Julius Röntgen

Started by Dundonnell, November 22, 2008, 03:14:11 PM

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SymphonicAddict



A nice addition to what has been recorded from the vast oeuvre of this composer. Once again, Röntgen knows how to write music making it sound fresh and engaging despite being very traditional. The Romanze from the 3rd PC is gorgeous, expressive and tender. The heart of the piece IMO. The 6th PC sounds like a Rhapsody or a Fantasy for piano and orchestra rather than a proper PC. The 7th PC has fine moments, with some apparent Baroque-sounding passages (?). Granted, it's not groundbreaking music, but it is utterly pleasant. It's a lovely disc altogether.

springrite

I first became curious about Rontgen when I read that, when asked about his favorite living composers, Rontgen was the first composer Brahms mentioned. Of course, with Wagner being so popular and with so many followers, Brahms was surely going to mention composers with relatively conservative idioms.
Do what I must do, and let what must happen happen.

Christo

Just received my copy of this volumnuous & heavy (two kilos) tome today: 600 pages by music historian Jurjen Vis (who's untimely death earlier this year meant a genuine loss for Dutch musical history; Vis wrote a couple of fine monographs, the most impressive I read being the one about the young composer Leo Smit (1900-1943), murdered in Sobibor & leaving almost no archive behind, which meant Vis was forced to reconstruct the few fragments of his life we now know almost from scratch; hence its title 'Silhouettes'.

'Gaudeamus' being BTW the name Röntgen gave to the "Norwegian" villa he had himself built at Bilthoven, a place his close friend Edvard Grieg never saw, since it was buit after (also untimely) Grieg's death (I visited it one month ago and attended a concert there). All of this, of course, for those who manage to read Dutch (but one could choose to learn it for the sake of Röntgen alone  >:D).

... music is not only an 'entertainment', nor a mere luxury, but a necessity of the spiritual if not of the physical life, an opening of those magic casements through which we can catch a glimpse of that country where ultimate reality will be found.    RVW, 1948

SonicMan46

#43
Well, now reviewing and listening to my modest collection of Julius Röntgen's works - last time mentioned (2nd quote at bottom) was nearly 2 years ago in this thread when I had 10 CDs - now I am up to 15 discs (1 MP3) (first quote) - I've been starting w/ mainly the chamber works (7 of the 8 shown below) - attached are numerous reviews of nearly all of these recordings for those interested and just wondering what to purchase first (or stream - many Röntgen albums are available on Spotify).

I'm enjoying all of these performances; the first 2 CDs shown are great 'starters' w/ excellent reviews - love the Lendvai Trio gals but would probably recommended the middle two volumes.  The Storioni Trio is also quite good and there is a 2nd volume.  Julius was a long-lived and prolific composer w/ well over 600 works to his credit - a detailed list can be found HERE - will post my remaining recordings in my next entry - not sure that I want to add much more (maybe the 2nd Storioni Trio recording)?  BUT, much is missing, e.g. String Quartets (he wrote about 20 according to the link) and his solo piano works (on Amazon, 4 volumes are listed w/ Mark Anderson).  Dave :)

QuoteCello Concertos, No. 1-3 - Muruzabai (Et'Cetera)
Chamber Music - Royal Conservatory Canada (RCA)
Piano Concertos, No. 2 & 4 - Porcelijn (CPO)
Piano Trios, No. 6, 9, 10 - Storioni Trio (MP3)
String Trios, No. 1-4 - Lendvai String Trio (Champs Hill)
String Trios, No. 5-8 - Lendvai String Trio (Champs Hill)
String Trios, No. 9-12 - Lendvai String Trio (Champs Hill)
String Trios, No. 13-16 - Lendvai String Trio (Champs Hill)
Symphony  No. 3 + Suite - Porcelijn (CPO)
Symphony Nos. 6, 5, & 19 - Porcelijn (CPO)
Symphony Nos. 8 & 15 - Porcelijn (CPO)
Symphony No. 10 et al - Porcelijn (CPO)
Symphony No. 18 et al - Porcelijn (CPO)
Violin Concertos - Ferschtman/Porcelijn (CPO)
Wind Serenades - Linos Ensemble (CPO)

     

     

Quote from: SonicMan46 on June 03, 2018, 02:33:41 PM
BOY!  Julius Röntgen (1855-1932) - looking through this short thread, I have just one post back in 2009 and must have just started to collect his wide variety of recordings - one of my interests, as a retired radiologist, was his relationship to Wilhelm Conrad Röntgen, discoverer of X-rays - indeed they were distant cousins (see first pice below - Source) - I now have 10 CDs of this composer (listed in the quote) - one has an interesting cover w/ a chest X-ray.  Now, I've not listened to these in a while but have pulled out the stack and will in the upcoming days.  Thanks for the reminder - Dave :)



mc ukrneal

Quote from: SonicMan46 on May 04, 2020, 11:29:22 AM
Well, now reviewing and listening to my modest collection of Julius Röntgen's works - last time mentioned (2nd quote at bottom) was nearly 2 years ago in this thread when I had 10 CDs - now I am up to 15 discs (1 MP3) (first quote) - I've been starting w/ mainly the chamber works (7 of the 8 shown below) - attached are numerous reviews of nearly all of these recordings for those interested and just wondering what to purchase first (or stream - many Röntgen albums are available on Spotify).

I'm enjoying all of these performances; the first 2 CDs shown are great 'starters' w/ excellent reviews - love the Lendvai Trio gals but would probably recommended the middle two volumes.  The Storioni Trio is also quite good and there is a 2nd volume.  Julius was a long-lived and prolific composer w/ well over 600 works to his credit - a detailed list can be found HERE - will post my remaining recordings in my next entry - not sure that I want to add much more (maybe the 2nd Storioni Trio recording)?  BUT, much is missing, e.g. String Quartets (he wrote about 20 according to the link) and his solo piano works (on Amazon, 4 volumes are listed w/ Mark Anderson).  Dave :)

     

     

Great Stuff. I've been interested in those piano volumes. Maybe next time presto has a sale on those downloads, I'll consider it...
Be kind to your fellow posters!!

SonicMan46

Quote from: mc ukrneal on May 04, 2020, 11:34:34 AM
Great Stuff. I've been interested in those piano volumes. Maybe next time presto has a sale on those downloads, I'll consider it...

Hi Neal - looking forward to your comments - might put together a Spotify playlist of the solo piano music (all 4 Anderson volumes are available) and possibly one of string quartets just to sample these two genres; but don't feel like adding much more.  Dave :)

SonicMan46

My Röntgen Collection - Part 2 - shown below are my remaining 7 CDs, mostly Symphonies, plus Violin Concertos & Wind Serenades - the first image shows a list of Julius' symphonic output, 21 works (Source) of which 8 are on the pics shown - mostly excellent reviews in the attachment, except for a couple by Dubins, so I've included several rebuttal comments.  Again not sure that I want to obtain every Rontgen symphony but looking forward to suggestions by others.   Dave :)

     

     

Christo

Posted here from the Pieces that have blown you away recently-thread:

Quote from: arpeggio on August 16, 2020, 08:38:57 PM
Julius Röntgen.

I have just discovered this fine composer.  There are not that many entries about him in GMG.

[asin]B06WWR7YZ6[/asin]
... music is not only an 'entertainment', nor a mere luxury, but a necessity of the spiritual if not of the physical life, an opening of those magic casements through which we can catch a glimpse of that country where ultimate reality will be found.    RVW, 1948

André


Cross-posted from the WAYL2 thread:



Disc one: 3 Suites for solo violin.

Donald Tovey, the Scottish composer, pianist, musicologist, editor etc was composer Julius Röntgen's best friend. It's on Tovey's advice that Röntgen embarked on writing solo violin works 'in the style of Bach' in the period 1921-1930. Tovey would provide themes and Röntgen wrote preludes, bourrées, sarabandes, fugues, arranging them in suites (3). To complete the corpus he also wrote 3 sonatas, again in the Bach style.

Anyone with a liking for solo violin works will dip into this set as in a candy jar. Röntgen's suites are more tuneful than comparable works by Reger, while less overtly original and fantastical than Ysaÿes's contemporaneous works for solo violin. I didn't know of violinist Oliver Kipp, but on the evidence of his work here he is an excellent technician and a fine musician. He studied under Thomas Brandis (longtime concertmaster of the BP) and currently leads the violin section of the NDR Radiophilharmonie.

Perfectly natural sound, with good presence and hall ambience. Produced in 2015, this extremely fine set is warmly recommended. The other two discs are devoted to solo cello works and duets for violin and cello.


SonicMan46

After a 2-year absence, I'm re-listening to my Röntgen collection and decided on a replacement (CD for an old MP3) and some additions: 1) Piano Trios, both volumes w/ the Storioni Trio (from Amazon MP) and 2) CPO CDs in the middle row - on sale at JPC - take a look if interested; that should bring my collection of his works up to about 18 discs.

Now I'm curious about his String Quartet output, i.e. about 20 works (see bottom pic from Julius' Website, but virtually nothing is listed on Amazon, PrestoMusic or JPC?  Dave :)

 

   


André

This 3-cd set of Röntgen's chamber music for violin and cello gave me hours of pleasure. Fascinating, quirky music.


Symphonic Addict

I've found this latest release of Röntgen's symphonies quite good. In spite of the style of these symphonies might be seen as too conservative or anachronistic for their time (composed between 1930 and 1931), the quality of the music is evident. I really hope CPO will finish the whole cycle (18 symphonies have been recorded thus far including the 'Symphonietta Humoristica') at some point and don't leave it unfinished as happened with Henk Badings.

Part of the tragedy of the Palestinians is that they have essentially no international support for a good reason: they've no wealth, they've no power, so they've no rights.

Noam Chomsky

kyjo

Cross-posted from the WAYLT thread, was listening to the PC no. 4 recently:



Just wonderful music!! Röntgen takes Brahms as his stylistic "starting point" but his music is never derivative, adopting a fresh and often unpredictable harmonic palette all his own. This 1906 concerto is also much more concise than either of Brahms' PCs (all to its benefit, I daresay). The first movement has a life-affirming sweep and contains an absolutely glorious secondary theme, and the slow movement is really very touching in its understated melancholy and chamber music-like orchestration. The finale isn't quite as inspired as the first two movements, but it still concludes the work in rousing fashion. Fortunately, the passionate performance here does full justice to the work. Oh, and accompanying PC no. 2 is just as lovely, btw! One of the most treasurable entries in CPO's comprehensive Röntgen series.
"Music is enough for a lifetime, but a lifetime is not enough for music" - Sergei Rachmaninoff

Symphonic Addict

I decided to explore his chamber music and the journey began with his First Cello Sonata in B-flat major, and I have to say it's a most phenomenal work! I wasn't expecting to be that good taking into account it is a relatively early work (from 1872-73). Both the piano and the cello have inspired writing and the same importance, the dialogue between two instruments make a quite compelling listen. Looking forward to the rest of these pieces.

Part of the tragedy of the Palestinians is that they have essentially no international support for a good reason: they've no wealth, they've no power, so they've no rights.

Noam Chomsky

Scion7

#54
String Quartet #12 (the second movement is vigorous!), plus his completion of a Grieg quartet & wife Amanda's quartet:

When, a few months before his death, Rachmaninov lamented that he no longer had the "strength and fire" to compose, friends reminded him of the Symphonic Dances, so charged with fire and strength. "Yes," he admitted. "I don't know how that happened. That was probably my last flicker."

Symphonic Addict

According to the webpage devoted to the composer, he wrote 26 (!) string quartets, including 6 Quartettinos. An extraordinarily fecund composer and one of high quality. A real shame that there are no recordings of most of those pieces.
Part of the tragedy of the Palestinians is that they have essentially no international support for a good reason: they've no wealth, they've no power, so they've no rights.

Noam Chomsky

kyjo

Quote from: Symphonic Addict on September 05, 2023, 06:11:05 PMI decided to explore his chamber music and the journey began with his First Cello Sonata in B-flat major, and I have to say it's a most phenomenal work! I wasn't expecting to be that good taking into account it is a relatively early work (from 1872-73). Both the piano and the cello have inspired writing and the same importance, the dialogue between two instruments make a quite compelling listen. Looking forward to the rest of these pieces.



I don't know his First Cello Sonata, but I do know his Second in A minor which is an absolute masterpiece of the genre, filled with drama, lyricism, and virtuosity. In no way is it inferior to, say, the Brahms cello sonatas....
"Music is enough for a lifetime, but a lifetime is not enough for music" - Sergei Rachmaninoff

Symphonic Addict

The more I listen to his chamber works, the more my admiration grows. Now the turn is for the Piano Trio in B-flat major, op. 23. Simply brilliant, memorable, well-crafted, entirely delightful and witty. Any fan of Brahms should hear this work and realize for themselves the quality of this music as it shares a similar mastery. It's truly superb.

Part of the tragedy of the Palestinians is that they have essentially no international support for a good reason: they've no wealth, they've no power, so they've no rights.

Noam Chomsky

Symphonic Addict

I'm sounding like a broken record whenever I hear something by this composer and express my thoughts about it. Sorry, I can't help myself, this man was a solid master and these three piano trios, namely the Op. 50, Gaudeamus and Post tenebras lux prove (once again) his astonishing talent for composing pieces with real expertise and substance. Discovering his chamber music has been, quite probably, my greatest find of this year so far.

Part of the tragedy of the Palestinians is that they have essentially no international support for a good reason: they've no wealth, they've no power, so they've no rights.

Noam Chomsky