New composers, and discovering them...

Started by Harry, February 25, 2008, 05:11:18 AM

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Harry

I ordered a few cd's on the label Koch, with music, that attracted me greatly, but they are firsts in my collection.
Maybe someone could bring some feedback on them.
And please post your unkown composers here if you like, and so give me and others opportunities to discover also.... :)

Harry

Some more....

bhodges

I have the Tansman CD above, and it's marvelous.  (It was the first example of the composer's work I heard.) 

Haven't heard this particular Haas, but I've been listening a lot to another CD with his Study for String Orchestra, an infectious little piece. 

--Bruce

Harry

Quote from: bhodges on February 25, 2008, 07:10:11 AM
I have the Tansman CD above, and it's marvelous.  (It was the first example of the composer's work I heard.) 

Haven't heard this particular Haas, but I've been listening a lot to another CD with his Study for String Orchestra, an infectious little piece. 

--Bruce

Right!
The Tansman was a sure winner, from the first samples, I have heard of it. Haas will be more difficult but I like his idiom.
Thanks Bruce for your comment. :)

springrite

I take credit for recommending Tansman to you!

Don't know much about the other composers. I have a short Haas work in a compilation that I liked.

My latest discovery was Wellesz. I just have one CD of his symphony and it was marvelous! I know, his music sounded about 50 years too late (late romantic work in the middle of the 20th century), but forget about when it was composed and you won't find fault in it at all.

Harry

#5
Quote from: springrite on February 25, 2008, 07:26:32 AM
I take credit for recommending Tansman to you!

Don't know much about the other composers. I have a short Haas work in a compilation that I liked.

My latest discovery was Wellesz. I just have one CD of his symphony and it was marvelous! I know, his music sounded about 50 years too late (late romantic work in the middle of the 20th century), but forget about when it was composed and you won't find fault in it at all.

Yes Paul, good of you to remind me of that, it was you indeed you that recommended this composer. See, I did not forget this, allthough it was some time ago. :)
And I agree about Wellesz. Have some works of him allready, and find them very much to my liking.
So he is on the list most definitively.

Harry

The Wellesz Symphonies recorded on CPO are on my wishlist.

Harry

This disc I also ordered. I have a few small pieces of this composer, but what I heard of this discs, makes my heart jump.

Harry

And this is another one that I forgot, but is also on its way to me.

springrite

Koechlin is a composer I like a lot! However I do not much like his most famous work, the Seven Star Symphony which, like many of his works, were product of a semi-crazed stalker of a hollywood actress he was infactuated in for many many years.

lukeottevanger

Quote from: bhodges on February 25, 2008, 07:10:11 AM

Haven't heard this particular Haas, but I've been listening a lot to another CD with his Study for String Orchestra, an infectious little piece. 


This Haas CD is superb, it's main attraction being a completion of the symphony he left unfinished at his death (in Auschwitz). The piece is just beautiful, deeply moving, with profound roots in Jewish cantorial melody, but also with some scathing use of quotation. I'm not so sure Haas, Janacek's finest pupil, much recorded and well known as one of the four major 'Terezin composers', is that obscure, mind you.

My obscure composer du jour is an Italian neo-classicist of sorts, Franco Margola, who has a splendid lyrical sense. I have a couple of CDs, but this one might be an attractive place to start:


pjme

#11
Quote from: springrite on February 25, 2008, 07:49:51 AM
Koechlin is a composer I like a lot! However I do not much like his most famous work, the Seven Star Symphony which, like many of his works, were product of a semi-crazed stalker of a hollywood actress he was infactuated in for many many years.

Koechlin dedicated a few works to Lilian Harvey . But that doesn't make him a stalker! ..let alone a semi-crazed one!

From Hyperion's website :
The breadth of Koechlin's musical culture was all-encompassing:
his sources range from Gregorian chant through the
new Viennese school. Like Stravinsky, he wrote in various and
apparently incompatible styles, but always made them identifiably
his own. The sources of his extra-musical inspiration
were similarly varied. They ranged from Classical mythology to
Rudyard Kipling's Jungle Book and the 'insolent beauty' of the
great female stars of the early sound film, in particular the
London-born film idol Lilian Harvey (1907–1968). Koechlin's
fascination with Miss Harvey resulted in four series of pieces
written in her honor: the Seven Songs for Gladys Op 151, no
fewer than 89 cameos for solo piano, and the two Albums de
Lilian Opp 139 and 149. Lilian, unfortunately, was quite
uninterested in Koechlin's efforts. His letters to her went
largely unanswered, and even after a visit from Koechlin's
wife, Suzanne, Lilian did not acknowledge receipt of the music
she had inspired.




Premier Album de Lilian (Harvey) - Nine pieces for Soprano, Flute, piano and Klarinet ad lib., opus 139
Second Album de Lilian (Harvey) - Eight pieces for Flute, ondes Martenot, harpsichord and piano, opus 149
Sept Chansons pour Gladys for Soprano and piano, opus 151 (inspired by : "Calais-Douvres" - a Film with Lilian Harvey
Le Portrait de Daisy Hamilton - 89 sketches for pîano solo, opus 140


David Zinman and -especially - Heinz Holliger are Koechlin's advocates.  Holliger's most recent (double) CD ( early vocal works) is very impressive. Let's hope he will record the symphonies .

Peter

marvinbrown

Quote from: Harry on February 25, 2008, 05:11:18 AM
I ordered a few cd's on the label Koch, with music, that attracted me greatly, but they are firsts in my collection.
Maybe someone could bring some feedback on them.
And please post your unkown composers here if you like, and so give me and others opportunities to discover also.... :)

  Harry you never cease to amaze me, how do you find these obscure composers anyway?  In the past I have been taking note of the CDs you buy and I can not find a lot of them on amazon, where do you go when you shop?  The most obscure composer I have in my collection is Bartok- hardly an obscure composer  ::)!

  marvin

Brian

Quote from: marvinbrown on February 25, 2008, 09:52:07 AM
  Harry you never cease to amaze me, how do you find these obscure composers anyway?  In the past I have been taking note of the CDs you buy and I can not find a lot of them on amazon, where do you go when you shop?  The most obscure composer I have in my collection is Bartok- hardly an obscure composer  ::)!

  marvin
The most obscure composers in my collection are probably Kalinnikov, Kalliwoda and Kopylov. Nobody loves the letter K  ;D

Dundonnell

Quote from: Brian on February 25, 2008, 11:12:06 AM
The most obscure composers in my collection are probably Kalinnikov, Kalliwoda and Kopylov. Nobody loves the letter K  ;D

Try Kaipainen, Kajanus, Kalabis, Kallstenius, Kalomiris, Kielland, Kinsella, von Koch, Krejci........ :)

marvinbrown

Quote from: Brian on February 25, 2008, 11:12:06 AM
The most obscure composers in my collection are probably Kalinnikov, Kalliwoda and Kopylov. Nobody loves the letter K  ;D

  On further examination of my CD collection I don't have any composer with a surname that starts with the letter K!

  marvin

pjme

#16
Vitezlava Kaprilova, Dezider Kardos, Mieczyslav Karlowicz, Willem Kersters, Karen Kachaturian, Tikhon Khrenikov, Uuno Klami, Lev Knipper, Jonas Kokkonen, Charles Koechlin, Marc Kopytman, Toivo Kuula, E.W.Korngold, .....Pal Kadosa, Miloslav Kabelac, Viktor Kalabis, Gia Kancheli, Zoltan Kodaly, Ernst Krenek, Uros Krek, Hans Kox.....Wilhelm Kempf, Jan Koetsier, Dimitri Kabalevsky, Eugene Kapp, Herman D.Koppel...are all composers.

bhodges

Then there are three you definitely should consider: Khachaturian, Kodály and Korngold!  Especially since you are an opera fan, some of Korngold's work might appeal to you.  

--Bruce

marvinbrown

Quote from: bhodges on February 25, 2008, 12:18:29 PM
Then there are three you definitely should consider: Khachaturian, Kodály and Korngold!  Especially since you are an opera fan, some of Korngold's work might appeal to you.  

--Bruce

  thanks Bruce  :).  Opera  0:) now that is something that is so dear to my heart.

  marvin

pjme

Yes! and Kodaly's "Spinning room "( once available on Hungaroton) a short, very lovely and utterly gorgeous short opera.

From the Hungarian quarterly : http://www.hungarianquarterly.com/no169/12.html

Judging by The Spinning Room, his next stage work, Kodály himself drew similar conclusions. To define it in terms of genre, one has to turn to expediencies like Liederspiel or "sung pantomime", or symphonic stage suite. The piece dispenses completely with any kind of text, either spoken or recited, other than the original lyrics of the folk songs and ballads the soloists and chorus sing in the guise of members of a Székely village community who spend their evening in a spinning - room. It is as if Kodály had returned to the Bartókian model of a stage ballad, reversing both the dramatic and musical approach. Kodály did not compose one single great ballad out of fragmented motifs of folk melodies, what he did was to arrange several authentic folk songs so that they combine into a great one. The audience can reconstruct the unspoken ballad from the pantomimed frame story, which is about the Suitor, who, for some obscure reason, is forced to escape from the village, and leave behind the woman he loves. She, the Housewife, mistress of the house where the villagers gather in the evening, is no longer a young girl but a mature woman (this was surely so that the role could be sung by the legendary Mária Basilides, leading contralto at the Budapest Opera). The Suitor was cast as a baritone, and sung at the premiere by the equally legendary Imre Palló, himself a Székely, a Hungarian from Transylvania, that other half of the Hungarian "double mother land". There is no question in my mind, that the ballad without words of the exiled Suitor, replayed in The Spinning Room, implicitly symbolises Kodály's grief over the loss that Hungary had suffered through the cutting off of Transylvania, the homeland of the Székelys, and the core - land of Hungarian folk music. However, ballads have multiple interpretations. I propose one that is significant for Kodály's relationship to opera. It is not difficult to recognise an allusion to the return to Ithaca in the scene on stage: we see a country abandoned by its master, living a life closed up into itself, centred on the matriarchal figure of the mistress, who is mourning the past and hoping for the future.