Florestan´s Romantic Salon

Started by Florestan, May 05, 2016, 02:30:40 AM

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Cato

Going through my library, I came across a book, which I used while teaching European History, by Adam Zamoyski.

To my dismay I saw that the book is 20+ years old now!   ???   ;)   How did that happen?!


Holy Madness





An excellent overview of the entire era!
"Meet Miss Ruth Sherwood, from Columbus, Ohio, the Middle of the Universe!"

- Brian Aherne introducing Rosalind Russell in  My Sister Eileen (1942)

Mandryka

I thought I'd sneak in this evil place of decadence quickly, before anyone notices, to say that I'm horrified to find myself enjoying this. It is the start of a slippery slope which ends in  . . . . Hummel and Liszt  :o  ??? >:( : :blank: :blank: :blank:

Wovon man nicht sprechen kann, darüber muss man schweigen

vers la flamme

Since I'm listening to Richard Wetz's 3rd symphony and seem to have gotten myself into an exploratory mood—anyone care to recommend me a forgotten, obscure composer of the Romantic or Late Romantic whose music is worth exploring?

I have heard good things about Hans Rott. 

Mapman

Is Charles Villiers Stanford obscure enough for you? I listened to (and posted about) his 6th symphony the other day. The 3rd is also fun (lots of Irish folk tunes).

vers la flamme

Quote from: Mapman on September 15, 2022, 05:02:26 PM
Is Charles Villiers Stanford obscure enough for you? I listened to (and posted about) his 6th symphony the other day. The 3rd is also fun (lots of Irish folk tunes).

Yeah  :laugh: I've heard one thing of his, Songs of the Fleet. I liked it. Never heard any of his symphonies.

JBS

Quote from: vers la flamme on September 15, 2022, 04:45:04 PM
Since I'm listening to Richard Wetz's 3rd symphony and seem to have gotten myself into an exploratory mood—anyone care to recommend me a forgotten, obscure composer of the Romantic or Late Romantic whose music is worth exploring?

I have heard good things about Hans Rott.

Röntgen (a whole series on CPO) might fit your bill.
Have you ever listened to Gade?

Hollywood Beach Broadwalk

vers la flamme

Quote from: JBS on September 15, 2022, 06:39:32 PM
Röntgen (a whole series on CPO) might fit your bill.
Have you ever listened to Gade?

I have listened to a little bit of Gade, and I liked what I heard. Thanks for the reminder!

Röntgen, I have not heard anything of his, but I have seen the name (I suppose someone around here must have been listening to him at some point). Is there any particular entry in the CPO series that you find to be a particular standout?

Mapman

Another composer who may interest you is the Dutch composer Johan Wagenaar. I particularly like his overture De Getemde Feeks, and his Sinfonietta. (There are 2 somewhat recent discs on CPO, as well as an older Decca recording with Chailly/Concertgebouw.)

JBS

Quote from: vers la flamme on September 15, 2022, 06:47:01 PM
I have listened to a little bit of Gade, and I liked what I heard. Thanks for the reminder!

Röntgen, I have not heard anything of his, but I have seen the name (I suppose someone around here must have been listening to him at some point). Is there any particular entry in the CPO series that you find to be a particular standout?

Not one in particular. (But I liked them enough to get them all.)

The Raff recordings on Tudor are all good, too, if you've never heard them.

Hollywood Beach Broadwalk

Jo498

Some of the 70s/80s Raff symphonies on Tudor are quite mediocre, the more recent Stadlmair/Bamberg are much better (both playing and sound), so I would try these first. (The older ones do have some fillers not available elswhere.) #5 "Lenore" and #3 "In the forest"? are the ones I remember as more interesting than e.g. the "seasons".

We had a brief discussion on the Rott symphony in "New music thread". It was a major "discovery" 30-35 years ago but it has been a bit overhyped in the last time.

In general I hold the by now strangely unpopular opinion that most music/composers are not strongly over/underrated. Raff is not an unfairly overlooked great composer. He is a decent composer that deserves some interest but I think it is comparably easy to see and not unjustified why he was relegated to the 2nd or 3rd division fairly quickly after his death.
Tout le malheur des hommes vient d'une seule chose, qui est de ne savoir pas demeurer en repos, dans une chambre.
- Blaise Pascal

Florestan

If you want serious and substantial works I concur with Jo: you won't find much music of real interest outside the big names, which are big for a reason --- but if you are into, or would like to try, something lighter and more unpretentious you can start by checking the Hyperion Romantic Piano Concertos series, there are lots of works there which aspire to nothing more than to entertain and delight. For chamber music in the same vein, try Eduard Franck, Theodore Gouvy and the Scharwenka brothers, For piano music, the same brothers, Moritz Moszkowski and Cecile Chaminade.
Every kind of music is good, except the boring kind. — Rossini

MusicTurner

#191
Quote from: vers la flamme on September 15, 2022, 04:45:04 PM
Since I'm listening to Richard Wetz's 3rd symphony and seem to have gotten myself into an exploratory mood—anyone care to recommend me a forgotten, obscure composer of the Romantic or Late Romantic whose music is worth exploring?

I have heard good things about Hans Rott.

Some suggestions:
- Paul von Klenau, the most varied CD is the one with the 5th Symphony, symphonic poems & orchestral song. Late-romantic, attractive music.
- Hans Holewa, Piano Concerto. It's in a later style, almost like Alban Berg, but still quite easy and attractive IMO.
- "Mass for Rossini", the Rilling recording. One of the most uber-impressive, Italian vocal works from that age, by several composers. Includes early versions of a section from Verdi's Requiem.

Jo498

I think the somewhat disproportionate recentish popularity of the Rott symphony is because both Bruckner and Mahler are looming as large in the repertoire as never before and Rott biographically belongs to both.

For very late romanticism, Franz Schmidt has also enjoyed a bit of a renaissance; I don't know his symphonies well (only the 4th used to be somewhat well known) but he has to quite interesting left hand piano concertante pieces (together on a cpo CD) and several good (if sometimes very long) chamber works.

Other favorites of mine often tend to be "odd chamber works", e.g.

August Klughardt: Fantasy pieces "Schilflieder" for oboe, viola piano ("Reed songs" but this does not mainly refer to the oboe but to a collection of poems by Nikolaus Lenau, at least one of these poems was also set was a very atmospheric song by Mendelssohn.

Carl Reinecke: Trios for different combinations, above all the one for oboe, horn, piano
Heinrich von Herzogenberg's trio for the same combination

Walter Rabl: Quartet op.1 for clarinet and piano trio (very Brahmsian, I think the guy mostly turned to teaching afterwards)
Tout le malheur des hommes vient d'une seule chose, qui est de ne savoir pas demeurer en repos, dans une chambre.
- Blaise Pascal

Symphonic Addict

#193
Georg Schumann wrote two remarkable symphonies in B minor and F minor respectively, although the later has more impact.

Fritz Volbach and his Symphony in B minor. The slow movement is particularly great, somewhat Brucknerian IIRC.

The Russian-Swiss Paul Juon with his Symphonies in F sharp minor and A major. Worth investigating as well.

Felix Weingartner's first four symphonies, the others 3 lack more quality and one easily detects that.

Erno Dohnányi is hardly obscure, but his two numbered symphonies and an early Symphony in F major qualify as quite well-written and attractive music.

The Norwegian Alf Hurum and Ludvig Irgens-Jensen have each a symphony that lie on the late-Romantic category, chiefly the Hurum.

Dora Pejacevic's only Symphony in F-sharp minor, which was recently recorded by Chandos (there is another recording on CPO).

And there are more, of course.
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

Florestan

#194
Marcel Proust

In Praise of Bad Music


Detest bad music but do not make light of it. Since it is played, or rather sung, far more frequently, far more passionately than good music, it has gradually and far more thoroughly absorbed human dreams and tears. That should make it venerable for you. Its place, nonexistent in the history of art, is immense in the history of the emotions of societies. Not only is the respect – I am not saying love – for bad music a form of what might be called the charity of good taste, or its skepticism, it is also the awareness of the important social role played by music. How many ditties, though worthless in an artist's eye, are among the confidants chosen by the throng of romantic and amorous adolescents. How many songs like "Gold Ring" or "Ah, slumber, slumber long and deep," whose pages are turned every evening by trembling and justly famous hands, are soaked with tears from the most beautiful eyes in the world: and the purest maestro would envy this melancholy and voluptuous homage of tears, the ingenious and inspired confidants that ennoble sorrow, exalt dreams, and, in exchange for the ardent secret that is confided in them, supply the intoxicating illusion of beauty.

Since the common folk, the middle class, the army, the aristocracy have the same mailmen – bearers of grief that strikes them or happiness the overwhelms them – they have the same invisible messengers of love, the same beloved confessors. These are the bad composers. The same annoying jingle, to which every well-born, well-bred ear instantly refuses to listen, has received the treasure of thousands of souls and guards the secret of thousdands of lives: it has been their living inspiration, their consolation, which is always ready, always half-open on the music stand of the piano – and it has been their dreamy grace and their ideal. Certain arpeggios, certain reentries of motifs have made the souls of more than one lover or dreamer vibrate with the harmonies of paradise or the very voice of the beloved herself. A collection of bad love songs, tattered from overuse, has to touch us like a cemetery or a village. So what if the houses have no style, if the graves are vanishing under tasteless ornaments and inscriptions? Before an imagination sympathetic and respectful enough to conceal momentarily its aesthetic disdain, that dust may release a flock of souls, their breaks holding the still verdant dream that gave them an inkling of the next world and let them rejoice or weep in this world.


I am not aware of any more mordant, sharp, witty and humane critique of the elitism fostered and cultivated by the (mostly German) Romantic musical aesthetic --- and I agree with it 175 %.
Every kind of music is good, except the boring kind. — Rossini

Mapman

I couldn't find a thread for Pejačević, so I'm putting this here:

Live stream alert! The Detroit Symphony Orchestra will have a free live stream includeding Pejačević's Symphony next week. The concert starts February 25th at 8:00 PM EST (February 26th, 01:00 UTC). The concert should also be available to the DSO website afterwards.

This concert (and future streams of most DSO concerts this year) is available here: https://www.dso.org/watch-listen-and-connect/dso-live

(Sorry to Europeans about the time!)

Mandryka

Wovon man nicht sprechen kann, darüber muss man schweigen