Five composers who were better known as conductors/performers.

Started by vandermolen, May 21, 2019, 07:47:48 AM

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vandermolen

Don't think we've done this before. Excluding Mahler. Was inspired by listening to John McCabe's fine Symphony 4 'Of Time and the River' in the car today. Choose any composers, whose music you like, who are/were better known as conductors/performers.

Wilhelm Furtwangler: For Symphony 2
Igor Markevitch: For 'Icarus'
Rafael Kubelik: For 'Orphikon Symphony'
John McCabe: For Hartmann Variations, Chagall Windows, Symphony 4 and the beautiful song cycle 'Notturni Ed Alba'
Leonard Bernstein (not sure if he counts really) 'Jeremiah Symphony'.

Review of the Kubelik work:
https://www.gramophone.co.uk/review/kubel%C3%ADk-conducts-kubel%C3%ADk
"Courage is going from failure to failure without losing enthusiasm" (Churchill).

'The test of a work of art is, in the end, our affection for it, not our ability to explain why it is good' (Stanley Kubrick).

springrite


Wilhelm Furtwangler: I liked all the four orchestral works I have (three symphonies and a piano concerto), and the chamber works less so.
Andre Previn: I like his chamber music better than his orchestral works, but the opera Street Car Named Desire is excellent!
Igor Markevitch: Loved everything I have heard, about 10 CDs worth.
Bruno Walter: I know Felix Weingartner is more famous than Walter as a composer and has more works to his name. Walter may have stopped at a very young age, but the few works I have heard from his are all excellent, including the symphony and the violin sonata.
Esa-Pekka Salonen: Well, one of my favorite living composers.

Honorable mentions:
Victor De Sabata
Sinopoli (Lou Salome!)
Do what I must do, and let what must happen happen.

Daverz

By coinkidink I was just streaming Weingartner's Symphony No. 3 before seeing this thread.  Not earth shattering, but very nice.  I also enjoy his Symphony No. 7, which is a bit more interesting.

Markevitch would seem to be the most important example, but I don't recall hearing any of his music, something I should remedy.

I do like the Furtwãngler Symphony No. 2.  Quite a nice work IMO.

Paul Kletzki wrote some nice works, a Symphony No. 3 on Bis, for example.



Salonen has written quite a few works.  Any good? 

And then there are all those Segerstam symphonies.  I admit I have a problem taking that high a rate of production seriously.

Biffo

Jean Martinon was also a composer. He recorded his Symphony No 4 and Rafael Kubelik recorded his Violin Concerto No 2 with Henryk Szerying.

Cato

Quote from: Biffo on May 22, 2019, 01:10:46 AM
Jean Martinon was also a composer. He recorded his Symphony No 4 and Rafael Kubelik recorded his Violin Concerto No 2 with Henryk Szerying.

First person I thought of, when I saw the topic!  I still recall the album cover with him and Peter Mennin  (I think).

https://www.youtube.com/v/_b16JkbVcRs

"Meet Miss Ruth Sherwood, from Columbus, Ohio, the Middle of the Universe!"

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

Biffo

Quote from: Cato on May 22, 2019, 03:53:35 AM
First person I thought of, when I saw the topic!  I still recall the album cover with him and Peter Mennin  (I think).

https://www.youtube.com/v/_b16JkbVcRs

The album also has Mennin's 7th Symphony - both works played by the Chicago Symphony Orchestra. Over the years I have listened to the Violin Concerto very occasionally but the symphony only once; must revisit both (and the Mennin) again soon.

vandermolen

Thanks for the replies guys. Very interesting. I think I have a Martinon work in a boxed set of him conducting. Must listen to that.
"Courage is going from failure to failure without losing enthusiasm" (Churchill).

'The test of a work of art is, in the end, our affection for it, not our ability to explain why it is good' (Stanley Kubrick).

Sergeant Rock

Otto Klemperer. I have these recordings:

SYMPHONY #1       FRANCIS/STAATSPHIL RP
SYMPHONY #2       FRANCIS/STAATSPHIL RP
SYMPHONY #2       KLEMPERER/NEW PHILH
MERRY WALTZ       FRANCIS/STAATSPHIL RP
MARCIA FUNÉBRE FRANCIS/STAATSPHIL RP
RECOLLECTIONS  FRANCIS/STAATSPHIL RP
SCHERZO              FRANCIS/STAATSPHIL RP
STRING QT No.7   PHILH STRING QT


Sarge
the phone rings and somebody says,
"hey, they made a movie about
Mahler, you ought to go see it.
he was as f*cked-up as you are."
                               --Charles Bukowski, "Mahler"

vandermolen

Kubelik's Symphony 'Orphikon' is one of my favourite works written by a conductor:
"Courage is going from failure to failure without losing enthusiasm" (Churchill).

'The test of a work of art is, in the end, our affection for it, not our ability to explain why it is good' (Stanley Kubrick).

kyjo

Quote from: vandermolen on May 24, 2019, 09:58:23 PM
Kubelik's Symphony 'Orphikon' is one of my favourite works written by a conductor:


Wish I could find this on YouTube or Spotify but can't... :(
"Music is enough for a lifetime, but a lifetime is not enough for music" - Sergei Rachmaninoff

Archaic Torso of Apollo

Well, I can think of a couple of rather large names: Pierre Boulez and Johann Sebastian Bach.

Boulez was certainly one of the major avant-garde composers and theorists, and Bach was, well, Bach. But both could arguably be classed as "musicians' musicians" whose works were appreciated mostly by musical connoisseurs while the broader public appreciated them for other activities (Boulez as conductor, Bach as organist and pedagogue).
formerly VELIMIR (before that, Spitvalve)

"Who knows not strict counterpoint, lives and dies an ignoramus" - CPE Bach

PerfectWagnerite

I think a majority of big name conductors fancy themselves composers as well: Bruno Walter (mentioned), Szell, Klemperer,  Bernstein, Sinopoli, Bruno Maderna. The list goes on and on.