Havergal Brian.

[J.Z. Herrenberg]

Ha! I know how you feel.

[cilgwyn]

Nothing wrong with being eccentric! Although,I don't recall Bax being referred to as eccentric even though his lifestyle was certainly more eccentric than Brian's! Holbrooke,now he was eccentric! If you'd bumped into him accidentally you'd have probably been desperately hoping you wouldn't bump into him again! If you'd met Brian you probably would have thought of him as a down to earth sort of bloke with a dry northern sense of humour. If you showed an interest in literature and music he probably would have been pleased to talk to you about it;but you wouldn't have thought there was anything particularly eccentric about him. Although,I gather he wasn't such good company in his younger days, when he was on the bottle! Is that true? (Someone needs to write a really good biography).

[Sergeant Rock]

I'm still waiting to hear the new Dutton, I think they tied my CD to a fish near Tilbury, hoping it would swim to Australia.

It took my copy ten days to cross the channel. You, in Australia, may be looking at a Christmas present 

Sarge

[cilgwyn]

Lucky you calyptorhyncus,you'll be opening it under the Xmas tree!

[cilgwyn]

And then there was Lord Berners who was famously eccentric. Although maybe "willfully eccentric" would be a better way of describing him. I like his The Triumph of Neptune ballet and play it occasionally. As to Brian I don't really object to him being called eccentric and I suppose it's true to say that the average man (or woman) in the street doesn't compose a colossal record breaking symphony for hundreds of performers,let alone a further thirty one and an opera with walk on parts for elephants. More's the pity I say!!

[cilgwyn]

Elephant! Only one,fair play!!

[J.Z. Herrenberg]

Brian, in my opinion, was only eccentric in the literal sense. He was a very level-headed visionary.

[cilgwyn]

Quite! Which reminds me of this line from my old Penguin Guide to Compact Discs (and cassettes),"Was Havergal Brian,composer of 32 symphonies.20 of them written after he was eighty,a genius or just an obsessed megalomaniac"!

[cilgwyn]

 

[J.Z. Herrenberg]

Just a genius, and driven, not obsessed: he knew when to quit composing. (John Whitmore will add: But far too late.)

[cilgwyn]

They write some daft things! Follow that line of thought and Maher and Wagner are both megalomaniacs,too!
Now Hitler? He was a megalomaniac and a tad on the obsessive side. I don't remember Brian invading Poland. Although I rather hope he does! He is getting around a bit now!!

By the way,someone over at the AMF is wondering who the conductor of the Gothic is going to be?!

[J.Z. Herrenberg]

http://staatstheater-braunschweig.de/nc/staatsorchester/produktion/details/9-sinfoniekonzert/

"Musikalische Leitung: N.N." - ergo: conductor unknown...

[Augustus]

Searching around for more details, I see some websites, eg:
http://www.braunschweig.de/kultur/veranstaltungen/index.html?&text=Sinfoniekonzert
give the conductor as Peter Halasz, who seems to be the Music Director of Hungarian State Opera.

But I can't find any reference to soloists.  I wonder if these could be drawn from the Braunschweig Stadtstheater opera company?

[Karl Henning]

Quite! Which reminds me of this line from my old Penguin Guide to Compact Discs (and cassettes),"Was Havergal Brian,composer of 32 symphonies.20 of them written after he was eighty,a genius or just an obsessed megalomaniac"!

Objection, your honor: hostile witness.

[Sergeant Rock]

Quite! Which reminds me of this line from my old Penguin Guide to Compact Discs (and cassettes),"Was Havergal Brian,composer of 32 symphonies.20 of them written after he was eighty,a genius or just an obsessed megalomaniac"!

Silly thing to say. Penguin would never write: Was Franz Schubert, composer of over 600 songs by the time he was 31, a genius or just an obsessed megalomaniac?

Sarge

[Karl Henning]

Exactly:  an artist doing his work, megalomaniacal obsession, tchah!

[J.Z. Herrenberg]

Implicit in that Penguin quote is that when the creative flame still burns in old age you're not normal. You should start forgetting things, and fade away, drooling.

[J.Z. Herrenberg]

Oh, and thank you, Augustus, for your Sherlockian exertions. We'll wait and see.

[pjme]

The Gothic in Braunschweig in May 2015!? This is very tempting! Antwerp - Braunschweig: that's only ca 450 km....I may go there!

I listened to both the 6th and the 16th this afternoon:



Peter

[J.Z. Herrenberg]

From Amsterdam it's a four and a half hours' drive, so - doable. If you go, order your ticket asap, prices range from €14 to €34! More than half the tickets were already sold yesterday.