Somehow the idea of hearing Gershwin on the harp is more than I think I can handle (though he might be interesting on a quartet of contrabassoons), so I'll leave it to you. But as for my own pick, much as I love the Marenzio, I wish I had changed that to the Shapero Symphony or Meyer Kupferman's Little Symphony. Or for that matter the thrilling "Caressant l'Horizon" by the young Catalan composer Hèctor Parra. Make of that what you will.
I listened to the Shapero Symphony a few weeks ago, but did not connect with it on that first listen.
Today I'll skip over the nominations of Schmitt and Henning, because these aren't "new" works to my ears. Well, I might listen anyways, but not to write a tome about...

From Dancing Divertimentian: Britten's cello sonata

I liked this. I don't have much to say about it, honestly, but I liked it. The list of Britten I like is maybe shorter than it ought to be (Simple Symphony, Grimes, cello suites, piano concerto, Carols) but this will have a spot on the list too, now.
Now it's Mirror Image's turn:

The first movement seems to be an attempt to write a "vivace" movement that's as quiet as possible. Its mood is kind of dithery: emotionally ambiguous, not ready to commit to a mood, which seems to be a common Arnold thread. Another common thread in the Arnold symphonies I've heard (now 1-4 and 9): I just don't get them. The third movement here is called "Giubiloso," which is a lie, because like most of the Arnold I've heard, it's mostly melancholy and bitter about some unspecified hurt. Maybe he was just depressed.
I loved my first listen to the Arnold guitar concerto, and of course the folk dances are a lot of fun. But so far the symphonies have defeated me continuously. The only movement of the Ninth that makes sense to me, the only movement that seems successful, is the finale, a lento lamento that stretches to 23 minutes but somehow doesn't feel as glacial as it is. Although it does feel derivative; essentially, it's the last 4 minutes of Tchaikovsky's Sixth [which gets quoted-ish at 12:30 and again near the end], or the last 4 minutes of the first movement of Shosty's Sixth, stretched out to six times the length. This is not to doubt Arnold's sincerity! He is sincere as hell. But there's not much in the first three movements that impels me to return, compared to the two works cited above, or, say, Bruckner's Ninth. Not sure of my feelings about the re-entry of the percussion and woodwinds at the end of the symphony.

Marenzio. Fear not, Sfz, I also listened to the Deller Consort version. This is almost unbearably gorgeous music - so beautiful. I'm struck by the fragility/vulnerability of the voices at the start of the Deller performance; I'm also struck by how "new" the music sounds. Well, it doesn't sound like it was written yesterday, but in places (and in the Deller version moreso) it sure doesn't sound 425 years old.
I really, really need to learn more about this kind of music, being essentially 100% clueless on it.

The main thing that this journey through the "One work that you'd like fellow GMGers to discover" thread has taught me is just how crazy-diverse our tastes are. There's a GMGer interested in everything. Schoeck's Elegie is a Mahlerian song cycle, but with a tiny chamber ensemble of what sounds like a dozen players, instead of an orchestra. The longest song is 4 minutes long; many are 60-70 seconds. There's a lot of variety and I love the lullaby-ish ending. As so often with these two days of listening, the piece has been well outside my comfort zone but rewarding, or at least diverting. Guess I need to keep exploring!
(Schoeck is a good composer; I've admired some of his chamber music for a few years.)
Ken B's nominee:

Now, this is a genre of music that I know diddly squat about. Nada. Zip. So my impressions are spectacularly ill-informed things like (a) it's pretty, (b) it feels kinda long, (c) damn, it takes these guys a LONG time to finish saying the word "Kyrie"!
Bizarre to think about the huge timespan between Machaut and Marenzio. It's roughly the same as the timespan between us and Beethoven's First Symphony.
The last adventure for this week, cuz I'm gonna need to close my listening on some kind of Old Favorite after all these ear workouts:

Hovhaness's Symphony No. 50 "Mount St. Helens"
Best to think of this as a set of symphonic poems, maybe, atmosphere pieces rather than examples of tight development. The music is consistently old-fashionedly tonal, "attractive" (ugh. does that word mean anything?), and intermittently even catchy. The volcano interruption is depicted mostly by timpani, timpani, brass fanfares, and also timpani. It's fun! A goofy low-calorie dessert symphony before the weekend arrives.
Still, before the weekend proper, I think I need a right proper symphony - something bracing, icy-cold, stripped down to the bare bones of strict classical form. Something ferocious but tautly controlled, catchy but uncompromising. Something that
I might nominate for the title of "One work that you'd like fellow GMGers to discover", if I had to choose.
Something like J.W. Kalliwoda's Fifth Symphony. See y'all later
