Personal Discoveries Thanks to The Forum

[schweitzeralan]

BTW, isn't the thread name a misnomer? If we owe a discovery to someone else, it ain't personal, no?

Who started this thread? I thought I did; but apparently, somehow it was begun in 2007?  Curious.
The query, or queries are identical.  I never noticed anything related to "Personal Discoveries . . ." in 2007. Just wondering. Also I want to add that Vandermolen's posting of several works of Gliere prompted me to acquire "Sirens;" I made a posting of my reaction after initial listening.  Just wanted to emphasize its beauty, a brief work which was conceived apparently the same time as "Ilya Muromets."  Quite sensual and rich in harmony and color. Hope to learn more from the forum.

[vandermolen]

I am currently listening to a symphony that I would probably never have come across without a recommendation herein (Claudio Santoro Symphony No 4 on BIS - recommended by Christo). It's a great, life-affirming work - with a choral finale which seems to work much better than the one at the end of the Portugalsom recording of Braga Santos's 4th Symphony (do listen to the purely orchestral recording on Marco Polo - it's a wonderful score). Also I have been listening to the lovely Symphony No 2 'Nottingham' by Alan Bush (thanks to Harry's recommendation).

[Lilas Pastia]

Moderators love to tend the garden so everything is in its proper place  .  It also helps rekindle memories of discussions past. We do tend to go in circles sometimes !

A personal 'non personal' discovery: a bounty of norwegian composers' symphonies, which I'm wallowing in these days. Thanks to the extraordinarily generous poster who made me discover them .

[mahler10th]

Ok - here are my recommendations. Symphony No 27, Miaskovsky's last symphony a beautiful, valedictory and yet life-affirming work. He was gravely ill with cancer (refusing an operation so he could complete his final symphony) he was also under the displeasure of the regime, having his music condemned, along with that of Shostakovich etc, in 1948. Miaskovsky's creative answer to this great injustice was his Symphony No 27 - maybe you know it already. There is a nice Naxos CD with symphonies 24 and 25 - both excellent. I also like Symphony No 16 - it has a wonderful slow movement - the work was inspired by the Maxim Gorky air disaster. Symphony No 6 is long and sprawling but contains perhaps his greatest music (trio section of scherzo and choral finale). The DGG version is very good. I like Symphony No 3, which shows the influence (a bit) of Cesar Frank. Symphony No 11 and 12 are both worth exploring - even though No 12 pays tribute to a collective farm! No 23 is the most tuneful and easily approachable (based on Caucasian folk melodies which Miaskovsky came across during his warime evacuation). His Cello Concerto is his best known work along with Symphony No 21. I strongly recommend his Cello Sonata No 2 (there is a good Regis CD with both the Cello Concerto and Cello Sonatas on.) I think that Symphony No 17 is one of his greatest works too. Hope this helps - I have rambled on a bit! In some ways his work can at times seem rather academic but, beneath the surface, I feel that there is often great depth of feeling - all the more moving for being rather understated. Of his shorter works the Lyric Concertino is especially good and I love the slow movement.
I hope that you discover some more music by Miaskovsky which you like.

Just a quick input after all these years, I am listening to end to end Maiskovsky - the Svetlanov set. 

In some ways his work can at times seem rather academic...

Maybe, but he creates fantastically interesting soundworlds, there is not much trace of what might be expected to be a 'typically Russian' sound in it.  And it is easy to like this composers works.  I still have the disc you sent some years ago too, with the cover notes which you - (vandermolen) Jeffrey - wrote.  I have always been chuffed with that!   

[amw]

Every self-respecting Russian composer should have a beard. I attribute Shostakovich's personal insecurities and shifting fortunes with the Soviet musical authorities entirely to his clean-shavenness. And while Stravinsky's achievements might seem impressive, imagine what he might have accomplished had he had a beard! The world will, sadly, never know.

My personal recommendation list might differ somewhat from vandermolen's, I've noted down the following—

Symphonies 2, 3, 5, 6, 8, 10, 11, 13
Cello Sonatas 1 & 2
Violin Concerto
Cello Concerto
String Quartets 3, 4, 5, 7, 9, 11 (my Russian Disc set of all 13 just arrived!!! excited!)
Piano Sonatas 1, 2, 3, 4

since I seem to have somewhat of a preference for the works in which Myaskovsky engaged in what an unsympathetic listener might call note-spinning, overwrought chromaticism and meandering development and I might call "like Skryabin, except good". A lot of the more "conservative" works he turned to writing starting approximately with the Symphony No. 14, around the start of the Great Terror, are somehow less... Myaskovskian for me. (There are some of the late symphonies I haven't listened to in a very long time though, 17, 20, 24, 25, 26 among them.) The concertos are essential listening, though, and easier to find as well.

[Octave]

String Quartets 3, 4, 5, 7, 9, 11 (my Russian Disc set of all 13 just arrived!!! excited!)

Just in case I am missing something: you mean all five single discs in this series?  If there was a thrifty collection of all of them, boxed or otherwise, I would not want to miss that...
This is another inevitable purchase for me, though I have been balking at the expense.

I owe the forum for mounds and mounds of discoveries.  Really too many to mention.

[amw]

Just in case I am missing something: you mean all five six single discs in this series?

Yes, there's no box set I'm aware of (unless NFlowers has issued one). I think the Northern Flowers discs are the same performances as the Russian Disc ones, just in a different transfer and with the quartets distributed differently across the CDs, but I'm not 100% sure; in the (very small) Myaskovsky fan network people seem to recommend Russian Disc over Northern Flowers almost every time for whatever reason. Don't know if it's sound quality or just obscurity.

[Holden]

This is a thread that for some reason I never saw when it was started in 2007. Having been a Gramophone subscriber and also bought other classical music magazines, used the Penguin Guide, I came to the conclusion that the best advice on a recording came from sites like this one. Once I had found like minded posters (and there are many of you on this site) if I wanted to look at a new work all I had to do was ask by posting. At the same time I read similar posts by other members and discovered new works and new artists. So this is the fount of all knowledge As far as I am concerned.

As for works/performances I've discovered - far too many to mention though some stand out for me.

Pollini's late Beethoven

Babayans's Scarlatti

Shostakovich Symphonies

Morten Lauridsen

Arrau's live Chopin Preludes

Sergio Fiorentino

BAT Schubert Piano Trios

ABM's Ravel PC in G

Kemal Gekic

Ivan Davis' Gottschalk

HvK's Verdi Requiem at La Scala Milan with Price/Cossotto/Pavarotti/Ghiaurov

[Karl Henning]

Stockhausen.

(Oh, I kid, I kid.)

[Sean]

Nice thread. One of the main reasons for coming to GMG is recommendations, so there have been heaps of discoveries for me.

[TheGSMoeller]

Langgaard, Schnittke, Penderecki.

Also add chamber works of Faure, Brahms and Dvorak who I recently only spent time with their orchestral and choral works.

Also must add Henning, it's very cool to have someone completely share their compositional process with us.

[Cato]

Kalliwoda the Bohemian composer from the first half of the 1800's!

We had a "Guess the Composer" contest a few years ago which used (I believe) a part of one of his many overtures, and I became intrigued and increasingly delighted.

Unfortunately...not many recordings out there!

[vandermolen]

Langgaard, Schnittke, Penderecki.



Also must add Henning, it's very cool to have someone completely share their compositional process with us.

That has been a plus for me too.

[Lisztianwagner]

About discovering new composers, I have been very thankful to this forum.

Some of them:

Carl Nielsen
Bohuslav Martinu
Erkki Melartin
Kurt Atterberg
Granville Bantock
Alexander Glazunov
Leos Janacek
Mieczyslaw Karlowicz
Karol Szymanowski
Alfred Schnittke
Alban Berg
Ottorino Respighi
Benjamin Britten

[kyjo]

I like this thread! If I make any "discoveries" here, most of them will be re-discoveries, as my obsessive-compulsive CD collecting of unsung music has led to me collect a great deal of 19th and 20th/21st century music, with an emphasis on orchestral music. Some members have (and will) inspire me to revisit works I had previously not had a particularly positive opinion of, which is a great asset of forums like this.

Hopefully I'll see some more of the unsungs I'm passionate about pop up in this thread! I see Ilaria's list has quite a few of them!

[Brian]

Kalliwoda the Bohemian composer from the first half of the 1800's!

We had a "Guess the Composer" contest a few years ago which used (I believe) a part of one of his many overtures, and I became intrigued and increasingly delighted.

Unfortunately...not many recordings out there!

That was me! I think the Overture No. 16, or at any rate, whichever overture shares a CPO CD with the Symphonies 5 and 7.

Since I joined GMG as a teenager the list is far too long to ever dream of getting accurate. Just as an example, my first-ever set of the complete Beethoven piano sonatas was Andrea Lucchesini's, bought after reading Todd's post. And now that it's impossible to find anywhere, boy am I grateful. Otherwise may as well defer to a list from four years ago.

GMG and Naxos/Naxos Music Library have been the two biggest drivers of my classical exploration, with reporting on new or forgotten music for the pages of MusicWeb coming in third.

[Cato]

On  discovering Kalliwoda:

That was me! I think the Overture No. 16, or at any rate, whichever overture shares a CPO CD with the Symphonies 5 and 7.

Yes, maybe we should start a campaign to swamp CPO with pro-Kalliwoda agitprop!   

That has been a plus for me too. ( i.e. Karl Henning's music)

Yes, Karl's works have helped to remove my previously sniffy attitude toward chamber works as not worth my time!   

Not to be forgotten, although he now visits rarely, the works of GMG member Luke Ottevanger.

I have mentioned this composer many moons ago: in the 1960's I heard radio concerts with his works now and then.

Gene Gutche'   (born in Germany as (says Wikipedia) Romeo Gutsche     )

See:

http://www.amazon.com/American-Masters-Gene-Gutche/dp/B00004RJPV/ref=sr_1_sc_2?s=music&ie=UTF8&qid=1383252412&sr=1-2-spell&keywords=genegutche

And a fairly new CD with piano music:

[asin]B005RYGSSC[/asin]