EJ Moeran

[vandermolen]

I believe that only once have I found a review inside a CD (once in an opera set); I have, however, several times found carefully clipped articles/reviews inside of LPs or sometimes books.  Sadly sweet, but I enjoy reading them.  And, yes, like you, believe that someone really cared about the music and their collection.

I'm also a book lover too, so you gents aren't alone there!    And no skips!  Tell her to contact a reputable bookseller as some of them could be rare/oop/first editions, etc.!  If nothing else (and certainly not to belittle this point), hopefully someone else would appreciate running across them at a used bookstore and would happily pay for them and take them home!

TD,

Listened to Moeran's Serenade yesterday:  enjoyed sections of it, but on first listen (to be truthful) it didn't particularly excite/move me.    Have some other music of his to check out soon too.

PD

OT

At the school where I worked full-time for 28 years, the Deputy Head came up to my office one day and announced 'The Headmistress has told me to tell you that you must declutter your office' (it contained hundreds of old history books, maps, photos, a large collection of already obsolete VHS videos, magazines charts and a papier maché owl presented to me by one of the pupils). He did, however go on to say (and I'm not making this up) that 'the school is prepared to give you any assistance ...such as by hiring a skip.' I had this wonderful vision of prospective parents visting the school (an imposing building above the cliffs) to be greeted by one of those long building-site yellow tubes with all my old history books etc flying down (my office was high up) into the skip!

[Irons]

I'm the odd one out here. I have grown to like the Serenade through the JoAnne Falleta recording on Naxos. Instead of the six movements of the Hickox recording, Falleta has eight of the original 1948 version. I find the Elizabethan feel, which reminds me of RVW, and the lightness of touch attractive.

[vandermolen]

I'm the odd one out here. I have grown to like the Serenade through the JoAnne Falleta recording on Naxos. Instead of the six movements of the Hickox recording, Falleta has eight of the original 1948 version. I find the Elizabethan feel, which reminds me of RVW, and the lightness of touch attractive.

I enjoy the Serenade Lol but just not as much as some of the other works. I recently acquired a historic Barbirolli version as well. Rather annoyingly it features seven of the eight movements - I prefer the work complete:

[Pohjolas Daughter]

OT

At the school where I worked full-time for 28 years, the Deputy Head came up to my office one day and announced 'The Headmistress has told me to tell you that you must declutter your office' (it contained hundreds of old history books, maps, photos, a large collection of already obsolete VHS videos, magazines charts and a papier maché owl presented to me by one of the pupils). He did, however go on to say (and I'm not making this up) that 'the school is prepared to give you any assistance ...such as by hiring a skip.' I had this wonderful vision of prospective parents visting the school (an imposing building above the cliffs) to be greeted by one of those long building-site yellow tubes with all my old history books etc flying down (my office was high up) into the skip!

Oh, no! lol  So what happened in the end?  Did you move 98% of the stuff home?  Or retired?  Must admit, I have some old VHS's myself.  With the exception of some family recorded things, I should just get rid of them.  Not even certain whether or not I would be able to watch any of them anymore unless I bought some sort of a stand table and an extra long cord to be able to hook it up to my stereo.  At least they're boxed up.  Are any of your VHS's worth paying someone to transfer them to DVD's Jeffrey?

I'm the odd one out here. I have grown to like the Serenade through the JoAnne Falleta recording on Naxos. Instead of the six movements of the Hickox recording, Falleta has eight of the original 1948 version. I find the Elizabethan feel, which reminds me of RVW, and the lightness of touch attractive.

I was able to get ahold of a copy of that CD and will give it a shot the next time that I want to listen to the Serenade.  I was going to put on his Sinfonietta just now, but can't figure out where I put the liner notes to it!    Will keep looking for it--whilst tidying up. 

PD

[foxandpeng]

I should just get rid of them. 
PD

I don't understand that sentence on any level. We are in process of looking to move house because neither of us is able to hire a skip, a long yellow tube, or an army of helpers to remove seemingly pointless objects.

[HotFXMan]

Desert Island Moeran:

1 Second Rhapsody for Orchestra
2 Diaphenia
3 In the Mountain Country*
4 The Little Milkmaid
5 Stalham River
6 Air from Serenade in G
7 Parson and Clerk
8 Cello Concerto (2nd movement) coupled with Prelude for Cello & Piano - cheating, I know, but I can't have one without the other!!!
(* selection if I'm only allowed one!)

However, my selection tomorrow could well be different!

Book: mine (obviously!), but if I'm not allowed that, then Lionel Hill's 'Lonely Waters' (although I've read it numerous times, it still tugs the heartstrings).

[Roasted Swan]

I'm the odd one out here. I have grown to like the Serenade through the JoAnne Falleta recording on Naxos. Instead of the six movements of the Hickox recording, Falleta has eight of the original 1948 version. I find the Elizabethan feel, which reminds me of RVW, and the lightness of touch attractive.

Don't get me wrong I do like the Serenade - just not as much as others works by Moeran.  The 6 movements are what was published - quite why Moeran held back the other 2 movements I don't know.  Handley in Ulster recorded the 8 movement suite too and that disc includes the only commercial recording of the Nocturne,  The Faletta recording is very good indeed and for me the version of the Cello Concerto is the best there is.  I understand the emotional pull of Coetmore's version with Boult but personally the technical issues are rather present........

[Irons]

Desert Island Moeran:

1 Second Rhapsody for Orchestra
2 Diaphenia
3 In the Mountain Country*
4 The Little Milkmaid
5 Stalham River
6 Air from Serenade in G
7 Parson and Clerk
8 Cello Concerto (2nd movement) coupled with Prelude for Cello & Piano - cheating, I know, but I can't have one without the other!!!
(* selection if I'm only allowed one!)

However, my selection tomorrow could well be different!

Book: mine (obviously!), but if I'm not allowed that, then Lionel Hill's 'Lonely Waters' (although I've read it numerous times, it still tugs the heartstrings).

Sad I know, but I have printed your list off.

So many questions I would love to ask, but the reply would rightly be - read my book!

[vandermolen]

Oh, no! lol  So what happened in the end?  Did you move 98% of the stuff home?  Or retired?  Must admit, I have some old VHS's myself.  With the exception of some family recorded things, I should just get rid of them.  Not even certain whether or not I would be able to watch any of them anymore unless I bought some sort of a stand table and an extra long cord to be able to hook it up to my stereo.  At least they're boxed up.  Are any of your VHS's worth paying someone to transfer them to DVD's Jeffrey?
I was able to get ahold of a copy of that CD and will give it a shot the next time that I want to listen to the Serenade.  I was going to put on his Sinfonietta just now, but can't figure out where I put the liner notes to it!    Will keep looking for it--whilst tidying up. 

PD

OT - The VHS collection has all gone, apart from one or two of my daughter in school shows as a young girl. The school never had to get a skip in the end but I did make a token clear-up (as I do at home when I'm told that my CDs are 'ALL OVER THE PLACE').

[Pohjolas Daughter]

Found the missing liner notes and case, and, of course, I had put them in a very logical place (with the other material borrowed from the library).  I swear, that I had looked through that stack too!  Aie! 

Off to listen to his Sinfonietta now.

PD

p.s.  Irons, like you, I printed off (scap really) of Dr. Maxwell's list! 

[vandermolen]

Desert Island Moeran:

1 Second Rhapsody for Orchestra
2 Diaphenia
3 In the Mountain Country*
4 The Little Milkmaid
5 Stalham River
6 Air from Serenade in G
7 Parson and Clerk
8 Cello Concerto (2nd movement) coupled with Prelude for Cello & Piano - cheating, I know, but I can't have one without the other!!!
(* selection if I'm only allowed one!)

However, my selection tomorrow could well be different!

Book: mine (obviously!), but if I'm not allowed that, then Lionel Hill's 'Lonely Waters' (although I've read it numerous times, it still tugs the heartstrings).

Hmm let me see - I don't know all your choices:

Symphony in G Minor (Dilkes or Heward)
Cello Concerto (Boult/Coetmore)
In the Mountain Country
Sinfonietta (Boult/Lyrita)
Cello Sonata
Overture for a Masque
Violin Concerto (I enjoy all the recordings)
Rhapsody No.2

Book: Moeran Man and Music by HotFXMan 

[HotFXMan]

Rats!! I forgot the Overture for a Masque. But I can't slot it in because I'd have to lose one of my 8 ...

[foxandpeng]

Desert Island Moeran:

1 Second Rhapsody for Orchestra
2 Diaphenia
3 In the Mountain Country*
4 The Little Milkmaid
5 Stalham River
6 Air from Serenade in G
7 Parson and Clerk
8 Cello Concerto (2nd movement) coupled with Prelude for Cello & Piano - cheating, I know, but I can't have one without the other!!!
(* selection if I'm only allowed one!)

However, my selection tomorrow could well be different!

Book: mine (obviously!), but if I'm not allowed that, then Lionel Hill's 'Lonely Waters' (although I've read it numerous times, it still tugs the heartstrings).

OK. I'll play, in no order.

1. Summer Valley (acknowledging RVW's superior take)
2. A Dream of Death
3. Symphony in G minor
4. Cello Concerto
5. Fantasy Quartet
6. In the Mountain Country
7. VC
8. Lonely Waters

Book: Apparently, there is a new one out by some chap called Maxwell...

[Pohjolas Daughter]

Question for you folks:  So, when did Moeran start on his Sinfonietta?  In the liner notes to the EMI recording with Hickox that I've been listening to, it says that he finished it in 1944 and it was first performed by the BBC SO under Barbirolli on 7 March the following year.  Listening to it, overall it struck me that it was rather ebullient.  I did enjoy it quite it bit more than his Serenade (which I thought was pleasant).  The reason why I'm asking is because it was at least finished during WWII, I would have thought that it would have been maybe much more somber and/or defiant in nature?

Would love to hear your thoughts.

PD

[HotFXMan]

Question for you folks:  So, when did Moeran start on his Sinfonietta?  In the liner notes to the EMI recording with Hickox that I've been listening to, it says that he finished it in 1944 and it was first performed by the BBC SO under Barbirolli on 7 March the following year.  Listening to it, overall it struck me that it was rather ebullient.  I did enjoy it quite it bit more than his Serenade (which I thought was pleasant).  The reason why I'm asking is because it was at least finished during WWII, I would have thought that it would have been maybe much more somber and/or defiant in nature?

Would love to hear your thoughts.

PD

The first work on the Sinfonietta was done in the summer/early autumn of 1942 at the behest of Arthur Bliss, who had asked Moeran for a work for a Mozart-size orchestra. However, work was abandoned due to other commitments and not resumed until early 1944. Moeran had promised the Sinfonietta for the 1944 Proms but he was stuck in Ireland between March and late-June and he had not taken the manuscript with him. On returning to England, he worked on it again, apparently completing it in late September. However, he was not happy with the scoring, and he re-wrote large sections between January and March 1945.

There is no evidence that Moeran was at all influenced by the war in his approach to composition. Some critics claimed an 'optimistic and victory-heralding' character for the Rhapsody for piano and orchestra, but Moeran's own words suggest that he was not particularly concerned about the outcome of the war. Perhaps he just assumed that the allies would be victorious.

[Roasted Swan]

Question for you folks:  So, when did Moeran start on his Sinfonietta?  In the liner notes to the EMI recording with Hickox that I've been listening to, it says that he finished it in 1944 and it was first performed by the BBC SO under Barbirolli on 7 March the following year.  Listening to it, overall it struck me that it was rather ebullient.  I did enjoy it quite it bit more than his Serenade (which I thought was pleasant).  The reason why I'm asking is because it was at least finished during WWII, I would have thought that it would have been maybe much more somber and/or defiant in nature?

Would love to hear your thoughts.

PD

Shockingly I'm too lazy to walk up two flights of stairs to where I have Dr Maxwell's new book to coroborate Self's statement that the Sinfonietta was wholly written in 1944.  I don't find it inconceivable that a work written in Wartime MUST reflect that era.  Take Bax for example - except for one brief reference to WW1 in the Symphonic Variations NONE of his music written 1914-18 seems to be influenced by that War at all (something I have found slightly odd but true)

An edit - Strauss' Alpine Symphony is another wartime work with no seeming influence.......

[Mirror Image]

I wonder if HotFXMan actually listens to other composers' music besides Moeran?

[Pohjolas Daughter]

The first work on the Sinfonietta was done in the summer/early autumn of 1942 at the behest of Arthur Bliss, who had asked Moeran for a work for a Mozart-size orchestra. However, work was abandoned due to other commitments and not resumed until early 1944. Moeran had promised the Sinfonietta for the 1944 Proms but he was stuck in Ireland between March and late-June and he had not taken the manuscript with him. On returning to England, he worked on it again, apparently completing it in late September. However, he was not happy with the scoring, and he re-wrote large sections between January and March 1945.

There is no evidence that Moeran was at all influenced by the war in his approach to composition. Some critics claimed an 'optimistic and victory-heralding' character for the Rhapsody for piano and orchestra, but Moeran's own words suggest that he was not particularly concerned about the outcome of the war. Perhaps he just assumed that the allies would be victorious.

Thank you for the information.  Yes, it would have been interesting to have known what he was thinking/feeling when he composed it.  Did he ever keep any diaries?  And any idea what Bliss thought of it?

Shockingly I'm too lazy to walk up two flights of stairs to where I have Dr Maxwell's new book to coroborate Self's statement that the Sinfonietta was wholly written in 1944.  I don't find it inconceivable that a work written in Wartime MUST reflect that era.  Take Bax for example - except for one brief reference to WW1 in the Symphonic Variations NONE of his music written 1914-18 seems to be influenced by that War at all (something I have found slightly odd but true)

An edit - Strauss' Alpine Symphony is another wartime work with no seeming influence.......

And, no he (nor any composer) was/were/are required to only write works reflecting wartimes.  It had just struck me as being unbelievably cheery considering the times--perhaps he was thinking of happier times and/or believing that they would soon return to them?  Or??? Who knows! Just ever the curious one here. 

PD

[vandermolen]

The first work on the Sinfonietta was done in the summer/early autumn of 1942 at the behest of Arthur Bliss, who had asked Moeran for a work for a Mozart-size orchestra. However, work was abandoned due to other commitments and not resumed until early 1944. Moeran had promised the Sinfonietta for the 1944 Proms but he was stuck in Ireland between March and late-June and he had not taken the manuscript with him. On returning to England, he worked on it again, apparently completing it in late September. However, he was not happy with the scoring, and he re-wrote large sections between January and March 1945.

There is no evidence that Moeran was at all influenced by the war in his approach to composition. Some critics claimed an 'optimistic and victory-heralding' character for the Rhapsody for piano and orchestra, but Moeran's own words suggest that he was not particularly concerned about the outcome of the war. Perhaps he just assumed that the allies would be victorious.

I find it difficult to believe that Moeran was 'not particularly concerned about the outcome of the war'. That implies that he'd have been happy or at least indifferent if the Nazis won. In view of his service in World War One and his composition of 'Overture for a Masque' as a patriotic morale booster for ENSA, not to mention a 'Fanfare for the Red Army' ('...I am going to make it really snappy and exciting for the troops to listen to' - cable to Peers, 5th January 1944, quoted in Self's book) I find this most unlikely.
Self also states that 'Moeran's experience in the previous war had been horrific; yet there is no evidence that these experiences had soured his patriotism' (p. 158).

[Pohjolas Daughter]

The first work on the Sinfonietta was done in the summer/early autumn of 1942 at the behest of Arthur Bliss, who had asked Moeran for a work for a Mozart-size orchestra. However, work was abandoned due to other commitments and not resumed until early 1944. Moeran had promised the Sinfonietta for the 1944 Proms but he was stuck in Ireland between March and late-June and he had not taken the manuscript with him. On returning to England, he worked on it again, apparently completing it in late September. However, he was not happy with the scoring, and he re-wrote large sections between January and March 1945.

There is no evidence that Moeran was at all influenced by the war in his approach to composition. Some critics claimed an 'optimistic and victory-heralding' character for the Rhapsody for piano and orchestra, but Moeran's own words suggest that he was not particularly concerned about the outcome of the war. Perhaps he just assumed that the allies would be victorious.

May I ask (and I'm sure that Jeffrey and others here would also be interested too), what were Moeran's own words that as you said "suggest that he was not particularly concerned about the outcome of the war"?

PD