind, flight to the imagination and life to everything. -- Plato

cilgwyn

I've got an off air tape of an Orr symphony,but where is it?!!!!
Annoying! I'm going to have to write to the BBC about Daniel Jones symphonies,as soon as I have the time. The more the merrier. Although,I doubt if they will cobble together a performance specifically for me.
I also need to write to Morrisons about that snapped off saucepan handle!