The record label CPO has a catalog so vast, it sometimes seems to have built its own repertoire. You can work your way through the whole history of music with CPO - but a very different history from the conventional one, way down the side roads of music history.
I thought it would be fun to embark on a listening project of discovery through the CPO catalog, for four reasons. First, I've noticed in my mid-30s now that I'm getting a little more "set" in my listening ways and less interested in totally new material, so it is probably healthy to listen to some completely unfamiliar music. Second, CPO's repertoire contains some really nice music. Third, it also contains a lot of music that is...uh...perfectly suited to put on in the background while working, and only half-pay attention to. Fourth, I recently saw a CPO sale, looked at the new releases, and discovered I hadn't listened to a new CPO album for almost two full years. So much to discover!
Please feel free to fill this thread with CPO chat, discussion, recommendations, speculation, etc. Especially for composers who are not thoroughly discussed elsewhere (e.g. Atterberg). :)
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The story behind Natanael Berg's Symphony No. 4 is immediately appealing. He was friends with Kurt Atterberg, and they challenged each other to write a 20-minute symphony with a light-hearted mood, each of them to contain a tuba solo somewhere. (Apparently they did this because a critic had called them humorless.) Atterberg's result was also his Symphony No. 4. Both were pleased with each other's work, but Berg had to pay Atterberg a "fine" (the equivalent of 35 euros today, per the booklet) because his symphony was a little bit too long!
This symphony is mostly calm, tranquil, and intimate in scale. It's effortlessly pretty and old-fashioned, without being sentimental. The finale is the only exception, a celebration that builds to a big full-orchestra climax complete with cymbals and triangle. (The cue for the revelry to really kick into high gear is a very, very short tuba solo.) As light symphonic music goes, this is quite fun, and the playing is quite good except for one brief moment of exposed high trumpet. It is an interesting pairing with the Atterberg Fourth, which mostly presents its humor in "tempest in a teapot" form by going for a rather ridiculous, tongue-in-cheek Sturm und Drang. (Atterberg's finale ends with a really ridiculous bit of physical comedy, but I still love it.)
Berg's Fourth is also the opposite of his Fifth, his final symphony, written in the 1920s but sounding like if Schumann had written his symphonies after a trip to Wagner's Bayreuth. This is a very conservative idiom (even the Richard Strauss-like bits stick out as surprising) and also rather generically "tragic." Overall, I found this 40-minute-long work pleasant enough background music, but not very interesting or rewarding, and so conservative that I wonder what Atterberg would have thought.
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Living with a former oboist has helped get me into romantic woodwind ensembles. There's more than just Dvorak! This trio of works by Joachim Raff, Gustav "Ogre" Schreck, and Salomon Jadassohn is full of sunny, congenial, outdoorsy music well-suited to the instruments. There's not a lot of intellectual depth or ambition to this disc. Just charming background fluff. The Jadassohn's first movement march does have a tune that borders on 20th century "marching band" music. (Think college fight songs.) The work as a whole is more chipper and outgoing than the other two. Not full-on Sousa, but not exactly Raff, either.
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This is more of a vanity production than the usual CPO disc. Violinist Ewelina Nowicka arranged the orchestral version of two of these works and composed a third. The only canonical "original" is Symphony for Strings by Szymon Laks. Nowicka has reduced Laks' Poème for violin and full orchestra down to violin and string orchestra and seems to have helped arrange (the booklet is unclear) at least some of the parts for Weinberg's very early Three Pieces.
Those Three Pieces are elusive and haunted in tone, often obsessing repeatedly over only a handful of notes. It's the work of someone locked in a room late at night, afraid of who's going to knock on their door. But the interesting thing is that it's not very late Weinberg: it dates from when he was just 15 years old. Already his life experience had given him uncomfortable knowledge of the kind of bleakness he'd face for 50+ more years.
There is more hope in the Laks Poème, which also dates from the 1930s. Both this and Nowicka's own composition, Kaddish 1944, which follows it directly, are in a very similar style: episodic, sparsely scored, lyrical but mournful, with gentle allusions to Jewish traditional music. The Laks Symphony for Strings is in the kind of angular, chilly, neoclassical style that Bacewicz also used to write her music for string orchestra. I'd definitely recommend this disc if you like that or late Weinberg.
I applaud the idea behind this thread. Two great things about CPO:
1. They have some of the coolest, most aesthetic cover art in the business.
2. They've done a great job making the work of obscure but deserving composers accessible (sort of like Naxos and BIS).
Anyway, a few notables:
Krenek: Symphony #2 - They did a whole series of his symphonies; this is a great one (I suspect it was the inspiration for DSCH #4)
Pettersson: Symphonies - Rather uneven and using something like 6 orchestras and 5 conductors, but I've enjoyed a few of them (especially the 10/11)
Sallinen: Symphony #8 etc. - Excellent contribution to their Sallinen cycle
Atterberg: Symphonies 3 & 6 - Again, a whole symphonic cycle, and this disc is a great one
Volkmann: String quartets - Years ago, forum guru Steve Molino said this was a great cycle, the quartets Brahms should have written, something like that. Maybe not that great, but they're worth hearing
Berg & Sibelius quartets (Lyric Suite, Voces Intimae) by the Oslo SQ - A rare example of CPO recording already famous composers, and a good way to get these two "name" quartets on one disc
The Telemann and JC Bach series are great and extensive.
And off the top of my head here are a couple of one offs that I like:
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Oh yeah how could I forget Weinberg's String Quartets performed by Danel??
And my favorite Haydn Op 50:
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Richard Wetz's Requiem, Schnabel's chamber music and lieder. And echoing the Weinberg String Quartets, some Pettersson performances, plus the Krenek symphony cycle.
Endorse the Telemann and Atterberg series.
There's also the Röntgen series and loads of Onslow, Gade, and Wolf-Ferrari to enjoy.
(And that's just off the top of my head.)
I've been very gradually picking up some of their complete symphonies boxes. In the last few years I've got those by Ernst Toch, Egon Wellesz, Kurt Atterberg and Isang Yun. I also have some of the Pettersson cycle.
I bought some years ago probably 70% of their catalogue, and made for this a special deal with them. So to many CD'S, to give recommendations, but with CPO you do not often err on the wrong side, most of their recordings are superb, and their choice to record many unknown composers is to be applauded.
I like this album of Anton Steck playing Biber with one piece by Muffat. (I got it when I was learning the Chaconne, if anyone cares.) Steck's performance is musical, energetic, and sometimes dazzling. The Chaconne is abridged in this recording, not necessarily a bad thing, but I do miss a few of the omitted variations. AFAIK the only other recording is by Acronym on the Olde Focus label, which is complete and not quite as flashy, which may or may not be to your taste. Both are excellent in their own ways, along with their respective couplings.
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Quote from: DavidW on March 06, 2024, 03:45:08 PM(https://m.media-amazon.com/images/I/91wot4m9xeL._UF1000,1000_QL80_.jpg)
This is a real sleeper.
Some gems not mentioned previously
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Watching - and probably listening - with interest. Nice thread, great listening project. Go big or go home, as they say :)
Quote from: foxandpeng on March 07, 2024, 06:41:27 AMWatching - and probably listening - with interest. Nice thread, great listening project. Go big or go home, as they say :)
Absolutely, I did go big on CPO, and got hem all home in 16 large boxes. ;D ;D ;D
Quote from: Harry on March 07, 2024, 06:47:16 AMAbsolutely, I did go big on CPO, and got hem all home in 16 large boxes. ;D ;D ;D
Here is another thread idea...what record label would cause each of our members to click the "buy one of everything" button!
Two recent discoveries on cpo have been the Hindemith string quartets and the Toch string quartets. Both superb!
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Quote from: Brian on March 07, 2024, 06:59:08 AMHere is another thread idea...what record label would cause each of our members to click the "buy one of everything" button!
Okay I will come clean. ;D
20 years ago I bought the complete Naxos catalogue, shortly afterwards about 40% of Hyperion, and around 50% of Chandos. I did more on less the same with the labels Claves, BIS, Audite, and a couple of others. I simply wanted to get all the CD'S, as quickly as possible. I still have a framed picture on which I was congratulated by the female owners on keeping a CD shop afloat just by my ordering. They manufactured sort of a Degree of most excellent customer. Every time I see that, I have to grin. When I met one of the owners, many years later, her partner died unfortunately, she looked at me with a big smile, and said, ohhh or most esteemed customer. ;D ;D ;D
Quote from: Brian on March 07, 2024, 06:59:08 AMHere is another thread idea...what record label would cause each of our members to click the "buy one of everything" button!
Hmm... Éditions de l'Oiseau-Lyre and Pentatone, perhaps. I can't think of any other label with " one of each " attractiveness.
So much discussion already! This is excellent :) it also speaks volumes about the diversity of the CPO discography. I was inspired to start this chat over the weekend, when I listened to the album of Röntgen cello concertos and was flipping through some other CPO albums in my collection (like the Krommer symphonies and Haydn-influenced music by Westerhoff). Also wholeheartedly agree with the comment that their cover art aesthetic - almost totally unchanged for 20 years - remains one of the cleanest and most attractive in the business.
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Today's dose:
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This is NOT the Walter Kaufmann who became a philosophy professor in the United States and translated an authoritative edition of Nietzsche. This Walter Kaufmann was also a German Jew who was forced to flee the Nazis - but this one sold the rights to one of his early operettas and used the cash to flee to...India! He became a musicology professor in India, wrote some of the earliest Bollywood movie scores, and was music director for All India Radio. Kaufmann spent 12 years in India, then tried to return to Europe but failed, instead assuming the conducting job at the Winnipeg Symphony. (Where's Ray??) After 10 years there, he moved on to Indiana University, becoming an American citizen and living there until his death at age 77.
Two of Kaufmann's symphonies date from his European days, three (!) from his time in India, and the last from his years in Bloomington. This disc contains Symphony No. 3 and "An Indian Symphony," plus a suite, Six Indian Miniatures, and a piano concerto written for Canadian audiences (expanded from a smaller work he'd written years before).
This disc is totally intoxicating. It's 70 minutes perfectly calculated to make me happy. For one thing, there is the Indian influence, which does not come through as Westernized cliches. It doesn't sound like Rimsky-Korsakov "Song of India" type stuff. It also (as the booklet points out) does not surrender itself wholly over to the folk style, as later pioneers like Lou Harrison might do. Instead, Kaufmann incorporates local scales, melodies, and repetitive raga-like cells without ever resorting to cliche or obvious instrumental effects. An Indian Symphony is 15 short minutes and pursues its title trait rather subtly. The Six Indian Miniatures are more obviously and strongly influenced, but you can also compare them to orchestral pieces like Janacek's Lachian Dances or the various Bartok dance suites. These are hits.
Piano Concerto No. 3 - featuring CPO's house superstar Elisaveta Blumina - is a more trans-Atlantic operation with hints of jazziness, neoclassicism that sounds like the light side of Hindemith, and some piquant Czech-sounding woodwind melodies. (There's a clarinet bit in the first movement around 4' and 5' that will remind you that Kaufmann wrote his thesis on Mahler. He withdrew the thesis from university when the music school's dean joined the Nazi Party.) The concerto takes a common 20th century form: two short, fast, lively, fun outer movements surrounding a long slow movement of great emotional depth. Here the slow movement's form appears to be searching, questing - it gives the mood of someone who does not know how to get home. The piano sometimes is used as a percussive instrument or a tolling bell, then is left alone without orchestral support, then goes back to tolling-bell stuff again. After a fade out to silence, the finale's jovial, almost carol-like tunefulness comes as a shock. Certainly, anybody who likes the highly contrasted, neoclassical, and folk-colored CPO discs dedicated to Boris Papandopulo should listen to this.
Symphony No. 3 starts out with a series of motives that suggest Kaufmann's influences: a four-note motto familiar from 1700s classical music (it sounds like the beginning of a Haydn symphony), followed by Indian-type repeated phrases that dissolve into a trance. The booklet suggests a third motive is reminiscent of Hindemith. Kaufmann works these out carefully, if a bit colorlessly at times. The first movement's ending and the second movement's constant exotic color (at 5' the bass line reminds me of Stravinsky) are definitely memorable. But to my surprise given the rather stern tenor of the first half of the symphony, the finale gives into some of the "exotic" cliche melodies and effects that Kaufmann so carefully avoided in the Indian Symphony and Miniatures. (Wind solo doubled on piccolo, triangle, etc.) This is the weakest movement on a very, very, VERY interesting CD.
If 1 out of every 10 new CPO CDs delights me as much as this one does, I'll keep doing this survey forever! :) By the way, the booklet notes are truly excellent, and include an essay from the conductor, who seems to promise that this will be a series of Kaufmann's complete orchestral music. The only other recording of this music is a chamber album on Chandos, which the notes praise highly.
Quote from: Brian on March 07, 2024, 06:59:08 AMHere is another thread idea...what record label would cause each of our members to click the "buy one of everything" button!
If money and time are no object, probably either Harmonia Mundi or BIS.
Within hearing distance of sanity: Globe.
One I actually have (via big box): Seon.
Quote from: Brian on March 07, 2024, 06:59:08 AMHere is another thread idea...what record label would cause each of our members to click the "buy one of everything" button!
Opera Rara and Bru Zane if my checking account allowed it.
[Spoiler: it doesn't]
One of my favourite CPO releases:
- Onslow quartets, quintets and other chamber music (often the only available recordings)
- Boccherini quartets, mixed bag (mostly "Revolutionary Drawing Room", not the most exciting HIP ensemble), again sometimes the only recordings
- CPE Bach concerti, symphonies with Ludger Rémy
- early Viennese classical symphonies (Wagenseil, Monn...) with Gaigg
- Haydn trios and others (Dussek, Kozeluch) with Trio 1790
- Reger violin and cello sonatas
I'm not that big a (CD) collector, but Glossa is the one label I'd consider for the "buy one of everything" tag.
My fond memories of cpo are not very exotic, aside from the old "Hans Zender Edition": off the top of my head Hindemith quartets, Taneyev chamber music, Josquin music cond. Manfred Cordes, Weinberg string quartets (like the performances, though I don't listen all that often).
I've never been disappointed by a cpo purchase. It's a reliable quality label.
Quote from: JBS on March 07, 2024, 07:53:05 PMOpera Rara and Bru Zane if my checking account allowed it.
[Spoiler: it doesn't]
Indeed, two of the classiest, most deluxe labels --- actually, in terms of booklets, they and AliaVox are THE classiest and most deluxe.
Quote from: Pat B on March 07, 2024, 07:13:59 PMIf money and time are no object, probably either Harmonia Mundi or BIS.
Within hearing distance of sanity: Globe.
One I actually have (via big box): Seon.
Harmonia Mundi, BIS would be temptations.
I have one (almost) since I have Mercury Living Presence I, II and III, plus the complete Paul Paray MLP Mono and Dorati MLP Mono. There's a smattering of MLP (mostly mono) that didn't make it into those sets. I seem to have missed out on the Kubelik/CSO box. :(
Quote from: Pat B on March 07, 2024, 07:13:59 PMIf money and time are no object, probably either Harmonia Mundi or BIS.
Within hearing distance of sanity: Globe.
One I actually have (via big box): Seon.
Alpha Classics for me. I don't think I've ever heard any recording with that alpha symbol on it that was anything less than impressive.
I'm listening (for the first time in quite a while) to a 2-CD cpo set of Gesualdo Madrigals Books I-III by Gesualdo Consort Amsterdam (dir. Harry van der Kamp). I enjoy it and am happy with the set, but there are good alternatives so it's a matter of taste.
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Listened to this over the weekend from my personal CD collection, an old friend purchased a few years ago on clearance/on recommendation from Todd. What struck me this time is that track 11, the second to last movement of the Pergolesi, really sounds exactly like a lost Scarlatti sonata in the piano transcription.
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This release unites three sonatas with unusual subtitles. Dussek's contribution is the huge (32 minute) "Le retour à Paris" sonata, while Wölfl presents "Le diable à quatre" and "Non plus ultra."
Dussek is a known quantity to me from Olga Pashchenko's sonata and concerto discs on Alpha. Some of his works can range into really fascinating harmonic territory, but this grand Parisian work is more romantic and softer in tone, more like the Beethoven Pastoral sonata with the solo parts from Chopin's piano concertos mixed into the dough. It certainly is not as "heroic" as the length would suggest.
The Wölfl sonatas are also in sunny major keys (E and F). The most unusual feature of the "le diable" sonata is the slow movement, which sounds like a transcribed Mozart comic opera aria. The initial operatic tune is subjected to some gentle variations. "Non plus ultra" starts with a very grand intro, and also has an unusual structural feature, as the second movement acts as a small introduction to the finale, a la Waldstein. The finale has another operatic songlike melody, which makes me think that this is structured like recitative-aria. In fact, it is a German folk song, the booklet tells me, and subjected to a series of entertaining variations.
This is all sunny, genial music calculated to please late classical audiences. The backstory is interesting. Wölfl was a fixture of the piano circuit in London, where he was famous for his easygoing, friendly personality, and where other musicians contrasted him with the crankier, more arrogant Beethoven. That certainly comes across in the less ambitious music. "Non plus ultra" was named that because it was a calling-card work at concerts across the city (even though it is not very virtuosic). Dussek's London publisher took advantage and renamed "Le retour à Paris" as the "Plus ultra" sonata, but the Czech composer certainly did not intend to start a rivalry.
There's another interesting story about Wölfl in the booklet. Once he was supposed to play one of his own concertos, but the piano was a half-tone out of tune and there was no chance a tuner could fix it before the performance. So the composer simply, during the performance, played the whole thing in C sharp instead of C, as if changing his fingering on the fly was no trouble at all!
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Hugo Kaun was a German emigrant to Milwaukee who taught music in Wisconsin and composed the two Longfellow/Native American inspired tone poems on this disc while relaxing in the backwoods of the state. A little after 1900, he decided to move back to Germany, but found himself on the conservative end of a musical debate, opposed to Mahler and his acolytes, aligned more with Pfitzner and the old guard. His tone poems aroused interest because of the "exotic" Native associations, and his Symphony No. 3 from 1913 was conducted by Pfitzner and a young Furtwangler. After the War, he wrote very little and was embittered by the animosity between his two favorite countries.
The tone poems "Minnehaha" and "Hiawatha" proceed through episodes describing bits from the original Longfellow stories. Thus, for example, "Minnehaha" begins with a pastoral reverie and ends with a funeral march. It's all pretty mild stuff, certainly less graphic/vivid than tone poems by Liszt for example. The chivalric horn calls that begin "Hiawatha" announce that this second poem will be livelier than the first, and there are certainly a lot of echoes of composers like Dvorak, Smetana, and Wagner. It's very pretty.
Symphony No. 3 comes from after his return to Germany and his enrollment in the anti-Mahler battles. It's in E minor and super-traditional, even with a slow introduction. Kaun's love of Bruckner takes longer to surface, unless you count the length (50 minutes). The first movement is slowish, with a little bit of activity and an atmosphere that comes across more mysterious than tragic. The scherzo is also a little bit spooky and has some playful brass solos in its spiky main theme. If Kaun let his brass roar more loudly, you'd hear definite Bruckner comparisons here. The trio also brings Bruckner to mind. I found the adagio a snooze, unfortunately, but the finale has more drama and tragedy than was hinted at previously, along with a fugato. It's more interesting than the rest, enough to create a problem of balance in the work. A historical curiosity only, I'd say, unless you like conservative Germanic symphonies in the style of Bruch or Bruckner 0/00.
The orchestra plays wonderfully, though in some episodes, there are so many cymbal crashes that the cymbal player can't get his/her muscle into all of them. I also think a more "Brucknerian" brass section would have more of a meal of the symphony than the rather uncoordinated players here, who sound more like soloists who happen to be sitting next to each other.
Kaun maintained a wonderful curly mustache.
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No. 9 - two violins, clarinet, and orchestra
No. 12 - violin, cello, and orchestra
No. 2 - violin, cello, and orchestra
Carl Stamitz is reasonably well-known on this forum; there've been many releases of his music. He came up in Mannheim, where his father Johann was a composer, and became a renowned virtuoso and composer. Mozart hated him and is quoted in the booklet as saying that, as a performer, Stamitz was let down by excessive drinking. One peculiarity of his Sinfonias Concertante is that, no matter how many soloists appear in them, often only one of them gets to play in the slow movement.
No. 9 is unique in that the two violinists are the soloists in the first and last movements, and neither appears in the slow movement at all - that's where the clarinet comes in. The clarinet's movement is also minor-key rather than major, and there are no orchestral clarinets. It's an interesting but strange effect. No. 12 has orchestral clarinets, and the violin gets the slow-movement solo duties. In No. 2, both violin and cello have solos in all three movements, and in the slow one they're also joined by a flute.
I always find Carl Stamitz' music pleasant and enjoyable. (I remember enjoying the "Orchestral Quartets" on Naxos.) These are, too. They're small-scale entertainments with little drama, just friendly music-making. The players take a hybrid-HIP approach; I think they're on gut strings but not making a huge deal out of it. It sounds like an appealing chamber-sized ensemble. Paul Meyer conducts in addition to playing clarinet, which is why his name is on the cover twice.
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Louise Farrenc has been one of my very favorite CPO finds since the label first released her symphonies many years ago. But I missed this July 2023 release containing two 25-minute piano trios (one for the usual setup, the other for flute, cello, and piano), a 20-minute violin sonata, and a short set of variations for cello and piano.
Farrenc really loved minor keys, and all the big pieces on this disc are in them. The Piano Trio No. 2 has a lyrical slow intro before the turbulent first movement, and an absolutely delightful theme-and-variations central movement that absolutely reminds me of something from a Beethoven trio. The Swiss folksong variations are lovely, too. Piano Trio No. 4 (with the flute) and Violin Sonata No. 1 fall in a Mendelssohnian tradition of very pleasant, amiable, interesting mainstream romantic music that doesn't make your blood boil with excitement but also isn't for a moment boring, slack, or overwritten. Well-crafted stuff.
The Farrenc series remains one of my CPO favorites. Pianist Konstanze Eickhorst, the central figure in the Linos Ensemble here, previously recorded her solo piano music, in addition to the Linos' previous album of trios. All the players, who are clearly long-term committed to the cause, play terrifically.
Plenty, but as this disc is one of my favourite things of all, it springs to mind first:
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Taking inspiration from vandermolen this morning! Rudolph Simonsen's CPO album does not have a booklet uploaded to Qobuz, but I did find on Wikipedia the very interesting fact that Symphony No. 2 "Hellas" won a bronze medal at the 1928 Olympics! Apparently for several decades the Olympics had art competitions, although (Wikipedia further tells me) only on one occasion were the winners performed at any kind of Olympic concert, and only one composer who ever entered is really "major" (Josef Suk, silver in 1932). Simonsen's bronze came in a year when the judges refused to award anyone either gold or silver (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_Olympic_medalists_in_art_competitions#Music), which is quite insulting. (That link goes to all the Olympic medals for music. Notice how the 1936 medals almost all went to loyal Nazis.)
The program starts with a tragic-ish overture in G minor that follows along from the middle-romantic Germanic style of Bruch, Raff, very young R. Strauss, etc. The ending sounds a little bit like Simonsen knew about the glorious ending of Mahler 2 and wanted to emulate it somewhat.
I wish I knew the storyline behind Symphony No. 1 "Zion" but without the booklet, I just have the Sturm und Drang to go on. Simonsen is pretty accomplished at creating short, memorable thematic cells. The first movement is mostly just angry/violent high romantic stuff, but then we get an 18-minute (half the total length) slow movement that begins very, very calmly and quietly - almost trancelike pre-minimalist stuff. The horns intone a soft theme, then the strings take it up, and that's all that happens for about 5 minutes. But it isn't boring. It's fascinating! The string texture is mysterious and mystical, the horn call is almost primal, and the mood is like very few other pieces. It builds to a climax around 6', then fades back to the beginning sounds around 10. Here, I'm wondering how he's going to get another 8 minutes in, when the English horn suddenly modulates to major key in the manner of - again - the winds in the finale of Mahler 2. The remaining 8 minutes drift along aimlessly, to be honest, and could have all been cut. There is a nice seamless transition to the "inspirational" finale, although this movement has passages with great energy and then passages where the energy fades away.
OK, between symphonies, I cheated and looked at ClassicsToday, where Hurwitz gave this release a 4! He basically thought the whole thing was boring and derivative. One thing I didn't understand was that the long, trancelike slow movement was meant to be a funeral march. Hmm.
Symphony No. 2 "Hellas," the piece that caused Olympic judges to withhold gold and silver ;D , is divided into three parts depicting various Greek things: the tragedy of Orestes, "solitude in the temple," and Athena. In "Die Orestie" Simonsen is at a disadvantage, because I just saw Elektra live - and, remember, that work had been written 20 years earlier. Simonsen learned from Strauss the importance of chromatic "gnarly" harmony to create a disturbing atmosphere, but he doesn't have a theme nearly as engaging as Strauss' terrifying three-note motto, he's working with a smaller orchestra, and...well...he isn't Strauss.
Overall, this symphony's plan is actually similar to the First, with the slow movement forming a lyrical, calming respite to the previous part. And the finale again has some really cool fun ideas along with some sections that drain the energy back out. Mostly, it's pretty good, though. The orchestra often seems too small for the music. I think overall I'd go a little higher than Hurwitz on my personal 1-10 scale, but maybe only up to about 6.
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After the chromatic, chaotic textures of Simonsen's late romantic orchestra, the idea of piano duets by one of the late classical era's most polished stylists sounded really appealing. This stuff is as good as expected. It's clean, pristine, charming, and elegant - like a midpoint between Mozart and young Schubert. I love the late Clementi sonatas; most of these works are earlier and therefore more bite-sized. They're all in major keys.
Not much to say about this disc, except that the playing is as good as we expect from this duo. If you like one of the Clementi sonatas/duets, you'll like them all.
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I have always loved the Eino Tamberg discs on BIS, which present the composer as a sort of cross between the neoclassical clarity and brightness of Nordic composers (like Wiren and Nielsen), the spiky-but-pleasing modernism of Roussel and Honegger, and the extroverted theatrical music of ballet or dance suites by people like Walton. It's a really appealing combination - you know you'll get some romantic warmth, super-splashy orchestration, and some tough bits to chew on while you digest the easier material.
Well...Cyrano de Bergerac is that, too, but 108 minutes long and sung in Estonian. I don't know the action at all, and CPO's booklet isn't on Qobuz again. But it sounds great, especially with the truly spectacular, label-best recorded sound, orchestral playing, and singing. This is just incredibly fun and full of cool stuff. Eino Tamberg is definitely one of my favorite non-famous composers.
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I'm sorry to spoil the party but this recording is proof that cpo does not always meet their own standards. ;D
The concept is an interesting one. The arias are selected from the scores in the library of the joint archives of the Turinese Accademia Filarmonica and Societa del Whist (the latter founded by Camillo Benso, Count of Cavour), operas which were performed in one of the two main opera houses, Teatro Regio and Teatro Carignano. Such luminaries as Paisiello, Galuppi, Piccini, Monsigny and Gretry are featured, together with a few unknwon others. In principle, this should be a delight.
Well, it is not, for several reasons.
First, the "orchestra". I very much doubt that the ones at Regio or Carignano consisted only of two violins, a viola, a cello, a double bass, a flute and a harpsichord --- which is all we have here. Also, I very much doubt that the operas in question were scored for such limited forces. Indeed, checking for instance the score of Galuppi's Il filosofo de campagna, of which two arias are offered, one sees that it was scored for first violins, second violins, cellos, basses, two oboes and two horns. (NB, no flutes). The result is that what are supposed to be operatic arias sound like cantate da camera and this completely change their character.
Second, the sound. For whatever incomprehensible reason, the engineer(s) decided to have it split in three clearly distinct channels: left, the two violins playing in unison; center, the voice; right, the continuo (harpsichord and cello), and to record all of these channels at exactly the same level of loudness, which results in the continuo being as prominent as the voice, which is annoying in the highest degree. Well, you may ask, and the viola, the double bass and the flute, what channel are they on? I don't know the answer to this question because not even one second have I heard them.
Third, the programme. All arias are on the fast side tempo-wise which, given the drawbacks I just mentioned, results in aural fatigue setting in rather quickly.
Fourth, the voice. The French soprano's Italian diction is not perfect, to say the least, and the singing is anyway drowned in the continuous buzz of the continuo (pun) and the two violins playing in unison. There is no question of understanding more than half of what is being sung. The things do not improve much in the two French arias.
Bottom line, my high expectations about this disc were not met. If not quite a plain dud, it's certainly misjudged and misrecorded --- perhaps the least enjoyable cpo recording I've ever heard so far.
;D ;D thank you for that review, apparently much more enjoyable than the disc!
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Some romantic-era delights for two pianos. Though a lot of the recital is "lighter" in nature, the opening Variations on Balkan Themes are not, a big 20-minute chunk of seriously worked-out, technically more challenging stuff, mostly in minor keys and using melancholy, ballad-like themes.
The rest of the disc offers more miniatures, tone-pictures, even some Irish folk tunes. It's not quite as kinetic as the two-pianist works by Dvorak, but it's in the same realm, and if you like the more famous composer (think "From the Bohemian Forest" and the "Legends"), you'll enjoy Amy Beach as well.
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I'd heard Vol. 1, dedicated to the "big" Symphonies 3 and 4, but not this one. The Overture, recently also recorded on Chandos, is a delightful five-minute perpetuum mobile that will get concert audiences' attention firmly secured, with super-virtuoso parts for every single musician. A total success. Symphony No. 2 is a tight 20-minute work in four short movements, and it is in general lighter than some of the other Bacewicz symphonies, though that does not exactly mean it sounds like Haydn. There's a searching, heroic quality to some of the first movement's themes, and the slow movement is haunting, lyrical, and concise (with some of her least harmonically complicated melodies). The scherzo is a joyride, as light-hearted as I've ever heard her music. The finale is relaxed as well. Generally, in formal organization, mood, and overall effect, I'd say this is rather like Martinu's Symphony No. 2. It doesn't sound the same because they have such different musical styles, of course, but the layout is so similar, right down to a brief wistful introduction. It's like translating the same text to a new language.
The more familiar, modern Bacewicz returns for the second half of the program: the zany/chaotic/fun Variations for Orchestra, a 10-minute piece where I couldn't tell you what the theme was, and the 16-minute "Musica sinfonica in tre movimenti," with two loud, violent bookend movements around a central "molto tranquillo" that is more than half the work's length. This movement is full of writing for small instrumental ensembles, like the passage that's just for flutes, oboes, xylophone, and harp (!).
Among Bacewicz fans and newcomers, I think this disc is stylistically varied enough that there will definitely be something for everyone. As usual with Borowicz recordings on CPO (someone has said this already in this thread!), the playing and conducting are absolutely top-notch.
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Revisiting this album that was sent to me in 2012 for MusicWeb reviewing (https://www.musicweb-international.com/classrev/2012/Sept12/Westerhoff_concertos_7775982.htm). Aside from overuse of the word "very", I agree with most of those 12-years-ago thoughts. Well-crafted, genial music that is never too long for its material. Westerhoff knows exactly what size canvas to paint. The clarinet and bassoon concerto is especially wonderful, and fans of middle-era Haydn to early-era Schubert should investigate.
Looks like there has been just one follow-up album, containing two viola concertos and a flute concerto. I think I need to hear the viola concertos. Jonathan Woolf likes 'em (https://www.musicweb-international.com/classrev/2017/Dec/Westerhoff_concertos_7778442.htm).
Quote from: Brian on March 11, 2024, 12:30:02 PM(https://static.qobuz.com/images/covers/20/03/0761203510320_600.jpg)
Listened to this over the weekend from my personal CD collection, an old friend purchased a few years ago on clearance/on recommendation from Todd. What struck me this time is that track 11, the second to last movement of the Pergolesi, really sounds exactly like a lost Scarlatti sonata in the piano transcription.
Ms Hinrichs has several titles on CPO. Her Soler is a hidden gem.
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Franz Benda was one of the originals of the Benda family of musicians; his son Friedrich Benda also has CPO albums, and his much later descendant Christian Benda records for Naxos. Franz spent much of his time working at the court of Frederick the Great.
Baroque chamber music isn't usually my thing, to be honest. Two things make Benda's sonatas here interesting: the colorful and showy solo writing (which is often in minor keys), and the fact that Evgeny Sviridov chooses to intersperse solo violin capriccios in between the accompanied sonatas. His playing is consistently fresh and HIP-inspired, and the accompanists can create some complex textures. If this is your kind of thing, I recommend it.
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The von Flotow piano concertos remind me of the Chopin concertos - except extremely short. The first is just 15 minutes, the second just 17! Flotow studied with Reicha and wrote these works in 1830-31, before he'd turned 20 years old. (The overtures on the CD date from his maturity.) The first concerto basically has no development sections, and the second concerto, in four tiny movements, manages to be cyclical because the introduction's music returns for the finale. Both are lightweight, charming pieces, like if they made piano concertos out of Rossini overtures, maybe. The ends of movements are often a little jarring, because I'm expecting at the very least for one of the melodies to be repeated, but nope - it's over! At least this is a big advantage over some of the later romantic composers who never knew when to stop (or how to avoid a fugue) ;D
The overtures are a chocolate box. Wintermärchen is full of light textures, muted violin solos, chamber-like instrumental groupings, and also a trombone/tuba interlude. Fackeltanz is much more traditional, with its military fanfares, cymbal crashes, and processional march-like tunes. The rest all fall somewhere in the realm of Auber (but not quite so harmonically interesting), Suppé (but not quite so tuneful), etc. Not essential, but very charming light music. Makes sense that this album would be a Florestan favorite!
The booklet note is one of the sillier and more oddly written in the CPO catalogue.
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Robert Kahn was a friend to Clara Schumann, Hans von Bulow, and Johannes Brahms; his 1905 clarinet, cello, and piano trio was written as a tribute to Brahms' late clarinet works. It's a little more animated, less "autumnal," and less easily lyrical, but it has a lot going for it. The clarinet and cello get along beautifully, the first movement has a gently stormy G minor mood, and the second movement allegretto really is very Brahmsian indeed. The whole thing is over in just 21 modest minutes.
Vincent d'Indy's trio for the same three instruments is almost 20 years older, but formally much more inventive. It starts with a 14-minute overture, then a "divertissement," then a "chant elegiaque," then a finale - in total, just more than 35 minutes. The overture starts with a very catchy slow tune, which becomes the main tune for a genial, unhurried main allegro. The scherzo divertissement is a lot of fun, and includes a small trio-like episode just for cello. The elegy is as advertised, with the clarinet given the main theme.
Overall, a fun disc and very well played by three musicians I didn't know before who are clearly sensitive chamber performers. Lovely stuff, and lovely cover painting by previously-unknown-to-me Max Slevogt.
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This is a happy surprise. I don't really listen to many lieder so previously only knew that Carl Loewe was one of the lieder guys, and vaguely was unsure if maybe he was even the song guy from Lerner & Loewe. (No. Ha!) Instead, these are delightfully Mendelssohnian 1830s symphonies - Loewe actually knew Mendelssohn, playing a concerto with him and conducting the premiere of the teenager's Midsummer Night's Dream overture.
Symphony No. 1 is in E minor and No. 2 is in D minor. Both follow on naturally from the soundworld of Mendelssohn's First, and maybe Schumann's Fourth, rather than the more programmatic symphonies Felix wrote later. The First is a firecracker of minor-key energy. The Second is remarkable because the scherzo is longer and fuller than the first movement! It also boasts four horns. Only the happy endings of both finales struck me as rather facile. For good measure, the program adds one opera overture, "Themisto," another high-energy, concise minor-key piece with a lot of punch.
Both works benefit greatly from Simon Gaudenz' conducting: punchy, rhythmically very sharp, HIP-inspired, with timpani like exclamation marks. Great match of conductor to composer. Very much recommended to fans of young Mendelssohn, Kalliwoda, Farrenc, etc.
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Pleasant, mild-mannered background music I played while working. There is an orchestral guise for some of these works, also on CPO, and track 27 is a Swedish Dance that I recognize as a folk tune later reused in one of the Atterberg symphonies. Nice on the ear while working, but I wouldn't exactly choose this CD to play for full-attention listening or to keep me awake on a long drive.
Quote from: Brian on March 19, 2024, 08:53:06 AM(https://static.qobuz.com/images/covers/bc/1f/dixlbya071fbc_600.jpg)
This is a happy surprise.
I concur, these are very good symphonies. Quite often these CPO symphonic "discoveries" are merely "nice". I don't feel cheated out of either money or time because of the quality of the productions, but I do feel a bit let down that I don't like the music as much as I feel I should.
And the Bruch CD is very good, too.
TD: a commenter on Hurwitz's channel mentioned a recording of Mendelssohn's Symphony No. 1 on CPO. It turns out it's conducted by Sigiswald Kuijken and is a very fine performance of a work that often gets short shrift.
The Bruch string octet and other chamber music, a somewhat older issue with Ulf Hoelscher, is also worth getting.
I vaguely mentioned this one upthread:
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Indeed, CPO has been really inventive in making obscure repertoire available to the record collector.
In my collection, these sets hold pride of place:
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The
Milhaud symphonies haven't had a very enthusiastic reception here in GMG (have they,
@Karl Henning ? ;D ) but it's certainly a good thing to have access to all of them in one set.
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TBH, I have this a singles (except for the
Second Symphony, which I only have in the
Zagrosek recording on Decca's "Entartete Kunst" series).
cpo has a great series of baroque opera under the supervision of Stephen Stubbs and Paul O'Dette from the Boston Baroque fetival. This is just one example:
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This disc contains three unnumbered quartets, in G, A, and E minor. Newspaper articles of the time suggested that Mayer ultimately composed 14 quartets, of which 7 survived, the latest from 1858. (The later ones seem to be the lost ones, which is a pity.) The numbering/exact years are unknown, though in some cases we have info on premiere performances.
The music, to my surprise, is very Haydnesque. Not to mean witty and sunny, but more like the "serious" mature Haydn groupings. The craft is serious, the music has integrity, the parts are all in nice conversation. You could also compare it to Mendelssohn's quartets, but the early ones only, not the fire or complexity of Op. 80.
Although I doubt I'll listen to these as often as I do the Mendelssohn or Cherubini quartets, they are very pleasant and it'll be nice to see this cycle completed.
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Good
@Florestan music:
High Viennese Classical style, perhaps not on the level of WAM or FJH, but not far below them.
Well done by the performers. Sonics are crystal clear.
I suppose I should read the liner notes for more information, but I've had a hard week at work, and this music, and the Pinot Grigio I'm drinking, are all the stress relief I need.
There are no rules for erudition in this thread ;D that sounds lovely and is on my list for next week, thank you! The violinist's name is very familiar...
Quote from: JBS on March 22, 2024, 06:08:54 PM(https://m.media-amazon.com/images/I/71I8ZjQ7bqL._UF1000,1000_QL80_FMwebp_.jpg)(https://m.media-amazon.com/images/I/61ijWEUkjuL._UF1000,1000_QL80_FMwebp_.jpg)
Good @Florestan music:
High Viennese Classical style, perhaps not on the level of WAM or FJH, but not far below them.
Well done by the performers. Sonics are crystal clear.
I suppose I should read the liner notes for more information, but I've had a hard week at work, and this music, and the Pinot Grigio I'm drinking, are all the stress relief I need.
IIRC, one of his violin concertos was attributed to Mozart for a long time, which speaks volumes about their quality.
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A tiny bit of false advertising here, as the CPE Bach work is actually one of the cello concertos (in B flat), arranged for viola by the soloist. It's still lovely, of course, and Mathis Rochat is an appealing soloist, with a direct, slicing style that remains tonally pretty. From Johann Gottlieb Graun, we get a true viola concerto and a double concerto with viola and violin. All three pieces fit comfortably together on the disc, with stylistic similarity, and all three are well-written. The stylish playing of Rochat and his small string orchestra accompaniment (with rather prominent harpsichord) are definitely pleasing enough to make this worth an hour of your/my time.
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Music for two pianos was a constant throughout Carl Reinecke's career, and this three-CD box spans from Op. 6 to Op. 275. There are three formal sonatas, several orchestral transcriptions, and a whole lot of theme-and-variations type works. The highlights of CD1 are the opening and closing variation tracks, the first one a fresh youthful charmer and the second based on a minor-key Bach sarabande.
CD2 starts with a series of miniatures, highlighted by a scherzo "in canon" (barely) and a swirling, up-and-down darting Impromptu in a very cheery mood. (I could imagine it as a very long encore at a two-pianos concert, or a showoff piece for teenage prodigies.) Then we get the second of the formal sonatas. This is by far the biggest, at 24 minutes, and in C. It starts off in a pensive, Brahmsian mood, but don't expect autumnal profundity; it eventually settles into a little lighter vein. The finale's more rigorous counterpoint brings back Brahms as a reference point in its development section, but not for long.
This disc ends with two 10-minute curiosities: a concert paraphrase of Mozart's Piano Concerto No. 19, and a "Dramatic Fantasy Piece." The Mozart piece freely mixes up all the themes, not at all attempting to recapture the original dramatic arc. It's a genial little piece. The Dramatic Fantasy, on the other hand, finds Reinecke attempting to do brooding, emo, and eventually heroic/grandiose. This is not his usual language, but I find the result rather endearing.
CD3 starts with "Prologue solemnis," a quasi-religious sounding slow hymn with a main melody that sounds, a little bit, like the old folk tune "rock-a-bye baby." The faster middle section sounds a little bit like an orchestral piece that has lost its color and contrapuntal clarity in the reduction, although I still like it. The Sonata on this disc is a shorter, more modest one (less than 15 minutes), mostly rather leisurely and amiable in tone. Only the short final "Vivace" picks up the energy.
Zur Reformationsfeier Overture is, I assume, an orchestral transcription. It shares the big theme from Mendelssohn's Reformation Symphony, in a somewhat more reticent, less heart-on-sleeve phrasing. (I don't know the original hymn well enough to know whose version is "authentic.") After five minutes of increasingly elaborate, contrapuntal variations on this Big Tune, the music abruptly stops, then turns to another hymn tune. After this reprieve, the original tune returns along with interjections of Handel's Messiah's "Hallelujah." The two pianos basically duel it out, one playing Handel, the other playing Not Handel. It's super earnest, but very entertaining.
After that, we get a couple light little finales to round out the set: a scene of Mediterranean tone-pictures (including a "Neapolitan mandolin serenade") and Improvisations on a Gavotte by Gluck.
Reinecke's total sincerity, craftsmanship, and commitment to two equal partners really make his two-piano music consistently enjoyable. Although none of this is as memorable or personal as the Schubert masterpieces, it's music I'd happily return to a few dozen more times.
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I also listened to the Eck concertos album above today, and enjoyed that too.
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Usually I read through CPO's booklets for this diary, but Qobuz didn't upload this one. :( Wilhelm Berger lived from 1861-1911 and seems to have been heavily influenced by the German romantic mainstream. The Konzertstuck is a 30-minute one-movement piano concerto in a seemingly gigantic sonata form, that starts quietly and peacably and takes on occasional Brahmsian sounds and qualities (influenced especially by the major-key material from the first movement of Brahms' First Concerto). I thought it was reasonably entertaining, and although generally not too dramatic, it does have a grand flourish for an ending.
The Symphony No. 1 is a 45-minute pastoral work in B flat. I'd say it's "epic", but only in length - there's really nothing challenging or unusual or especially interesting in the span of the piece. It's just nice, agreeable background music, in the mid-romantic style of Bruch, Joachim Raff, or Johann Svendsen (though I definitely prefer the much more tuneful and youthful Svendsen symphonies). The fact that Berger's lifespan is almost exactly the same as Mahler's is remarkable because they sound like they come from different centuries. But again, it was very pleasant and cheerful and I used it as background music while getting some work done. A few years after this, Berger wrote his Symphony No. 2 in B minor; one has to assume CPO will record this shortly, along with his other orchestral work, a theme and variations.
This strikes me as a perfect "average" of a CPO recording: well played, well recorded renditions of music that is forgotten for good reason, but pleasant enough to revisit and play in the background.
After my encounter with Wilhelm Berger, I decided of course the natural next thing to do would be...
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I can't remember if I've heard this music before, but if so, it was way back in 2008 or 2009, when my university library had copies of every CPO CD. Peterson-Berger was a Swedish composer strongly influenced by the high romantic influences of both Wagner and nationalism (especially Grieg). He wrote folksy Swedish-inspired things, several volumes of Lyric Pieces-like piano miniatures, and a series of large symphonies. In later life he became a music critic who deplored modernism and serialism, and lived alone on an island house with, according to Wikipedia, "his butler and his cats."
Symphony No. 1 is surprisingly like Wilhelm Berger's Symphony No. 1: about 40 minutes long, in B flat, with an epic structure that is mostly pastoral in actual sound. However, Peterson-Berger starts to reveal difference as the music moves along. His heroic tale has movement subtitles like "Between the feuds," and his orchestra is larger, with especially strong parts for trombones and tuba, plus some added percussion. This lends solemn heft to passages about "strife" and the hero's death. The finale ("Toward new beginnings") is more folksy and light, with a glittering conclusion. All in all, it's an entertaining piece.
The suite Last Summer is a half-hour sequence of pretty late-romantic nature pictures, sometimes with rather evocative impressionist scoring (like the piano and harp in the final piece, "Mountain Stream"). It sounds like it could have been written for an early movie. Because of the form, there's not really a narrative - just a sequence of colorful episodes. Peterson-Berger's orchestration is expert. I rather liked it.
Symphony No. 2 begins where the First left off, with a similarly mystical/spiritual feeling to the introduction. The main allegro has a more down-to-earth feeling, and I really like the dancing, tuba-thumping second subject around the 5' mark, which then slips into love-scene-type music. This is a symphony where the colors are so vivid and bold that you can imagine your own program. (My partner likes to imagine a movie in her head when she's at the symphony, and this piece would be good for that.)
The second movement starts with an absolutely delicious "exotic" episode full of pealing horns, clapping tambourine, and (yes) xylophone solos! This portion is structured like one of the big Mahler scherzos, with fundamentally a classical structure, but adding lots of little mini-episodes and bonus bits in between the traditional A-B-A. At three minutes, the main party subject suddenly yields to a slow episode and at 7', a wild new harmony arrives with glockenspiel and bass clarinet. At 10' we get confirmation of the structure when the scherzo returns, this time developed in new directions with new ideas. (I think...my memory isn't that good anymore ;D ) This movement is an absolute epic, and it builds to a sizzling finish that sounds like a cross between Rimsky-Korsakov and Nielsen in the best possible way.
After all that exuberance, it's no surprise that the finale begins slowly and calmly. The peace lasts for only about two minutes, after which Peterson-Berger reprises fast material in a more traditional, conventional romantic language. It's as if he's saying "we're back from the exotic climates now." The symphony ends with a rather questing, slow-but-intimidating tone that sounds rather like a beginning instead of an ending. (It's a quiet ending!) Maybe he's preparing us for Chapter 3 in his symphonic odyssey. Overall, this is a very interesting work I'll return to several more times, one that reminds me somewhat of the big Stenhammar masterpieces, and one that has an interesting structure with all the fun stuff packed into the middle.
After this, the second CD is rounded out with three short works. The Romance is a 12-minute violin and orchestra piece with a similar heroic/mythic tone. The violinist gets to sound bold and extroverted and romantic, and the center of the piece offers some of the tenderness and lyricism you'd expect from the title. Having the great Ulf Wallin around to play this short piece is like having Christopher Walken pop in to read two lines of your movie. Must be nice!
The short pieces that end the CD, an "Oriental Dance" and processional march-like opera prelude with occasional wedding-march feelings, are nice light fluff with glittering orchestration.
The opening gesture of Symphony No. 3 is not promising. It's a very short three-note cell and makes me think "there's going to be a whole symphony about this?" But then the orchestration - including a very prominent piano - starts to pull things in a more mysterious, less predictable direction. I'll be honest - I know for many GMGers No. 3 is their favorite Peterson-Berger symphony, but for about 15 minutes I got distracted working and forgot to take any notes. The symphony does have cyclical elements, as that opening gesture returns in the finale's development, but I did feel like WPB's imagination was more limited here compared to No. 2, in terms of structure, harmony, and orchestration. The quiet ending seems abrupt.
The Earina Suite is a 20-minute romantic chunk that also finds WPB becoming more conservative in his melodies, harmonies, and soundworld. It's pleasant, but instantly forgettable. The Chorale & Fugue is quite nice and short, with the chorale delivered by brass.
I'll resume the cycle with interest in weeks to come (there are five symphonies) - for now, going to change up my listening diet with something baroque.
Peterson-Berger's 2nd is definitely his best effort in the form. I used to love the 3rd, but over the years my admiration has waned. Perhaps it wasn't as good as I initially thought. His 4th and 5th, whilst pleasant and with some good orchestration ideas, belong to a similar level of inspiration as in the 1st, so I don't think you will miss anything remarkable, although since tastes differ so much from person to person, it may happen otherwise, who knows. Ah, and the Violin Concerto is interesting, more so than his symphonies (save the 2nd) IMO.
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Very nice, tasteful Brandenburgs played "straight" on period instruments. Mortensen's players don't try for any speed records, add loads of ornamentation, or try to be too "periodish." They just play 'em right proper. No. 3's "second movement" has just the tiniest harpsichord flourish for a ten-second cadenza. Teunis van der Zwart, who has recorded some of the French horn repertoire with Isabelle Faust and Alexander Melnikov on Harmonia Mundi, makes a cameo appearance in No. 1. Concertos 5 and 6 have just seven and six players, respectively.
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The piano concerto is some of my favorite Emilie Mayer so far. Sunny and optimistic in B flat, with little dramatic contrast, it still holds the listener's attention with the appealing tunes, Schumann-like piano writing, and polished craftsmanship. Tobias Koch's chosen instrument, an 1859 Blüthner, adds extra interest. The period instrument ensemble makes me mentally think backward to the concertos of Chopin and Mozart (she was writing in the mid-1850s), and the booklet notes explain that the classical connection extends to the orchestration, which omits timpani, trumpets, and oboes (!).
On the CD, the half-hour concerto is preceded by four overtures. They are all Schubertian confections of great craft, with melodies I sometimes thought were rather trite, but excellent work within the late classical overture formula. No. 2 uses a triangle, and one of the four, depicting Faust, has a spooky slow introduction and a trombone-supported brass chorale section.
The period instrument ensemble adds some additional color and vibrancy that makes the music sound perhaps more interesting than it would in a modern orchestra. I am not sure any of these works are destined to re-enter the mainstream concert repertoire (except as tokenism), but I'm totally delighted to have them in listening rotation in streaming. I'll have to sit down to the full Mayer symphony cycle (I've only heard the 3/7 disc). The symphonies seem to be in the same rather conservative late classical mold as, say, Krommer or Ries, but I expect nothing but pleasure.
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I was trying to save this for later in my CPO odyssey as a little treat, because I've loved all the Papandopulo orchestral releases so far. But
@Symphonic Addict has been posting such high praise, I couldn't resist any longer!
One minute into String Quartet No. 1: oh gosh, this is so my thing! So folk-influenced, some echoes of Pavel Haas maybe, busy bustling writing and extroverted personality. The two movements that follow are a little more thoughtful and pensive, but not a lot. No. 3 is, as Cesar has written in Boris Papandopulo's thread, very folk-influenced throughout. I'm going to stop there, however, to save myself some more treats for later. The quintets in particular are very enticing. 8)
Quote from: Brian on May 09, 2024, 10:32:27 AM(https://static.qobuz.com/images/covers/3a/bk/cotkkg75mbk3a_600.jpg)
I was trying to save this for later in my CPO odyssey as a little treat, because I've loved all the Papandopulo orchestral releases so far. But @Symphonic Addict has been posting such high praise, I couldn't resist any longer!
One minute into String Quartet No. 1: oh gosh, this is so my thing! So folk-influenced, some echoes of Pavel Haas maybe, busy bustling writing and extroverted personality. The two movements that follow are a little more thoughtful and pensive, but not a lot. No. 3 is, as Cesar has written in Boris Papandopulo's thread, very folk-influenced throughout. I'm going to stop there, however, to save myself some more treats for later. The quintets in particular are very enticing. 8)
Glad you're liking this music as well. The whole set can't fail to deliver extraordinary entertainment.
Quote from: Brian on May 09, 2024, 10:32:27 AM(https://static.qobuz.com/images/covers/ja/bh/pn6sfpp8ybhja_600.jpg)
Very nice, tasteful Brandenburgs played "straight" on period instruments. Mortensen's players don't try for any speed records, add loads of ornamentation, or try to be too "periodish." They just play 'em right proper. No. 3's "second movement" has just the tiniest harpsichord flourish for a ten-second cadenza. Teunis van der Zwart, who has recorded some of the French horn repertoire with Isabelle Faust and Alexander Melnikov on Harmonia Mundi, makes a cameo appearance in No. 1. Concertos 5 and 6 have just seven and six players, respectively.
Seven players in concerto 6. You probably forgot to count Mortensen (at the harpsichord) in.
Oh, indeed, since he was listed for Concerto 5 but not listed for Concerto 6 I did not think about it. But of course there is a very good reason to list him for Concerto 5...
Quote from: Brian on April 24, 2024, 08:36:26 AMThis strikes me as a perfect "average" of a CPO recording: well played, well recorded renditions of music that is forgotten for good reason, but pleasant enough to revisit and play in the background.
The "forgotten 19th or early 20th century romantic music" genre is probably my least favorite. There are a few exceptions. One (according to my reading notes) is the Herzogenberg Symphony No 1, which I compare to Brahms in my notes of a decade ago.
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What I find more interesting in the cpo catalog are the forgotten edgy 20th century composers, such as Frankel.
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Peterson-Berger's backward musical journey continues, as the Symphony No. 4 combines elements of neoclassicism as expressed in the early 20th century with elements of romantic light music (especially in the glittering orchestration) and a certain pre-Wagner Germanic tunefulness. The symphony, in A, has a bright happy demeanor. The three shortish movements (23 minutes total) flow naturally into each other, and the finale really plays up the light music / folk qualities, with tambourine and triangle in the percussion section. The ending is scored like, and melodized like, some sort of national anthem.
Next up is the 21-minute Sleeping Beauty suite. It's lovely mid-romantic incidental music, similar to several of the other suites in this series. The last suite, another 20-minute chunk called Frosoblomster, is even lighter and fluffier, with a smaller orchestra and lesser ambitions.
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The title "Solitudo," and the B minor key, suggest a work of great emotional depth, maybe something like Sibelius 6. But the result, as you might expect by now, is another light, folksy, ear-friendly symphony. Two of the movements are marked "Tranquillo," separated by a wispy "scherzando." The slow movement does create room for an expansive theme with, maybe, a little bit of longing in it. After the first three movements, the finale packs a surprise: glittering orchestration, percussion (including piano and bass drum), big themes, and a folksy Hollywoody language that strongly resembles Kurt Atterberg. The development section has a fun, low tuba solo. It's like Peterson-Berger finally decided to free himself again. There is a soft, quiet, rather lovely ending. It's my favorite individual symphonic movement of his since the huge epic middle movement from No. 2.
The Violin Concerto in F-sharp minor is a 34-minute piece, more than half of which is in the first movement. There is a definite heroic and Nordic quality to the themes of the first movement, not quite as folk-colorful as the violin concertos by Tor Aulin (for example), but also less Bruch-derived than Sinding. The movement ends quietly, leading into an andante. This also leads into the finale, through a crescendo leading to some pounding tutti chords. Then the violinist introduces a finale theme that's a lot more relaxed than you'd expect from the preceding drama. There is some chinoiserie in here, especially around 2' - even what sounds like doubled piano and celesta.
All told, the Violin Concerto may in some ways be one of the most conservative pieces in the Peterson-Berger series, but I ultimately found it one of the most enjoyable. It has more memorable material than many of the suites and incidental works. Still, the composer's overall trajectory is odd to me, from the wild visions of the first two symphonies to the gradually smaller, more domestic lives of the late works.
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Albert Dietrich was a close friend of Brahms, close enough that Brahms traveled to visit him and play music with him. This kinship is clear in the Cello Sonata, which uses a Brahmsian language to map Brahmsian emotional territory: calm/wise serenity, inner doubts and turmoil, wistful melancholy, and ultimately a hard-won joyful finale - not carefree but thankful, you could say.
The short Introduction & Romance is just eight minutes of more late-Brahms-like lyricism and soft melody. I quite like all this cello music; though you could certainly say it's derivative, it derives from the best, and if you wish there was more Brahms chamber music, this should be in your library.
After that, the cello departs the program and we go to two sets of earlier piano works, Op. 6 and Op. 2. They're both collections of Klavierstücke, ten total pieces and a half-hour of listening. These are less memorable, and although you sometimes get a whiff of Brahms or Schumann, more often they are fairly generic. In a pleasant way, but not exactly an unforgettable one.
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It's not just how easily influenced by
@kyjo I am (though that is true!), it's also that I love the super-clean, elegant sound Howard Griffiths always gets from his Swiss orchestra. If the Franz Krommer symphony series sounds like big, beefy, quirky sequels to the final Haydn symphonies, the Franz Danzi series sounds like companions to the first three or four Franz Schubert symphonies. This is a high compliment! They are modest in scope - the longest is just 23 minutes - and absolutely bursting with colorful ideas and late-classical delights. He's learned from Haydn very, very well. Danzi is most famous now for his wind quintet/sextet music, so it is a given that his woodwind writing here is full of character. In other words, I love all of this. There isn't one wasted second.
The advocacy of Griffiths - who prefers a HIP-influenced modern instrument approach with fleet tempi and hard-stick timpani - is exactly what Danzi needs. This is extremely my thing. The only possible demerit is that occasionally I can hear the conductor vocalizing.
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Right up my alley, this collection of Hungarian wind quintets (and one trio). Going roughly chronologically, the two short Sandor Veress works are folk-influenced, with bouncy rhythms and quirky melodies - clearly not too far away from the likes of Kodaly or Bartok. I've recently also enjoyed Veress' music for string trio and need to see how much more is out there. Ligeti's Six Bagatelles are tiny miniatures that are also bubbly, lively, and fun. Then we get to the Ligeti Ten Pieces - more experimental, abstract, and at times pleasantly shrill. Kurtag's Wind Quintet is not dissimilar.
I really enjoy the wind quintet formation in modern music, as - unless they are shrieking - the varied timbres of the wind instruments, compared to strings, can make a wide range of harmonies sound extra-interesting. This is a great example. Nicely programmed (with the most abstract Ligeti right in the middle of the disc) and brilliantly played.
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A very balanced program: 15 minute Piano Concertino, 15 minute Stele In Memoriam Igor Stravinsky, 15 minute piano concerto (left hand only), 10 minute Elegie a la memoire de Darius Milhaud. The concertino is a brisk piece that fits into the mold of neoclassical, influenced by jazz and Stravinsky's rhythmic complexity - in other words, it put me thinking about Roussel. The slow movement is marked "Chopiniano," which I think by itself shows the kind of light-heartedness that Tansman felt while writing the piece.
From that light bit of froth, we jump straight into the contrasting work in memory of Stravinsky. This features two elegiac movements bracketing a central "rhythmic study" that was Tansman's way of showing what he had learned from the master. It's a pretty powerful piece and suitable for its occasion.
The left hand concerto does not bring us back all the way to the world of jazzy joy. It's an interesting mix of tonal late romantic moods, with some lyrical secondary material and a thoughtful slow movement (which is where Tansman puts the cadenza). The finale is a perpetuum mobile that keeps the pianist's hand continuously moving, while the orchestra accompanies with mostly light textures (muted brass, wood blocks, glockenspiel) so that the one hand can be heard clearly.
The Elegie starts with a drum roll - and then goes straight into, not elegiac music, but the stages of grief, with some orchestral wailing and gnashing of teeth. Then Tansman moves into slower, more reflective material, which at times directly quotes Milhaud. This makes me wonder if there were some direct Stravinsky quotes that I missed in Stele. (Too bad Qobuz doesn't have the booklet.)
Pretty interesting and varied disc! Griffiths, as always, is a guarantee of excellent performance standards.
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The two two-pianos concertos only total up to 43 minutes by themselves, so there are a couple bits of filler by Schnittke, a five-minute "Hommage à Grieg" for violin and orchestra and a Polyphonic Tango.
The Martinu piece is a longtime favorite - perhaps overshadowed by the "double concerto" and by the Poulenc two pianos concerto, but well worth a moment in the spotlight.
The Schnittke concerto is, of course, tougher stuff. I don't know if it's 12-tone, exactly, but the main thematic material has a menacing randomness that insinuates itself like a nearing enemy. The pianos solo for the first 90 seconds, followed by an orchestral exposition of 90 seconds, followed by another piano duet. The piece builds to some classic Schnittke outbursts of wild, lashing-out rage and pain, like an angry cyclops. The two pianos play well in this environment, since they can clash, crash, and bash at will. Not my thing, but I "get it" and the performers clearly do too.
The Hommage à Grieg seems totally 'straight', even romantic, until you get the trademark big angry outburst from 3:00-4:00. It's in an ABA format: the A sections sound like Grieg, the B section sounds like Schnittke. The Polyphonic Tango uses a smaller ensemble of instruments collected from all the sections and has a pretty similar structure. Kind of interesting little chips off the block.
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Upthread, I enjoyed Robert Kahn's clarinet trio. Here the focus is two cello sonatas and three collected miniatures, all of then written from about 1902-1912 in a very, very Brahms-inspired mood. The booklet recounts how Kahn spent his youth trying to add himself to the Brahms circle - slowly befriending all the composer's friends until they finally introduced him, then being adopted by Brahms in a father/mentor type relationship.
The Brahms influence is best felt in Kahn's fondness for some of the same chords and harmonic progressions, and particularly his adaptation of the great Brahms habit of closely alternating major and minor keys to create emotional complexity. The thing that's not so complex is Kahn's melodic material: the first movement of No. 1 and the finale of No. 2, especially, are rather simplistic short motifs that are repeated just too many times. But the music is unfailingly attractive if you can handle that repetition, and Kahn only drifts from his idol's musical language once, in the last minute or so of No. 2, when the cello briefly wanders through some more modern harmonic territory.
All in all, it's a very pleasant album but non-essential unless you are a hardcore Brahmsian - in which case it probably is essential. For me, I'm happy to use this as background music for reading a book on a weekend morning, or keeping cozy in winter weather. Thedeen and Triendl are such accomplished musicians that their playing adds to the interest.
Quote from: Symphonic Addict on April 28, 2024, 01:41:20 PMPeterson-Berger's 2nd is definitely his best effort in the form. I used to love the 3rd, but over the years my admiration has waned. Perhaps it wasn't as good as I initially thought. His 4th and 5th, whilst pleasant and with some good orchestration ideas, belong to a similar level of inspiration as in the 1st, so I don't think you will miss anything remarkable, although since tastes differ so much from person to person, it may happen otherwise, who knows. Ah, and the Violin Concerto is interesting, more so than his symphonies (save the 2nd) IMO.
This is one of the rare instances where you and I disagree! ;) I still love the 3rd Symphony, and I doubt I'll ever fail to be entranced by its endearing melodies and glittering orchestration (I'm a sucker for prominent piano parts in orchestral works). It has that same "wintry" magic as Sibelius 6 while, of course, being in a very different style. And as for the compact 4th Symphony, well, it's just sheer delight, as long as you don't expect it be remotely "symphonic" or rigorously developed in the traditional sense. Here, Peterson-Berger exudes an almost Gallic insouciance - I'm thinking of the catchy secondary theme of the first movement which has an almost Poulenc-like mischievous quality. Oh, and the coupling on the disc with the 4th, the incidental music to
Tornrosasagan, is just as delicious, written in a folksy style closer to Grieg and Alfvén.
Quote from: kyjo on June 09, 2024, 06:27:37 AMThis is one of the rare instances where you and I disagree! ;) I still love the 3rd Symphony, and I doubt I'll ever fail to be entranced by its endearing melodies and glittering orchestration (I'm a sucker for prominent piano parts in orchestral works). It has that same "wintry" magic as Sibelius 6 while, of course, being in a very different style. And as for the compact 4th Symphony, well, it's just sheer delight, as long as you don't expect it be remotely "symphonic" or rigorously developed in the traditional sense. Here, Peterson-Berger exudes an almost Gallic insouciance - I'm thinking of the catchy secondary theme of the first movement which has an almost Poulenc-like mischievous quality. Oh, and the coupling on the disc with the 4th, the incidental music to Tornrosasagan, is just as delicious, written in a folksy style closer to Grieg and Alfvén.
Regarding the Symphony No. 3, I do save the first two movements, there the ideas, melodies, orchestration, have a special magic. My issue is with the next two which don't live up to the expectations compared to the previous ones. The last time I revisited the 5th I tried to listen to it carefully and it didn't strike me like particularly remarkable, except for some orchestration ideas. And yes, we can't agree all the time, but that sometimes makes more interesting the discussions.
Quote from: Brian on May 16, 2024, 07:34:22 AM(https://static.qobuz.com/images/covers/29/51/0761203735129_600.jpg)
It's not just how easily influenced by @kyjo I am (though that is true!), it's also that I love the super-clean, elegant sound Howard Griffiths always gets from his Swiss orchestra. If the Franz Krommer symphony series sounds like big, beefy, quirky sequels to the final Haydn symphonies, the Franz Danzi series sounds like companions to the first three or four Franz Schubert symphonies. This is a high compliment! They are modest in scope - the longest is just 23 minutes - and absolutely bursting with colorful ideas and late-classical delights. He's learned from Haydn very, very well. Danzi is most famous now for his wind quintet/sextet music, so it is a given that his woodwind writing here is full of character. In other words, I love all of this. There isn't one wasted second.
The advocacy of Griffiths - who prefers a HIP-influenced modern instrument approach with fleet tempi and hard-stick timpani - is exactly what Danzi needs. This is extremely my thing. The only possible demerit is that occasionally I can hear the conductor vocalizing.
I'm glad you enjoyed those Danzi symphonies as much as I did! Some lesser-known symphonies of this period can sound too much like watered-down Haydn/Mozart/Beethoven, but not so with Danzi's which have lots of personality, colorful orchestration, and sometimes surprising harmonies. Your comparison to Schubert's first four symphonies is quite apt - not only in terms of style, but also in terms of quality. And yes, I'm always a fan of Howard Griffith's approach to this late-classical/early romantic repertoire - it's HIP in the sense of brisk tempi and pointed articulation, but he never discourages his string sections from utilizing vibrato, which is a crucial factor for me. More conductors could take a leaf out of his book! ;)
I'm still hoping that CPO gets around to recording the Malipiero symphonies because they're in desperate need of a modern update. The Naxos recordings (originally issued on Marco Polo) are 'okay', but more passion could be had in these works.
Quote from: Mirror Image on June 10, 2024, 04:45:16 PMI'm still hoping that CPO gets around to recording the Malipiero symphonies because they're in desperate need of a modern update. The Naxos recordings (originally issued on Marco Polo) are 'okay', but more passion could be had in these works.
I fully agree, John. CPO has recorded his piano concerti, plus symphonies by his countrymen Alfano, Casella, and Sgambati, so anything's possible...
Quote from: Brian on June 01, 2024, 12:20:23 PM(https://static.qobuz.com/images/covers/5b/ce/xjmy303oace5b_600.jpg)
Upthread, I enjoyed Robert Kahn's clarinet trio. Here the focus is two cello sonatas and three collected miniatures, all of then written from about 1902-1912 in a very, very Brahms-inspired mood. The booklet recounts how Kahn spent his youth trying to add himself to the Brahms circle - slowly befriending all the composer's friends until they finally introduced him, then being adopted by Brahms in a father/mentor type relationship.
The Brahms influence is best felt in Kahn's fondness for some of the same chords and harmonic progressions, and particularly his adaptation of the great Brahms habit of closely alternating major and minor keys to create emotional complexity. The thing that's not so complex is Kahn's melodic material: the first movement of No. 1 and the finale of No. 2, especially, are rather simplistic short motifs that are repeated just too many times. But the music is unfailingly attractive if you can handle that repetition, and Kahn only drifts from his idol's musical language once, in the last minute or so of No. 2, when the cello briefly wanders through some more modern harmonic territory.
All in all, it's a very pleasant album but non-essential unless you are a hardcore Brahmsian - in which case it probably is essential. For me, I'm happy to use this as background music for reading a book on a weekend morning, or keeping cozy in winter weather. Thedeen and Triendl are such accomplished musicians that their playing adds to the interest.
Agreed, Brian. As I've said before, I generally don't mind when the music of a certain composer resembles that of another more famous composer, and I do think too many lesser-known composers are unfairly accused of being "derivative". That said, Kahn is a composer who, for all his fine craftsmanship, just sounds too much like a less inspired Brahms most of the time for me to fully enjoy his music. Considering he lived all the way until 1951, one would think he would have eventually become more open to other stylistic influences over the course of his career, but it appears that he didn't...
Quote from: kyjo on June 10, 2024, 08:14:10 PMI fully agree, John. CPO has recorded his piano concerti, plus symphonies by his countrymen Alfano, Casella, and Sgambati, so anything's possible...
Yeah, I've got the PC set and it's fantastic. Fingers crossed something happens with the symphonies.
No one asked for it ( ;) ) but here's some of my most cherished CPO releases over the years. It goes without saying that I'm immensely grateful to CPO (amongst other labels) for bringing so much wonderful relatively unknown repertoire to light, and usually in very good performances and sound. I tried to narrow it down as much as possible, but it was quite difficult. They're generally in no particular order, though of course the Atterberg symphony cycle has to come first! Sorry about the varying image sizes:
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Since we're sharing favorite CPO recordings, I might as well play, too. ;)
In no particular order:
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A few favs:
SWR Köln/M.Jurowski's Prokofiev ballets
Cesar Franck's string quartet & piano quintet by the Danel Quartet
The complete Brahms Lieder by Banse/Vermillion/Schmidt/Deutsch
Max Reger - Complete works for violin & piano, complete cello sonatas by Wallin et al
Quote from: Clemens non Papa on June 15, 2024, 09:16:22 AMA few favs:
SWR Köln/M.Jurowski's Prokofiev ballets
Cesar Franck's string quartet & piano quintet by the Danel Quartet
The complete Brahms Lieder by Banse/Vermillion/Schmidt/Deutsch
Max Reger - Complete works for violin & piano, complete cello sonatas by Wallin et al
Welcome to the forum!
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Heinrich Kaminski was a between-wars German composer who was blacklisted by the Nazis for his political beliefs and then again because they found him (truthfully or not) to be one-quarter Jewish. Qobuz didn't upload the booklet of this release, so I don't know the story behind why Kaminski wrote an epic 53-minute piece of symphonic proportion for string orchestra and simply called it Work for String Orchestra.
The first movement starts with a slow introduction that blends into the main allegro by degrees, with frequent tempo changes. It's an interesting movement; I find Kaminski's musical language hard to describe, though. Fundamentally tonal, but not "romantic" in its emotional resonance - maybe like a Germanic, un-folksy Pavel Haas or Bartok. Except that, of course, if you take folk color away from those composers, you're left with very little. I don't quite know a good comparison point.
The slow movement is a long, somewhat spooky nocturne with high violin writing. It doesn't rise to a Mahlerian level of color, let alone Hollywoody scene depictions. But it is a Mood. The scherzo's B material is also a Mood, especially its spooky reprisal near the end of the movement. The finale begins with a vigorous, lengthy fugato, before taking a break for calmer, slower material around 5-9' that slowly breaks down into seemingly unrelated, non-thematic notes, like the music is disintegrating. But the fugato returns, and the music rather surprisingly switches to major key in the last 60 seconds - and then eases down to a calm, quiet ending.
This is a very curious work. It's not exactly "attractive" - there aren't any big tunes or scenes or anything like that. It's not exactly "unattractive" - it's not full of angst or even modernity. It's not epic in emotional content, just in length. Even more so than when I started listening, I wonder very much why it exists, what artistic impulse led Kaminski to make such a major statement in such terms.
Playing and recorded sound are great. I think I'll listen again. This music is mysterious in a very intriguing way. Not sure if it is something you "unlock," or just accept on its unique terms.
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I love how much rare Turkish music is on CPO. This monster violin concerto is 44 minutes long, including an epic 26-minute first movement that really starts with a bang: pounding drums and gongs, sinister angry trombones and tuba. The violin enters after two minutes with the stakes already clear: this will be endurance warfare, soloist against orchestra. After all the tumult and drama, the violin ends this epic movement with a long solo cadenza - and then, without pause, plays the lead-in to the slow movement! There's another long solo cadenza in the finale.
The piece overall actually has something in common with the Kaminski: despite its length, it doesn't have a lot of super-memorable Big Moments (just the beginning and ending) or even a romantic Big Theme. Instead, it's more like the through-composed soundtrack to a wild dream sequence. Consequently, I think I'd have a hard time seeing it live, but thoroughly enjoyed listening to it while preparing lunch. At its best, it has lots of color and a violin part so taxing you have to be in awe of the soloist.
It must be an absolutely exhausting piece to play. This recording is a live one-night concert performance, which you can mostly tell from the acoustic. Cihat Askin's violin sounds smaller than usual for concerto recordings, both because it is recorded accurately to the live concert environment, and because (I assume) Askin has to conserve strength to get through the whole piece without arm muscles failing.
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Herzogenberg was an admirer of Brahms and kind of the epitome of a mid-to-late German romantic reclamation project. (There are at least 14 CPO albums of his music.) I have a physical copy of his CPO double album of chamber music, which is chock full of good music, craftsmanship, and tunes. The orchestral music is new to me, though. The Violin Concerto may not be the best place to start - it's an unpublished work - but Ulf Wallin is an A-lister by CPO standards, and the music is genial A-major sunniness. Contrasting with Akses' modernism, Herzogenberg creates a "hangout concerto," where the violin and orchestra are buddies who relax together, trade tunes, and enjoy each other's company. There is certainly more emotional expression in the minor-key slow movement,
It's hard to think of many great "hangout concertos." (Does Tchaikovsky's Violin Concerto count? Maybe the Saint-Saens Egyptian Concerto? Maaaybe?) As a structure, it's not a formula for lasting memorability. But this one is certainly pleasant enough.
The discmate is a monster-sized 48-minute symphonic poem suite called Odysseus. Depicting, yes, the Odyssey. Heck yeah! Now this I can dig into with enthusiasm. I expect Cyclops and Scylla and sirens and lotus-eating and... (looks at track list)
I. Die Irrfahrten (The Wanderings)
II. Penelope
III. Die Gärten der Circe (Circe's Garden)
IV. Das Gastmahl der Freier (The Banquet of the Suitors)
Oh OK. I'd better calm down. :laugh:
The Wanderings is a 19-minute opener that starts with a slow, moody depiction of turbulent sea waves. At this point, though, I already have to confess that this suite is no Lemminkainen Legends. I didn't take another note until the pleasant woodwind chirping in Circe's Garden. The first two movements were mostly preoccupied with generic minor-key romantic moodiness. Circe's Garden at least has some sunbeams and birds, even though Circe is no heroine. The finale mirrors the finale of Scheherazade, with a glittering fast section followed by the dramatic return of the opening material when Odysseus comes back and finds out what his family has been up to. This is definitely the most straightforwardly colorful, programmatic, episodic movement of the four - and definitely the most fun, too. I was a little surprised by the cheerfulness of the last couple minutes; maybe Odysseus is celebrating his vengeance? Anyway, this is the movement to keep, for sure. But the whole suite left me wondering what would have happened if Berlioz had done an Odysseus symphony - and how much more modern that would have sounded.
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Symphony No. 1 is in C minor and moves from a long, slow, glumly "tragic" introduction to a heroic questing finale full of trombones, but this is no repeat of Brahms 1. The music is shaggier, more lyrical, and honestly more likable. (I'm not a Brahms 1 guy.) What it lacks is really memorable tunes or moments, the kind of thing that, if you listed a bunch of obscure symphonies to me and got to "Herzogenberg's First," I could say, "Oh, yeah, that's the symphony where X happens!" I suppose X = the harmonic adventures of the trio sections in the scherzo, which really wander all over the place. The finale is funny because the Brahmsian origins are painfully obvious, but the movement is less than half the length of the Brahms 1's. It's like getting a little appetizer sample tray. This is probably what
@Spotted Horses's Brahms comparison notes were about.
Symphony No. 2 is in B flat, shorter, even more laid-back, and totally unpretentious. It actually has more in common with someone like Svendsen or Gade. (There's a major first-movement motif that shares a rhythm with the first-movement motif from Dvorak 4.) The slow movement is more like an intermezzo or interlude than a fully developed idea, and isn't especially lyrical. The scherzo's trio is "where something happens": the trumpet declaims a melody that is based on an octave interval. It's quite odd and a little bit bluesy. The finale is expectedly jolly.
This is probably the only recording these works will ever get, so it's nice that the NDR players put in a good effort and Frank Beermann manifestly cares about getting the music right.
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Anders Eliasson's music has a certain anxiety to it, or a nervous edge, that fits our modern world. That doesn't mean it's angsty or angry necessarily, just that it is on edge, restless. In the Double Concerto, this produces exciting results, especially in an all-out 'presto' finale that is led by the piano. The strings at times are almost whirling-dervish-like. This contrasts with the slow movement, which ended with a lengthy violin-only cadenza; the finale also unexpectedly falls into a gentle, sweet, quiet ending. (The three movements are played without pause.) By Eliasson's standards, this is high-spirited music. I could see it appealing to fans of Aho concertos.
The Sinfonia for strings is in grander form, with two 19-minute movements played without break, the first slow, the second fast. There is something restful and reassuring about the way that it begins, but remember the saying about how to boil a frog? Put it in a pot of cold water and raise the temperature gradually. The temperature here rises steadily for almost 15 minutes, before a brief rest in which a cello soloist muses on the material. But even this leads to a bigger, bleaker climax.
The faster second movement is all about repeated rhythmic figures overlaid on slower accompaniments. Eventually these figures begin to compound and multiply; it's a form of organic development that you can hear more clearly than is usually possible. Around 4:30 this starts leading to arresting unisons. There's no relief from the anxiety at this point. (The Allmusic review compares the string writing here to a Shostakovich chamber symphony or even Pettersson. I don't know Pettersson so I'll let somebody else say whether that is true.) It's ten whole minutes before the calming music from the Sinfonia's beginning returns to bring the temperature down. The piece ends on a very uncertain note (literally). Compared to the concerto's high energy and general anxiety, this is a much more intense ride, even though it is generally a slower piece.
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Two-CD set. CD1 is a 44-minute symphony in D minor; CD2 is a 34-minute violin concerto also in D minor and a 9-minute work for French horn and orchestra.
The Violin Concerto is a total miss for me. It starts out sounding like a funeral march; that mood doesn't last, but the deep self-seriousness does. The major-key slow movement has a very tender, loving romance theme for the violin that, unfortunately, sounds just like one of the big tunes from Wagner's Flying Dutchman. You can tell Dietrich really thought he was writing a Big Hit here with this movement, making his bid to join Bruch in the Germanic concerto canon, but it's just not original. The finale, "molto vivace," seems more like "molto moderato" to me, and I wonder if either the performers are not up to it, or they're not inspired by the music to want to try. The French horn solo work, Introduction and Romance, is more atmospheric and scored like a chamber piece at times, although it gets more bloated as it goes along.
I thought much more highly of the Symphony. It is highly motivated, dramatic, and taut, with a bustling Schumann-like opening sonata movement. (The longer version of Schumann's Fourth is this symphony's direct ancestor/inspiration, it sounds like.) Similar to the Violin Concerto, the slow movement foregrounds a "big tune" that is gently inspirational (and perhaps derivative of somebody else, though I can't quite remember what it reminds me of). The slow movement is actually the shortest of the four, setting the stage for a 10-minute scherzo. Schumann comes to mind again here, and Dietrich's great friend, Brahms. Like many romantics, Dietrich is at his least interesting in the finale, but it's not bad, and the ending is a real blaze of energy. It just suffers from the grandiosity he feels is a requirement here.
Given how much I've enjoyed Dietrich's chamber music, this is a real wake-up call. The Symphony is very enjoyable, but the concertos let me down bad.
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Carl Maria von Weber's Bassoon Concerto is on the edge of the repertoire, his Andante e rondo ongarese is on the edge of the edge, but Crusell's Bassoon Concertino is a real rarity. Crusell is more famous for his great clarinet concertos, best had in the recording by Martin Frost on BIS. These staples of the early romantic era are joined by a brand-new (2022) bassoon concerto by Olav Berg (1949-). The story outlined in the booklet is that soloist Dag Jensen called Berg and said he planned to record his first bassoon concerto. Berg said, "I don't like that one anymore, I'll write you a new one," and concocted this entirely new piece in five months specifically for the studio recording sessions. I know small works, encores, and chamber pieces have been written for recordings rather than concert premieres, but wonder how many orchestral works have similar stories...
The early romantic stuff is predictably fluffy and delightful, especially the Hungarian rondo; the performances are thoroughly professional. (Bassoonist Dag Jensen conducts, so you could imagine things being a little brisker at times.) The Olav Berg concerto is a totally different species. It starts with a slow, mysterious bassoon solo over an orchestra that now includes (going by sound here) piano, marimba, and xylophone. Then, in current Nordic fashion, it builds to some big tutti climaxex and gradually fades back out to quiet again.
In a way, the Berg is a good pairing because these particular Weber and Crusell pieces are not marked by a unique individual composer's voice; they're examples of how successful you can be crafting a decent listen in a pre-existing school of composition. And the Berg is like that too. I don't think I could identify an Olav Bergian trait except maybe the interplay of piano and xylophone; instead, his concerto is an example of how you can craft a decent listen in the current post-tonal Nordic style of Kalevi Aho, Fagerlund, Rautavaara, etc. I enjoyed the percussion interjections and the bassoon semi-cadenza backed up by piano. But I'm not sure I'll much remember this in a few weeks.
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The Symphony in D is subtitled "La Chasse" but only the finale has any hunt-like elements, and even then, the horns take the back seat while other instruments imitate horn fanfares. The minuet's trio is scored for winds only (flute, oboe, bassoon, horn). Otherwise, it's not especially interesting, and the performance might be a touch slow.
That's this disc in general, I'm afraid: kinda dull. The "Prima Vera" symphony starts with a very sincere, kind of cute attempt to depict fresh springtime arriving, and a main theme that sounds a little like birds chirping. The finale has cuckoos, too. But this is novelty music from another era. The concerto for two horns has the horns' interesting sonorities and expertly written duets, but not very interesting material, so I just listened because I like horns.
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Roland Furieux (Orlando Furioso) is a delicious blend of Franck's Le Chasseur Maudit with Wagner and Richard Strauss. There's a calm central interlude between the two outer movements, which are wild, violent, colorful, like some composers' depictions of witches, demons, or hell. Apparently there is no evidence of a complete performance before 2019, but this is fun. There's even more doom-laden bass drum whacking in Andromède, though this one has a peaceful, quiet ending.
Irlande and Pologne are 10-14 minute tone poems expressing Holmès' support for the oppressed people of those countries. They have folk tune elements and a variety of episodes, some rather violent. Think of them like Irish and Polish versions of Šarka from Ma Vlast. They're reasonably entertaining though the ending of Pologne in particular is cheesy with its "inspirational" melody, drumrolls, and harp glissandi.
The final piece is Ludus per patria, a five-minute aria with a very operatic main melody in the cellos. It's a sentimental, derivative, but utterly wonderful little piece. Indeed, the whole collection could be accused of sentimentality and copycatism (of people like Wagner and Strauss especially), but it has a lot of fun moments, and I think Roland Furieux would get a long round of applause in concert.
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I know the Fairy Tale pretty well from Supraphon and Naxos recordings, but Praga not so much. It's an absolute treat, based on some of the patriotic Czech tunes familiar from Dvorak's Hussite Overture or Smetana's Tabor and Blanik, orchestrated to Josef Suk's late romantic hilt. The piece is practically monothematic, but tremendously varied and fun, with a ridiculous excessive ending.
The Fairy Tale performance is pretty good too, but the whole CD could benefit from better sound - the violin solos in Fairy Tale are a little glassy, and the climaxes in Praga occasionally "blow out" and exceed the microphones' ability to capture them. This is a pretty early (1987-88!) CPO disc. For the Fairy Tale, I think I'd recommend the Falletta Naxos recording first?
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Symphony No. 1 is an odd early piece that combines some modern harmonies with a neoclassical form and the occasional romantic melody. It is constantly unpredictable, never more so than the actually fast "slow movement." The scherzo is a straightforward folksy delight and by far the easiest part to process on first listen, and the finale follows up with a tremendous amount of energy. This is a restless piece that doesn't slow down; it is also mostly in optimistic major keys but without being especially cheery. There's a Shostakovich Fifth "mandatory fun" type feel to the excessive ending, with its pounding bass drum and gleaming piccolo.
In the Polish Overture, the folk element is largely rhythmic, with fragmented hints of a chorale-like melody that resembles the one in the finale of Lutoslawski's Concerto for Orchestra. There's another moment that reminds me of that piece later; it's an abstract but very colorful and stomp-y piece. The Partita is much more introspective, at least in two of its four movements. (The finale, again, is a romp.) There are lots of interesting colors and textures here, my favorite actually being the bass accompaniment at the very beginning. 'In una parte' is a 7-minute piece in the modern late Bacewicz style that centers a lot of its attention on one pitch and has plenty of percussive smacking.
Aside from the symphony, the other big work is a 21-minute Concerto for Orchestra. This is the mature, modern, spooky Bacewicz whose music is full of jump-scares and haunted scenes. The virtuosity required of the orchestral musicians is extreme, and should be thrilling even if you find the musical language tough.
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The String Quartet is an Op. 1 and a pretty generic piece. The quintet is in three movements, with a big central theme and variations, a structure that I like. It's a little more Nordic, very sunny and pastoral, and a good deal more charming than the quartet. I can definitely imagine returning to this piece while reading a nice book. Henning Kraggerud, who is now a violin solo star, takes up second viola here.
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Totally harmless early romantic music in the mold of teenage Schubert or the Mendelssohn string symphonies. The Symphony is in D minor, and the four overtures - all abstract pieces, not for specific theatrical works - are cheery. Two of the four overtures both appear to quote the first-movement coda climax of Beethoven's Second Symphony at their final own climaxes. Repusic gets the strings to play with HIP vibrato in the symphony.
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Paul Büttner was a Brahmsian romantic who started working around 1895, withdrew from public life in 1933 because he was a leftist and his wife was a Jew, and died in 1943, with his music suppressed entirely by the Nazis. His wife, 16 years younger than he was and a local politician, faked poisoning and, during her "recovery," hid away so well that she survived the war inside Germany and lived on until the 1960s.
The works are resolutely conservative. The Heroic Overture in C (1925) is an epic 15 minutes, with tuba, triangle, and resolutely 19th-century themes and contrapuntal development. It's extremely pleasant to listen to, but it is Heroic in a way that evokes Schubert and Bruch rather than, say, Nielsen. Absolutely wild to think that this was premiered after the Glagolitic Mass, Les noces, and Les biches.
And that's the latest work on the program! The Prelude, and Fugue, and Epilogue "A Vision" was written in 1922; the prelude is 8 minutes, the fugue 9, the epilogue 4. The booklet claims this is a response to the violence of the Great War. The prelude has a joyous military band episode midway through with glowing brass, snare drum, and glockenspiel. Then minor key arrives and the fugue whirls into chaos, yielding to a slow cello and viola lament which is definitely not a fugue. The epilogue is a healing peaceful major key. Basically, if it is inspired by the war, it is an extremely superficial, feeble response with the bare minimum of expression, as if he was composing about a particularly bad digestive episode.
Finally, we rewind all the way to 1902 for the sunny Symphony No. 2 in G. This was written before Büttner's big breakthrough (No. 3), and thus was written purely for his own private enjoyment. It feels its youth: fresher, less pretentious, more easygoing.
There's no slow movement; instead a nearly 11-minute scherzo takes the central place in the piece. The finale is the largest of the three sections, somewhat frivolous but winsome. The Symphony is not a masterpiece by any means, but it is at least the most vibrant and charming of the three works.
The booklet note is rather shocking in its praise for Buttner, clearly trying to reclaim him as a forgotten genius. At one point, the author writes out a list of 39 other composers who were also important to "Kapellmeistermusik" in one preposterously long sentence. It's very silly and not CPO's best booklet. The audio is also not perfect: sometimes the brass causes a pop or crackle sound that is not made by the instruments. The trombones in the symphony sound especially bad.
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What a delight to learn that there is a third Sextet for violin, viola, cello, French horn, clarinet, and piano, to go with the two by Dohnanyi and Penderecki! I love this eccentric instrumentation dearly.
Richard Rössler, Roessler, Rößler, or Roeßler - even he and his own children spelled it differently on different occasions! - was a Brahmsian German romantic who spent most of his career as a teacher. The booklet notes here are better than for Büttner, but still include one sentence that lists out 22 of his students; the only two I've heard of are Ferdinand Leitner and Kurt Weill. The Sextet is from 1906 and the Piano Quintet about a decade later.
The Sextet is much more serious and rigorous than Dohnanyi's; it begins with an extended passacaglia in which every instrument weaves a different line over the piano base. In later episodes, Rössler manages to outdo the Brahms influence that is also present in the Dohnanyi work. Ultimately, what's missing compared to Dohnanyi is personality - witness the latter's finale, with his genuine humor and Viennese parodies. Rössler, by contrast, can only relax in his finale to "genial" and "major-key fugue". The very ending is rather triumphant.
The Piano Quintet has a giant (16-minute) first movement and no true slow movement. The second movement, "con moto," reminds me very much of the "un poco allegretto" movement from Brahms' String Quintet No. 2. The piano rests for the first 1:50 in the "poco allegro" third movement, which is somewhat of a scherzo-variation hybrid. The finale is, like the Sextet, triumphant and muscular.
The performances are as good as you'd expect from this relatively star-studded disc. Ultimately, the music is for diehard Brahmsians.
Great posts, Brian !
For my part my first exposure to CPO's sense of enterprise was through the Pettersson symphonies (not the box, it was one purchase at a time).
Names like Graener, Boehe, Raphael, Woyrsch, Wetzler, Goetz meant nothing to me before I discovered their music on CPO. All of the above are grade A composers. Fame may be lacking, but not quality !
Quote from: Brian on December 04, 2024, 11:01:31 AM(https://static.qobuz.com/images/covers/4b/kf/bt0mpym2ekf4b_600.jpg)
Totally harmless early romantic music in the mold of teenage Schubert or the Mendelssohn string symphonies. The Symphony is in D minor, and the four overtures - all abstract pieces, not for specific theatrical works - are cheery. Two of the four overtures both appear to quote the first-movement coda climax of Beethoven's Second Symphony at their final own climaxes. Repusic gets the strings to play with HIP vibrato in the symphony.
(https://static.qobuz.com/images/covers/fa/82/hf01cyw0j82fa_600.jpg)
Paul Büttner was a Brahmsian romantic who started working around 1895, withdrew from public life in 1933 because he was a leftist and his wife was a Jew, and died in 1943, with his music suppressed entirely by the Nazis. His wife, 16 years younger than he was and a local politician, faked poisoning and, during her "recovery," hid away so well that she survived the war inside Germany and lived on until the 1960s.
The works are resolutely conservative. The Heroic Overture in C (1925) is an epic 15 minutes, with tuba, triangle, and resolutely 19th-century themes and contrapuntal development. It's extremely pleasant to listen to, but it is Heroic in a way that evokes Schubert and Bruch rather than, say, Nielsen. Absolutely wild to think that this was premiered after the Glagolitic Mass, Les noces, and Les biches.
And that's the latest work on the program! The Prelude, and Fugue, and Epilogue "A Vision" was written in 1922; the prelude is 8 minutes, the fugue 9, the epilogue 4. The booklet claims this is a response to the violence of the Great War. The prelude has a joyous military band episode midway through with glowing brass, snare drum, and glockenspiel. Then minor key arrives and the fugue whirls into chaos, yielding to a slow cello and viola lament which is definitely not a fugue. The epilogue is a healing peaceful major key. Basically, if it is inspired by the war, it is an extremely superficial, feeble response with the bare minimum of expression, as if he was composing about a particularly bad digestive episode.
Finally, we rewind all the way to 1902 for the sunny Symphony No. 2 in G. This was written before Büttner's big breakthrough (No. 3), and thus was written purely for his own private enjoyment. It feels its youth: fresher, less pretentious, more easygoing.
There's no slow movement; instead a nearly 11-minute scherzo takes the central place in the piece. The finale is the largest of the three sections, somewhat frivolous but winsome. The Symphony is not a masterpiece by any means, but it is at least the most vibrant and charming of the three works.
The booklet note is rather shocking in its praise for Buttner, clearly trying to reclaim him as a forgotten genius. At one point, the author writes out a list of 39 other composers who were also important to "Kapellmeistermusik" in one preposterously long sentence. It's very silly and not CPO's best booklet. The audio is also not perfect: sometimes the brass causes a pop or crackle sound that is not made by the instruments. The trombones in the symphony sound especially bad.
(https://static.qobuz.com/images/covers/8b/od/r2kjwzllvod8b_600.jpg)
What a delight to learn that there is a third Sextet for violin, viola, cello, French horn, clarinet, and piano, to go with the two by Dohnanyi and Penderecki! I love this eccentric instrumentation dearly.
Richard Rössler, Roessler, Rößler, or Roeßler - even he and his own children spelled it differently on different occasions! - was a Brahmsian German romantic who spent most of his career as a teacher. The booklet notes here are better than for Büttner, but still include one sentence that lists out 22 of his students; the only two I've heard of are Ferdinand Leitner and Kurt Weill. The Sextet is from 1906 and the Piano Quintet about a decade later.
The Sextet is much more serious and rigorous than Dohnanyi's; it begins with an extended passacaglia in which every instrument weaves a different line over the piano base. In later episodes, Rössler manages to outdo the Brahms influence that is also present in the Dohnanyi work. Ultimately, what's missing compared to Dohnanyi is personality - witness the latter's finale, with his genuine humor and Viennese parodies. Rössler, by contrast, can only relax in his finale to "genial" and "major-key fugue". The very ending is rather triumphant.
The Piano Quintet has a giant (16-minute) first movement and no true slow movement. The second movement, "con moto," reminds me very much of the "un poco allegretto" movement from Brahms' String Quintet No. 2. The piano rests for the first 1:50 in the "poco allegro" third movement, which is somewhat of a scherzo-variation hybrid. The finale is, like the Sextet, triumphant and muscular.
The performances are as good as you'd expect from this relatively star-studded disc. Ultimately, the music is for diehard Brahmsians.
Re
WilmsI liked the two CDs of piano concertos Brautigam recorded for BIS.
Re
RößlerÖ=OE
ß=SS
Those were all the same spelling, only differenced by the changing conventions of German orthography. The most current one is probably Rössler.
Just stumbled onto this thread. Great posts. I'm a big CPO fan. Gurn used to host a thread for discussing lesser known composers from the (strictly defined) classical era, much of which was on CPO. I had initially thought that was their niche, but of course I was wrong, and they are much broader.
It's interesting how well the design of these CPO products work. No pictures of composers or performers, just well-chosen art (with, obviously, no rights issues attached).
Lookswise I'd pick CPO over any other brand.
Quote from: Herman on December 28, 2024, 12:03:25 AMIt's interesting how well the design of these CPO products work. No pictures of composers or performers, just well-chosen art (with, obviously, no rights issues attached).
Lookswise I'd pick CPO over any other brand.
And that classiness seems to run through-and-through. They really do a good job with everything they do, whatever the genre. I acquired a big set of CPO stuff digitally, literally randomly. I've never played anything from the label that I'd consider a klunker. Right now playing
(https://m.media-amazon.com/images/I/81Elt5NgPjL._SX425_.jpg)
never heard of the composer, soloist, even the orchestra. And it's freaking good (well, the Piano Concerto; haven't gotten to the second half yet).
Quote from: Mookalafalas on January 24, 2025, 03:54:51 PMAnd that classiness seems to run through-and-through. They really do a good job with everything they do, whatever the genre. I acquired a big set of CPO stuff digitally, literally randomly. I've never played anything from the label that I'd consider a klunker. Right now playing
(https://m.media-amazon.com/images/I/81Elt5NgPjL._SX425_.jpg)
never heard of the composer, soloist, even the orchestra. And it's freaking good (well, the Piano Concerto; haven't gotten to the second half yet).
only german
http://www.gordonsherwood.de/
Quote from: Mookalafalas on January 24, 2025, 03:54:51 PMAnd that classiness seems to run through-and-through. They really do a good job with everything they do, whatever the genre. I acquired a big set of CPO stuff digitally, literally randomly. I've never played anything from the label that I'd consider a klunker. Right now playing
(https://m.media-amazon.com/images/I/81Elt5NgPjL._SX425_.jpg)
never heard of the composer, soloist, even the orchestra. And it's freaking good (well, the Piano Concerto; haven't gotten to the second half yet).
Thank you for this.
Quote from: foxandpeng on January 25, 2025, 02:43:26 PMThank you for this.
You're welcome? ;)
And the rest of the disk
was terrific.
(https://static.qobuz.com/images/covers/1a/j4/dzdiqb0cej41a_600.jpg)
This unusually-named composer was a mainstay of Amsterdam musical life during his lifespan (1801-1857). He was eulogized as being an especially nice, helpful, friendly coworker and colleague, and was apparently best known in the music business as a good dude. But the Overture in B minor certainly suggests some interesting talent; it starts with a very mysterious hushed atmosphere and harmonically adventurous oboe solo, before a dramatic allegro.
The Violin Concerto, just 15 minutes, is a more conventional piece and harkens back to classical size and structure. You can't say that of the 22-minute "Fantasy in Form of a Symphony," with five short movements, starting with an adagio introduction that features a very long, classicized flute solo. Van Bree seems to be making it up as he goes along, including an excursion into chorale-like melodies in the central Andante, which has a very strong Mendelssohn Reformation type atmosphere with its solemn trombones. Even the scherzo is rather solemn and tame.
Overall, I'd say the two overtures are rewarding for fans of young Schubert, Mendelssohn, Kalliwoda, etc., while the two bigger works are more tame. Not essential, and the rather poor string playing at times is also a factor.
(https://static.qobuz.com/images/covers/ra/kz/ytyfcisijkzra_600.jpg)
Victor Ewald was a native of St. Petersburg who, like many Russian composers, had a day job. He was a civil engineer who apparently made major contributions to the cement industry. He also played in a string quartet for many years as a hobby, and composed four brass quintets, one of them not performed here because, as his very first one, he got feedback that it was unplayable and rewrote it for string quartet.
These are certainly very fun. They have a certain bright pop-ness to them that befits the instrumentation; the booklet even mentions Rossini. Some of the tunes are very catchy (try the start of track 2). No. 3 is the most substantial (20 minutes) and, in D flat with a rather heroic opening tune, has a Glazunov-like feel. Gomalan Brass based their instrumentation (cornets, not trumpets) on a photo of Ewald's group performing. Absolutely delightful light stuff.
Alexander Tcherepnin was a more adventurous sort, as fans of his piano concertos will know. His contribution here is a 10-minute quintet in five very short movements. The harmonies are much more modern, the trumpets (not cornets) more blaring, and the musical forms more fragmented. It's very nice and very fun; the effect is like eating a salty, crunchy snack after a creamy dessert.
(https://static.qobuz.com/images/covers/2a/cf/wak7rckt6cf2a_600.jpg)
Having listened to a "Fantasy in Form of a Symphony," it was only natural to turn to a "Symphonic Tonework in the Style of an Overture." Maybe I should call this post an Internet Word Collection in the Style of a GMG Post. ;D
This is a little Winterthur party, since Rauchenecker was the hometown composer in the late 1800s and helped found the orchestra. He was apparently also an ardent Wagnerian. The Symphonic Tonework in the Style of an Overture, or STITSOAO for short ;D , actually strongly reminds me of another Wagner-influenced composer of basically conservative, happy demeanor: Smetana. There's a repeated string figure that is copied directly from the swirling waters of the Moldau. (Smetana wrote his piece in 1875, Rauchenecker in 1880, and the copying is unmistakeable and undeniable.) Since I like Smetana so much, it follows that I like this work as well.
Then we move back to 1875 for a somewhat starchy, old-fashioned Romantic Symphony, in F minor, with all the trimmings (stormy first movement, calming adagio, rollicking minor-key scherzo, triumphant ending). I like that the second tune of the first movement is a horn call, and the melodic material is generally good. But it is remarkable to think just how much more advanced Dvorak was in this year, with his Symphony No. 5, putting out something with so much more personality and invention, both in color and structure.
The final work on the disc is an Oriental Fantasy for solo violin with backing string quartet. This is actually the earliest of the three works, despite being the most unusual in form. Not to worry, though: there is absolutely nothing Oriental about it. No eastern melodies, no unusual harmonies, it's just a lovely violin showpiece in the manner of the Bruch romances. There seems to be a double bass at times, but the bassist is not credited.
A rather charming CD, though the two shorter works are a clear step above the symphony.
Let's petition for Kauffman's second album
Quote from: Roy Bland on March 08, 2025, 07:45:47 PMLet's petition for Kauffman's second album
made
https://chng.it/cgsLFZhZrd
(https://static.qobuz.com/images/covers/hc/5s/mqh79ht5c5shc_600.jpg)
Three piano tries, each about a half-hour, plus another half-hour suite of works for cello and piano. Sinding is well-ish-known for his violin concerto and symphonies, as a Nordic composer who was more in touch with continental romanticism than counterparts like Grieg, and therefore somewhat less distinctive. These piano trios continue that pattern. They're unfailingly genial, well-written, melodious, and fit into a Brahmsian model. Pleasant listening. Not memorable, but pleasant. The cello suite is similar, though much less Brahmsy in sound.
I say this about a lot of CPO releases, but I have a fantasy of some day having a beautiful home library room with dark wood built-in shelves, one of those ladders on a track, and a table with a bottle of whiskey available at all times. And if that day ever came, I could imagine putting this on in the background while reading or reorganizing.
(https://static.qobuz.com/images/covers/db/se/n6irsiq36sedb_600.jpg)
Oscar Straus made his name in 1905 with an operetta parody of Wagner (!) called the Merry Nibelungs (!). He had always wanted to write light music and traveled to Paris as a youngster to study with Delibes. Unfortunately he arrived just days after Delibes had died, so he instead became a student of...Max Bruch...who passionately opposed light music and threatened to denounce Straus if he ever wrote an operetta. Things didn't go well. ;D
But this concerto appears to date from the Bruch years, and therefore is more serious. The main theme, in B minor with a single obsessively repeated note in funeral-march-like rhythm, announces the work as Serious Stuff. But it proves frothier, in part because the piano jumps in right away, without an orchestral tutti. The second movement is a short intermezzo with light operatic charm, and the finale comes around to the major key, with a few passages that remind me of the Saint-Saens concertos. The ending, with a grand theme stated by the horns over piano accompaniment, is very grandiose indeed. Although it is not an especially memorable work - Straus had yet to develop the melodic ear required for light opera - the shape is right and the music entertains.
The Serenade for string orchestra also started as an attempt to please Bruch (with a requiem!) before turning into a light 20-minute diversion complete with a delicious half-pizzicato waltz and a march finale. I guess the somewhat robust first movement in G minor must be the last lingering remnant of possible requiem material? The rest of the serenade is not quite as light as Robert Fuchs (let alone someone like Dag Wiren), but certainly nowhere near as "deep" as Tchaikovsky or Elgar. Parts of it are a little stiff and gray.
The Reigen waltz from 1950 starts off (its first six notes) like Berlioz' "ballet des sylphes," but goes in a more Viennese direction. A harmless cream puff which, in true Viennese tradition, includes some violin solos. The "Princess of Tragant" waltz sequence is much better, a glittering full-on Straussian (with the extra S) extravaganza and the best piece on the CD.
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The booklet says Gustav Jenner was the only young composer who was invited by Brahms to travel to Vienna and study with him, contrasting with the several other young composers who traveled to Vienna in order to ingratiate themselves with Brahms and ask for lessons.
The first track does not bode well, starting with a rather trite, simplistic theme. Although the subsequent works are less objectionably cheesy, none of them is memorable, except maybe Stimmung No. 3, a 60-second imitation of a music box playing a melody. Overall, I struggled to finish the CD.
(https://static.qobuz.com/images/covers/4b/0f/hd2yfd8pq0f4b_600.jpg)
Hans Eklund was a student of Lars-Erik Larsson in the 1950s, about the same time as Bo Linde, and although he claimed to be more traditionalist than some of the other young Swedish composers of the era, he also wrote a piece for the Darmstadt festival. These three symphonies are technically "tonal," for whatever that word means, but they are often gnarly, violent, dark, and unpredictable. They almost never match their subtitles.
No. 3, "Sinfonia rustica," was written in a holiday cabin on the island of Gotland, but it takes a violent view of the Baltic landscape, depicting things like boulders, cliffs, and winds. The opening gesture is striking and bleakly oppressive. Only a folk tune in the tiny second movement offers some relief from the percussive tempest. The symphony as a whole is less than 14 minutes long.
No. 5, "Quadri" ("Pictures"), was written in the 1970s based on war paintings. It's 19 minutes of foreboding, fear, and intensity. I found it much more interesting and better sustained than No. 3, in part because Eklund develops longer, more substantive melodic material rather than a motto motif. The finale has lots of martial percussion (snare drum, timpani, triangle, and cymbals all crashing away) and sounds not unlike Shostakovich 7 or 11, or certain parts of Nielsen 5. It fades to a quiet ending. Pretty impressive.
No. 11, "Sinfonia piccola," is also a misleading subtitle, since it is the longest of the three at 27 minutes. It has been recorded twice, once in the presence of the composer and once for this CD, but never played live in concert, which has to be some sort of recording:performance ratio record. The booklet says this symphony is lighter than the earlier two, but that does not mean it is "light" at all.
It starts off very tentatively, both in mood (alternating major and minor) and in material (lots of repeated notes). Again I hear a little bit of Nielsen 5 as some of this more tentative moodiness is interrupted by a snare drum and piercing trombone/tuba motifs. But the music is unsettled and can't find a home, ranging across drum rolls and sudden outbursts.
The second movement is "quasi una marcia" and picks up some of the military character and percussion we heard in No. 5. The finale is a slow adagio, with some intrusions from the previous prickly mood and a good deal more of the mysterious unsettlement of the opening.
Very well played and recorded, this is a Grim Nordic disc that appears to have already found a considerable following among the GMG Grim Music Guys ;D
Most of the recordings posted in this thread I have, bought automatically all CPO releases that were in my range, and about 10 % not. Keep the good work going chaps, your doing well! Ohh, yes I do not always agree with the assessment of the music, but it's good you all are getting involved! Cheerio.
(https://static.qobuz.com/images/covers/ea/zc/hun4qnq05zcea_600.jpg) (https://static.qobuz.com/images/covers/ea/iv/hhsb8kc63ivea_600.jpg)
Karl Goldmark was not much of a symphonist, CPO says, but he loved symphonic poems and overtures. This series brings together three overtures, two vorspiels, two scherzos, and a handful of tone poems.
The legend of Sakuntala was apparently well-known at the time, but the verbose booklet, full of digressions, does not really explain it. What I hear is very pleasant, sweet, mostly slow romantic music that finally rises to a minor-key climax before suddenly cutting off at about 7:45. Here are almost ten full seconds of silence; I thought Qobuz was frozen. Then we get a much abbreviated recap of the slow introduction that moves to the faster music more quickly than before. This is followed by a very full recap of the very long intro. Overall, it's a very appealing sounding work, but the repetition of the second half is quite a lot since the exposition itself is so long. Very charming background listening, but would be challenging to tolerate in concert.
As an aside, I just learned that the USA premiere of the original Bengali play Sakuntala (not the German version) was staged right here in Dallas in 2024.
Penthesilea, by contrast, begins in a festive mood with stately faster music for full orchestra. This is the appealing people-pleaser that we know from the Rustic Wedding Symphony. Eventually this yields to what sounds like a long love scene with romantic string melodies. The music fades to a quiet and seemingly tragic ending.
Of Sappho I know to expect romance aplenty. It starts with a strumming harp serenade, gradually accompanied by wind solos. Then there are a variety of minor- and major-key episodes. Like the two earlier pieces, I couldn't really tell you how this works structurally and would benefit from knowing the story, but it is appealing music all the way through.
Two scherzos round out Vol. 1. The one in A has an introduction, which is unusual. They're both charming enough.
Almost all the tone poems on Vol. 2 are shorter and less self-consciously "epic" than Sappho, Penthesilea, and Sakuntala. The exceptions are Zrinyi and Aus Jugendtagen, which are like them in being pleasant, episodic, and meandering. Zrinyi builds to a pretty big, martial ending, while the other starts with a grandiose processional march.
Im Frühling is a 10-minute work of soft cheeriness; this is a more lackadaisical springtime than Schumann's. In Italien is bouncy and joyful, with raucous percussion and one surprising moment at 3' featuring some muted horns playing a "wrong" note. Apparently he had a very nice holiday. (Actually, there is no evidence that he had a holiday; it was written for a play.) Ein Wintermärchen is an attempt at tragedy, and Götz von Berlichingen is a nice little overture that is almost Wagnerian in its orchestral firepower, including an energetic tuba part, like a thrift shop version of the Meistersinger overture.
TLDR: CPO's booklet notes tell of a time when Goldmark alerted a newspaper that he would be writing a new piece, and that it would be full of pleasant sounds to make people happy. Couple that sentiment with his episodic, chaotic structures, and you have a sense of the ADD pleasantries of these discs. I think there are many more compelling romantic tone poem composers out there.
(https://static.qobuz.com/images/covers/23/34/0761203723423_600.jpg)
These three concertos date from 1893, 1909, and 1928. They're presented on the disc in reverse order because the two later works are of smaller size and in one movement each, though that movement is divided up into a number of sections. In his earlier years Rontgen was inspired by working with his cousin, Julius Klengel; in later years it was a partnership with Casals that fueled the concertos and helped him write 11 (!) cello sonatas.
No. 3 could have been written 50 years earlier than its 1920s date except for the interesting use of celesta at times. It's a lyrical minor-key super-romantic piece of modest ambition/scope. There's a short cadenza before an even shorter major-key ending. A pleasant trifle.
No. 2 follows a similar trajectory, but makes room in its slightly longer duration for a couple of new features: a solo cadenza that begins the piece (before the orchestra plays a note), and an Irish folk song section. There are marginally better tunes in this one even before the Irish song, which is wonderfully orchestrated in a series of variations. Formally this 19-minute piece is rather chaotic, it is more of a free fantasia or even a tone poem, but extremely enjoyable.
No. 1 starts...again...with a cello melody in minor key, this time accompanied by stabbing string chords from the orchestra. It's a somewhat long-winded, "wordy" main tune, but the whole piece is built around the cello's long lyrical role. The soloist plays almost every single minute. Though there are three movements, there's a flow between them.
Although all of these are individually enjoyable, they're also similar enough that sitting down to them at one listen becomes a somewhat repetitive experience. Gregor Horsch, the superb soloist, is first cello in the Concertgebouw. I'd like to see No. 2 pop up in a "mixed recital" CD of concertos by varied composers. Say, Saint-Saens 1, then Rontgen 2, then ...Victor Herbert 2? And Kol Nidrei? That's a CD length of the major "non-Dvorak" romantic cello works. I'd like that program.
(https://static.qobuz.com/images/covers/xa/sr/ocpywnx2rsrxa_600.jpg)
Theodore Dubois treats his material with surprising casualness in the Violin Concerto's first movement. The orchestral introduction begins with a tiny 15-second slow intro that doesn't contribute anything and should have been cut. The rest of the allegro is more conventional; I like the violin's casual tossing-off of some downward scales near the end.
The Adagio is absolutely lovely, first-class stuff. There's a slightly eastern European character to the opening motif of the finale, and the triangle adds to the dance character. Soloist Ingolf Turban seems to be having more fun, as well. Although I wasn't sold on the first movement, the next two are really lovely, and I might give this concerto a few more listens to see if it improves with familiarity.
The 24-minute violin sonata in begins with a very interesting main theme, one that carries a threatening menace about it despite the A major key. It reminds me a little of the ambiguities of the Franck sonata. The second subject is more peaceable and tender. I like the way that the strange main theme spikes the otherwise very pleasant first movement with an unusual tang. The recapitulation also smartly incorporates additional development.
Actually, as I hear the soulful slow movement head towards its climax, I start to think this really would be a worthy accompaniment to the Franck sonata on a recital program or disc. "The Sonata seems governed by a fear of Wagner as an ideology," the booklet says, but there is a mystical depth at its best moments. There's even some minor-league fire in the finale. This is an unpredictable, wholly engaging sonata and my favorite Dubois so far. The 6-minute Ballade is even more unpredictable and fiery, almost a precursor to Tzigane.
Especially for the chamber music, I found this album an unexpected hit!
(https://static.qobuz.com/images/covers/oc/bq/vp2jjd5tvbqoc_600.jpg)
Hans Gal might now be best known for orchestrating a few of Brahms' Hungarian Dances, but conductors like Kenneth Woods have been reviving this Viennese late romantic for some time. He lived until age 97. This disc handily assembles several works for chamber orchestra.
The Serenade for Strings is a light 13 minutes but does not have much character. By contrast, the chirping woodwinds at the start of the Divertimento immediately offer more tunes and more harmonic spice. It's a real pleasure all the way through, and an especially impressive find for a world premiere recording.
The Violin Concertino in one 17-minute movement is a serious, engaging listen with a long solo cadenza right in the center - and then another at the end. (The very ending is a satisfying flourish.) The latest work on the album is the 1957 Music for String Orchestra, in which Gal continues to show his loyalty to more traditional ways of composing. It's not exactly antiquated, and there are some modern edges, but those edges are not nearly as sharp as in Bartok's Divertimento, for example. The mysterious theme of the central variation movement is especially engaging.
The Serenade may be a throwaway but the other three works on this disc are truly rewarding.
Quote from: Brian on March 11, 2025, 07:45:56 AMa Grim Nordic disc that appears to have already found a considerable following among the GMG Grim Music Guys ;D
Hah! You really have a knack for such things, first the-gloom-and-doom-brigade, now this! Brilliant. ;D
Quote from: Brian on March 19, 2025, 06:53:42 AM(https://static.qobuz.com/images/covers/ea/zc/hun4qnq05zcea_600.jpg) (https://static.qobuz.com/images/covers/ea/iv/hhsb8kc63ivea_600.jpg)
Karl Goldmark was not much of a symphonist, CPO says, but he loved symphonic poems and overtures. This series brings together three overtures, two vorspiels, two scherzos, and a handful of tone poems.
The legend of Sakuntala was apparently well-known at the time, but the verbose booklet, full of digressions, does not really explain it. What I hear is very pleasant, sweet, mostly slow romantic music that finally rises to a minor-key climax before suddenly cutting off at about 7:45. Here are almost ten full seconds of silence; I thought Qobuz was frozen. Then we get a much abbreviated recap of the slow introduction that moves to the faster music more quickly than before. This is followed by a very full recap of the very long intro. Overall, it's a very appealing sounding work, but the repetition of the second half is quite a lot since the exposition itself is so long. Very charming background listening, but would be challenging to tolerate in concert.
As an aside, I just learned that the USA premiere of the original Bengali play Sakuntala (not the German version) was staged right here in Dallas in 2024.
Penthesilea, by contrast, begins in a festive mood with stately faster music for full orchestra. This is the appealing people-pleaser that we know from the Rustic Wedding Symphony. Eventually this yields to what sounds like a long love scene with romantic string melodies. The music fades to a quiet and seemingly tragic ending.
Of Sappho I know to expect romance aplenty. It starts with a strumming harp serenade, gradually accompanied by wind solos. Then there are a variety of minor- and major-key episodes. Like the two earlier pieces, I couldn't really tell you how this works structurally and would benefit from knowing the story, but it is appealing music all the way through.
Two scherzos round out Vol. 1. The one in A has an introduction, which is unusual. They're both charming enough.
Almost all the tone poems on Vol. 2 are shorter and less self-consciously "epic" than Sappho, Penthesilea, and Sakuntala. The exceptions are Zrinyi and Aus Jugendtagen, which are like them in being pleasant, episodic, and meandering. Zrinyi builds to a pretty big, martial ending, while the other starts with a grandiose processional march.
Im Frühling is a 10-minute work of soft cheeriness; this is a more lackadaisical springtime than Schumann's. In Italien is bouncy and joyful, with raucous percussion and one surprising moment at 3' featuring some muted horns playing a "wrong" note. Apparently he had a very nice holiday. (Actually, there is no evidence that he had a holiday; it was written for a play.) Ein Wintermärchen is an attempt at tragedy, and Götz von Berlichingen is a nice little overture that is almost Wagnerian in its orchestral firepower, including an energetic tuba part, like a thrift shop version of the Meistersinger overture.
TLDR: CPO's booklet notes tell of a time when Goldmark alerted a newspaper that he would be writing a new piece, and that it would be full of pleasant sounds to make people happy. Couple that sentiment with his episodic, chaotic structures, and you have a sense of the ADD pleasantries of these discs. I think there are many more compelling romantic tone poem composers out there.
(https://static.qobuz.com/images/covers/23/34/0761203723423_600.jpg)
These three concertos date from 1893, 1909, and 1928. They're presented on the disc in reverse order because the two later works are of smaller size and in one movement each, though that movement is divided up into a number of sections. In his earlier years Rontgen was inspired by working with his cousin, Julius Klengel; in later years it was a partnership with Casals that fueled the concertos and helped him write 11 (!) cello sonatas.
No. 3 could have been written 50 years earlier than its 1920s date except for the interesting use of celesta at times. It's a lyrical minor-key super-romantic piece of modest ambition/scope. There's a short cadenza before an even shorter major-key ending. A pleasant trifle.
No. 2 follows a similar trajectory, but makes room in its slightly longer duration for a couple of new features: a solo cadenza that begins the piece (before the orchestra plays a note), and an Irish folk song section. There are marginally better tunes in this one even before the Irish song, which is wonderfully orchestrated in a series of variations. Formally this 19-minute piece is rather chaotic, it is more of a free fantasia or even a tone poem, but extremely enjoyable.
No. 1 starts...again...with a cello melody in minor key, this time accompanied by stabbing string chords from the orchestra. It's a somewhat long-winded, "wordy" main tune, but the whole piece is built around the cello's long lyrical role. The soloist plays almost every single minute. Though there are three movements, there's a flow between them.
Although all of these are individually enjoyable, they're also similar enough that sitting down to them at one listen becomes a somewhat repetitive experience. Gregor Horsch, the superb soloist, is first cello in the Concertgebouw. I'd like to see No. 2 pop up in a "mixed recital" CD of concertos by varied composers. Say, Saint-Saens 1, then Rontgen 2, then ...Victor Herbert 2? And Kol Nidrei? That's a CD length of the major "non-Dvorak" romantic cello works. I'd like that program.
(https://static.qobuz.com/images/covers/xa/sr/ocpywnx2rsrxa_600.jpg)
Theodore Dubois treats his material with surprising casualness in the Violin Concerto's first movement. The orchestral introduction begins with a tiny 15-second slow intro that doesn't contribute anything and should have been cut. The rest of the allegro is more conventional; I like the violin's casual tossing-off of some downward scales near the end.
The Adagio is absolutely lovely, first-class stuff. There's a slightly eastern European character to the opening motif of the finale, and the triangle adds to the dance character. Soloist Ingolf Turban seems to be having more fun, as well. Although I wasn't sold on the first movement, the next two are really lovely, and I might give this concerto a few more listens to see if it improves with familiarity.
The 24-minute violin sonata in begins with a very interesting main theme, one that carries a threatening menace about it despite the A major key. It reminds me a little of the ambiguities of the Franck sonata. The second subject is more peaceable and tender. I like the way that the strange main theme spikes the otherwise very pleasant first movement with an unusual tang. The recapitulation also smartly incorporates additional development.
Actually, as I hear the soulful slow movement head towards its climax, I start to think this really would be a worthy accompaniment to the Franck sonata on a recital program or disc. "The Sonata seems governed by a fear of Wagner as an ideology," the booklet says, but there is a mystical depth at its best moments. There's even some minor-league fire in the finale. This is an unpredictable, wholly engaging sonata and my favorite Dubois so far. The 6-minute Ballade is even more unpredictable and fiery, almost a precursor to Tzigane.
Especially for the chamber music, I found this album an unexpected hit!
(https://static.qobuz.com/images/covers/oc/bq/vp2jjd5tvbqoc_600.jpg)
Hans Gal might now be best known for orchestrating a few of Brahms' Hungarian Dances, but conductors like Kenneth Woods have been reviving this Viennese late romantic for some time. He lived until age 97. This disc handily assembles several works for chamber orchestra.
The Serenade for Strings is a light 13 minutes but does not have much character. By contrast, the chirping woodwinds at the start of the Divertimento immediately offer more tunes and more harmonic spice. It's a real pleasure all the way through, and an especially impressive find for a world premiere recording.
The Violin Concertino in one 17-minute movement is a serious, engaging listen with a long solo cadenza right in the center - and then another at the end. (The very ending is a satisfying flourish.) The latest work on the album is the 1957 Music for String Orchestra, in which Gal continues to show his loyalty to more traditional ways of composing. It's not exactly antiquated, and there are some modern edges, but those edges are not nearly as sharp as in Bartok's Divertimento, for example. The mysterious theme of the central variation movement is especially engaging.
The Serenade may be a throwaway but the other three works on this disc are truly rewarding.
O dear, I wonder why you write such things Brian, degrading Gal's efforts in such a derogatory way.
Quote from: Harry on March 25, 2025, 07:47:39 AMO dear, I wonder why you write such things Brian, degrading Gal's efforts in such a derogatory way.
But I loved three of the four works! I think we have a language problem. In English, "throwaway" of course could mean something you throw in the garbage, but it also has a slang meaning that is less harsh. Basically, something that is temporary or disposable in nature. The opposite of "keepers." Like TV that you watch one time, but never watch again, or cheap clothes you buy on a trip if the airplane loses your luggage. You may not plan to keep the clothing, but that does not mean it is terrible. So basically, I meant the Serenade is something to listen to once to pass the time, but the other three works are "keepers."
Quote from: Florestan on March 25, 2025, 06:25:15 AMHah! You really have a knack for such things, first the-gloom-and-doom-brigade, now this! Brilliant. ;D
I really want all the Schnittke, Pettersson, etc. people to wear the term Grim Music Guys like a badge of honor ;D
Quote from: Brian on March 11, 2025, 07:45:56 AM(https://static.qobuz.com/images/covers/hc/5s/mqh79ht5c5shc_600.jpg)
Three piano tries, each about a half-hour, plus another half-hour suite of works for cello and piano. Sinding is well-ish-known for his violin concerto and symphonies, as a Nordic composer who was more in touch with continental romanticism than counterparts like Grieg, and therefore somewhat less distinctive. These piano trios continue that pattern. They're unfailingly genial, well-written, melodious, and fit into a Brahmsian model. Pleasant listening. Not memorable, but pleasant. The cello suite is similar, though much less Brahmsy in sound.
I say this about a lot of CPO releases, but I have a fantasy of some day having a beautiful home library room with dark wood built-in shelves, one of those ladders on a track, and a table with a bottle of whiskey available at all times. And if that day ever came, I could imagine putting this on in the background while reading or reorganizing.
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Oscar Straus made his name in 1905 with an operetta parody of Wagner (!) called the Merry Nibelungs (!). He had always wanted to write light music and traveled to Paris as a youngster to study with Delibes. Unfortunately he arrived just days after Delibes had died, so he instead became a student of...Max Bruch...who passionately opposed light music and threatened to denounce Straus if he ever wrote an operetta. Things didn't go well. ;D
But this concerto appears to date from the Bruch years, and therefore is more serious. The main theme, in B minor with a single obsessively repeated note in funeral-march-like rhythm, announces the work as Serious Stuff. But it proves frothier, in part because the piano jumps in right away, without an orchestral tutti. The second movement is a short intermezzo with light operatic charm, and the finale comes around to the major key, with a few passages that remind me of the Saint-Saens concertos. The ending, with a grand theme stated by the horns over piano accompaniment, is very grandiose indeed. Although it is not an especially memorable work - Straus had yet to develop the melodic ear required for light opera - the shape is right and the music entertains.
The Serenade for string orchestra also started as an attempt to please Bruch (with a requiem!) before turning into a light 20-minute diversion complete with a delicious half-pizzicato waltz and a march finale. I guess the somewhat robust first movement in G minor must be the last lingering remnant of possible requiem material? The rest of the serenade is not quite as light as Robert Fuchs (let alone someone like Dag Wiren), but certainly nowhere near as "deep" as Tchaikovsky or Elgar. Parts of it are a little stiff and gray.
The Reigen waltz from 1950 starts off (its first six notes) like Berlioz' "ballet des sylphes," but goes in a more Viennese direction. A harmless cream puff which, in true Viennese tradition, includes some violin solos. The "Princess of Tragant" waltz sequence is much better, a glittering full-on Straussian (with the extra S) extravaganza and the best piece on the CD.
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The booklet says Gustav Jenner was the only young composer who was invited by Brahms to travel to Vienna and study with him, contrasting with the several other young composers who traveled to Vienna in order to ingratiate themselves with Brahms and ask for lessons.
The first track does not bode well, starting with a rather trite, simplistic theme. Although the subsequent works are less objectionably cheesy, none of them is memorable, except maybe Stimmung No. 3, a 60-second imitation of a music box playing a melody. Overall, I struggled to finish the CD.
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Hans Eklund was a student of Lars-Erik Larsson in the 1950s, about the same time as Bo Linde, and although he claimed to be more traditionalist than some of the other young Swedish composers of the era, he also wrote a piece for the Darmstadt festival. These three symphonies are technically "tonal," for whatever that word means, but they are often gnarly, violent, dark, and unpredictable. They almost never match their subtitles.
No. 3, "Sinfonia rustica," was written in a holiday cabin on the island of Gotland, but it takes a violent view of the Baltic landscape, depicting things like boulders, cliffs, and winds. The opening gesture is striking and bleakly oppressive. Only a folk tune in the tiny second movement offers some relief from the percussive tempest. The symphony as a whole is less than 14 minutes long.
No. 5, "Quadri" ("Pictures"), was written in the 1970s based on war paintings. It's 19 minutes of foreboding, fear, and intensity. I found it much more interesting and better sustained than No. 3, in part because Eklund develops longer, more substantive melodic material rather than a motto motif. The finale has lots of martial percussion (snare drum, timpani, triangle, and cymbals all crashing away) and sounds not unlike Shostakovich 7 or 11, or certain parts of Nielsen 5. It fades to a quiet ending. Pretty impressive.
No. 11, "Sinfonia piccola," is also a misleading subtitle, since it is the longest of the three at 27 minutes. It has been recorded twice, once in the presence of the composer and once for this CD, but never played live in concert, which has to be some sort of recording:performance ratio record. The booklet says this symphony is lighter than the earlier two, but that does not mean it is "light" at all.
It starts off very tentatively, both in mood (alternating major and minor) and in material (lots of repeated notes). Again I hear a little bit of Nielsen 5 as some of this more tentative moodiness is interrupted by a snare drum and piercing trombone/tuba motifs. But the music is unsettled and can't find a home, ranging across drum rolls and sudden outbursts.
The second movement is "quasi una marcia" and picks up some of the military character and percussion we heard in No. 5. The finale is a slow adagio, with some intrusions from the previous prickly mood and a good deal more of the mysterious unsettlement of the opening.
Very well played and recorded, this is a Grim Nordic disc that appears to have already found a considerable following among the GMG Grim Music Guys ;D
Grim Nordics. Right up my street.
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First of all: the Genesis Orchestra is a global orchestra of Bulgarians, some living in Bulgaria, some elsewhere who return home for performances. Maybe they should record Vladigerov?
The Czerny concerto is in the kind of grand, ceremonial C Major that you'll know from Beethoven's first concerto. It's about 28 minutes long, almost all of them in the longer outer movements, and the duet part is for one piano, four hands. If you know what to expect - lots of notes, no emotional range - it is really enjoyable, and Genesis Orchestra proves well suited to the classical orchestral sound.
Max Bruch is up next, first in a 10-minute Fantasia for two pianos (without orchestra), then in a double piano concerto. The Fantasia is immediately a departure from the Czerny, in a heroic D minor that seems to have one foot in Bach and another in the high romantic period. It's quite a satisfying piece.
The concerto is in the very strange key A flat minor; this is so odd I even looked up the Wikipedia list of things in that key (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/A-flat_minor#Music_in_A-flat_minor). (The most famous is probably the opening scene of The Firebird?) Even weirder, all four movements begin either andante or adagio; the first and third are slow movements all the way, while the second and fourth have slow introductions. It all ends in joyous A flat major, but it has some modestly interesting twists and turns on the way.
Not bad listening at all!
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The 13-minute Suite Concertante for oboe and small orchestra has a slightly steely, gritty edge and some passages where instruments create dissonance by playing immediately adjacent notes. It also has a lot of sparkling orchestral color and dancing, as the oboe bounces around with solo orchestral winds and a bit of timpani. Fun.
The Clarinet Concertino is just a bit longer and starts with a muted, mysterious introduction. The highlight of this one, for me, is the slow "arioso", which has a real tenderness.
The Concertino for Oboe, Clarinet, and Strings is in 7 movements (!), averaging about 3 minutes each. You could see it a little like a baroque suite, and though the movement titles are not traditional (except the overture), there is a definite bubbly neoclassicism to the musical language. In faster movements, the two soloists can weave together like dance partners. The slower section of the piece has an unusual feature: a completely soloist-free elegy movement is played, interrupted by a canon, and then completely repeated, so more than 5 minutes are given over to a slow lament for strings without solos. It has the effect of sobering the otherwise lighthearted piece up, like a ghost haunting the concerto. The finale is jovial and dancelike, but you still feel the ghost.
A short Adagio for string orchestra rounds out the album. It's a lush romantic piece from early in his career, one that reminds me of an Elgar string miniature or even Richard Strauss. Lovely ending. (The booklet suggests Barber but it's not as agonized as that.)
In a weird way this disc reminds me of the Holmboe chamber concertos? I think just the generosity of wanting every instrumental soloist to have their own quirky little 15-minute solo feature.
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The Kreutzer Septet for clarinet, French horn, bassoon, string trio, and double bass has been fairly popular in the past, and was recorded by the Vienna Octet. This is the premiere recording of the original manuscript version, which, like Schubert's original symphony manuscripts, is more dynamically adventurous and technically demanding than the publishers' revised scores that came to dominate. The CPO booklet outlines some differences with this original version, like increased woodwind participation.
The Trio for clarinet, bassoon, and piano is earlier and less known. In the Trio, Koch plays such an ethereally light piano that its upper registers sound like a Hungarian cimbalom. This is a little smaller, earlier, and more basic, so I think it probably should have come first on the CD. It's the appetizer, not the dessert.
The Septet is a full, delicious meal. It is basically a midpoint between Beethoven's Septet and Schubert's Octet, and an absolute delight. This is, happily, an all-HIP affair, featuring two clarinets from 1790-1800, a bassoon from ca. 1795, and a piano from 1813. The two soloist names I recognize also bode well: Tobias Koch at the piano and Sergio Azzolini on bassoon. Between that and the better performing edition, I'd consider this the reference recording.
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This is an interesting themed-ish album. Sonata No. 1 is a student work, and the remainder of the disc is mature music written for a student, specifically Weinberg's 12-year-old daughter. The Qobuz review says this collection is more like Kinderszenen than Mikrokosmos. That is referring to difficulty level, not expression. As a listening experience, the collection is very much in Weinberg's voice, with some pretty pieces, some steely ones, and a few (track 9) that seem as emotionally mature as anything he or DSCH would write for adults. It is definitely not like listening to Kinderszenen!
I was surprised by how quickly the Sonata passed by. Maybe the 45 minutes of miniatures that preceded it prepared me for more miniatures, and their soundworlds are surprisingly consistent. But the Sonata does have more challenges in the finale especially, and expressive ones (like the taut intro).
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This 1990s disc has sound quality that falls short of today's standards; excess reverb is especially noticeable around woodwinds like the flute, and some sections of the orchestra sound too far away. The timpani sounds like it's outside the concert hall. Overall, feels as if the microphones were in the balcony. Maybe this was originally meant to be a Chandos album? ;D
The Lodoiska overture starts with a hesitant, slow introduction more suitable for the days when most of the audience entered the concert hall during the overture. The other overture on the album is in a style that was old-fashioned even in Cherubini's time, a three-movement fast-slow-fast Sinfonia. The symphony sounds like early Schubert in its faster music, and late Haydn in its slower music. Obviously, those are both good things.
An enjoyable album but the sound quality puts an upper limit on its potential, and this also dates from before Howard Griffiths became HIP-influenced in his conducting. I'll have to find another recording with more prominent timpani.
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Albert Lortzing was one of Germany's leading opera composers during the 1830s-40s. He offers overtures to Casanova, Hans Sachs (!), Undine, and more, mostly 6-10 minutes, on a packed 84-minute disc.
They mostly follow on from Weber's example, or Otto Nicolai's. Casanova has lots of cymbals for exoticism and a love (?) theme led by solo cello. Undine opens rather like a Suppé or Auber overture, but with older-fashioned melodies and incidents.
At this point, I skipped forward to a Konzertstuck for French horn and orchestra in the unusual key of E Major. It's a good representative of its era, similar to similar shortish concert pieces by Kalliwoda, Schumann, or Rossini.
Then I had to go to a meeting. When I'm in a Strauss family type light music mood, I may return to the rest of the disc.
(https://static.qobuz.com/images/covers/nc/25/psqrkl5go25nc_600.jpg) (https://static.qobuz.com/images/covers/5a/7s/hhs9fbopp7s5a_600.jpg)
The opening of Johann Nepomuk David's Symphony No. 1 immediately puts me in mind of Nordic composers: the scampering oboe melody and vigorous orchestral writing remind me of the icy but vigorous neoclassicism of Sibelius 3 and Dag Wiren, maybe even Nielsen. Later in the first movement, the music gets more intensely contrapuntal and takes on Hindemith as a primary influence, but the orchestration is so colorful, and gets so many wind and brass instruments involved in their own lines of attack, that there is also immediate surface appeal to all of it. The motifs are also all short, catchy, and easily identifiable as they interlock and interweave. This first movement is really, really fun.
So's the rest. I still think of the way Nordic composers shape melodies in the slow movement, while the scherzo brings quiet flittering strings like a modern Mendelssohn. (A tune from the andante returns in counterpoint.) The fugal finale has the least surface interest, but it is an apt conclusion to the piece - no "finale problem" with this composer. And when I say "least surface interest," I mean it's more like Hindemith - you get the satisfaction of the puzzle parts fitting together. Everyone in the orchestra is thoroughly involved in the action, and every motif and melody from the whole symphony fits together at the end. This, unfortunately, isn't quite as mind-boggling or impressive-sounding as when Mozart tried it in No. 41. Although the David Symphony is more like solving a Rubik's cube than an emotional journey, I found it totally entertaining first note to last. The year after he wrote this work, Paul Hindemith quit his teaching job and recommended David as his replacement.
Symphony No. 6, from after WWII, has an unusual shape: its first movement is only about a 4-minute prelude to the rest, which includes a "Wiener Walzer"! But this is a more austere piece in general, much more evocative of Hindemith or maybe Honegger. The Wiener Walzer is in 3/4 time...and it is also a fugue! There is a very active xylophone near the end of the waltz, along with a cataclysmic pile-up of snare drum, timpani, and brass that sounds like the arrival of the storm troopers.
David described the finale as a "festive double fugue" - funny given that there is a very long slow passage in the center for trumpet, one or two piccolos, flute, and maybe another wind or two. It's emotionally neutral, hard to describe, very weird. Finally, the rest of the orchestra gets bored and takes back over for an exuberant, again Hindemithian finish.
Symphony No. 2 is substantially longer at 44 minutes, though the booklet thinks it should only take 35 and the composer predicted (before any performances) that it would last 40. This was written just a year after No. 1. It starts with a three-minute slow introduction for winds alone, based on a chromatic theme that touches 10 of the 12 tones. The main allegro is more intensely contrapuntal, intellectualized stuff, with, again, Reger's rigor and Hindemith's forceful energy. There's a calm reprieve around 10' that is like a much less atmospheric version of the similar moment in Mahler 7. The slow movement is pretty dour and contrapuntal (again), but the scherzo is a surprising romp with triangle and glockenspiel, whooping horns. The trio section foregrounds bassoons and violas and gives them a fun rocking motion to play through. The scherzo actually kinda reminds me of Claudio Santoro, even.
Then we get a 15-minute andante finale that starts out in the hushed mystery of a modern nocturne. It builds to a humongous climax around 5:30-6 that evokes Respighi to me. Then we slowly wind back down to nocturne mode again. Another minutes-long crescendo with contrapuntal references to all the past themes slowly tries to bend the music to a conclusive major key sense of triumph. Structurally, David is so concerned with "solving" the end of his symphonies in this way that he reminds me of Bruckner. This is an odd work, but the second half especially is very compelling and the scherzo is a great single track to test whether you will like the composer. I'll listen again.
Symphony No. 4 was written during World War II and almost immediately destroyed in bombing. After the war ended, David rewrote the whole piece from memory (something that Martinu also did, though that score was merely lost I think). The first two movements function as a prelude and fugue, a shortish slow introduction and fugal allegro that are interrelated. Winds take the forefront in the prelude and then again in the rather shy, "ohne hast" scherzo. This movement is the symphony's longest by far and has a dervish-like repetition of the same idea. The finale...well, it winds up being another prelude and fugue situation.
CPO is halfway through this series, as there are eight numbered symphonies. I will listen to the next four with interest, but I find David's almost pathological fascination with fugues means that he is best heard in small doses. Only one symphony at a time, please. So far my favorite is the First.
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I avoided listening to Antonio Rosetti for a long time because I kept getting him confused for those early romantic poets named Rosetti. But actually he was a Czech guy named Frantisek Antonin Rossler! That makes me way more interested, especially since he wrote lots of woodwind concertos and partitas.
All the works here are in E flat except one in E. C. 56 begins with the two horns, then moves on to an orchestral intro in which they participate. Their duets are expertly written, and the music is graceful, stylish good fun. There's even a moment at 4:45, track 1, where the two horn players whoop upwards in a slide. In C. 57 the highlight is the double cadenza. All three concertos have a "Romance" slow movement.
Finally, there's a four movement Notturno for small classical featuring opening and closing marches, a romance, and a "Menuetto fresco." It's another charming little piece, well crafted and well played.
The orchestral playing is consistently stylish and graceful. I appreciate the recorded sound, too, since it does not place the horn players too far forward. Maybe they could have a little more left/right separation at times, but the duet-cadenzas are very clear. Very charming.
Quote from: Brian on May 05, 2025, 11:40:03 AM(https://static.qobuz.com/images/covers/9b/k6/ubtyma59ak69b_600.jpg)
This 1990s disc has sound quality that falls short of today's standards; excess reverb is especially noticeable around woodwinds like the flute, and some sections of the orchestra sound too far away. The timpani sounds like it's outside the concert hall. Overall, feels as if the microphones were in the balcony. Maybe this was originally meant to be a Chandos album? ;D
The Lodoiska overture starts with a hesitant, slow introduction more suitable for the days when most of the audience entered the concert hall during the overture. The other overture on the album is in a style that was old-fashioned even in Cherubini's time, a three-movement fast-slow-fast Sinfonia. The symphony sounds like early Schubert in its faster music, and late Haydn in its slower music. Obviously, those are both good things.
An enjoyable album but the sound quality puts an upper limit on its potential, and this also dates from before Howard Griffiths became HIP-influenced in his conducting. I'll have to find another recording with more prominent timpani.
(https://static.qobuz.com/images/covers/pb/19/vha9bkkm219pb_600.jpg)
Albert Lortzing was one of Germany's leading opera composers during the 1830s-40s. He offers overtures to Casanova, Hans Sachs (!), Undine, and more, mostly 6-10 minutes, on a packed 84-minute disc.
They mostly follow on from Weber's example, or Otto Nicolai's. Casanova has lots of cymbals for exoticism and a love (?) theme led by solo cello. Undine opens rather like a Suppé or Auber overture, but with older-fashioned melodies and incidents.
At this point, I skipped forward to a Konzertstuck for French horn and orchestra in the unusual key of E Major. It's a good representative of its era, similar to similar shortish concert pieces by Kalliwoda, Schumann, or Rossini.
Then I had to go to a meeting. When I'm in a Strauss family type light music mood, I may return to the rest of the disc.
(https://static.qobuz.com/images/covers/nc/25/psqrkl5go25nc_600.jpg) (https://static.qobuz.com/images/covers/5a/7s/hhs9fbopp7s5a_600.jpg)
The opening of Johann Nepomuk David's Symphony No. 1 immediately puts me in mind of Nordic composers: the scampering oboe melody and vigorous orchestral writing remind me of the icy but vigorous neoclassicism of Sibelius 3 and Dag Wiren, maybe even Nielsen. Later in the first movement, the music gets more intensely contrapuntal and takes on Hindemith as a primary influence, but the orchestration is so colorful, and gets so many wind and brass instruments involved in their own lines of attack, that there is also immediate surface appeal to all of it. The motifs are also all short, catchy, and easily identifiable as they interlock and interweave. This first movement is really, really fun.
So's the rest. I still think of the way Nordic composers shape melodies in the slow movement, while the scherzo brings quiet flittering strings like a modern Mendelssohn. (A tune from the andante returns in counterpoint.) The fugal finale has the least surface interest, but it is an apt conclusion to the piece - no "finale problem" with this composer. And when I say "least surface interest," I mean it's more like Hindemith - you get the satisfaction of the puzzle parts fitting together. Everyone in the orchestra is thoroughly involved in the action, and every motif and melody from the whole symphony fits together at the end. This, unfortunately, isn't quite as mind-boggling or impressive-sounding as when Mozart tried it in No. 41. Although the David Symphony is more like solving a Rubik's cube than an emotional journey, I found it totally entertaining first note to last. The year after he wrote this work, Paul Hindemith quit his teaching job and recommended David as his replacement.
Symphony No. 6, from after WWII, has an unusual shape: its first movement is only about a 4-minute prelude to the rest, which includes a "Wiener Walzer"! But this is a more austere piece in general, much more evocative of Hindemith or maybe Honegger. The Wiener Walzer is in 3/4 time...and it is also a fugue! There is a very active xylophone near the end of the waltz, along with a cataclysmic pile-up of snare drum, timpani, and brass that sounds like the arrival of the storm troopers.
David described the finale as a "festive double fugue" - funny given that there is a very long slow passage in the center for trumpet, one or two piccolos, flute, and maybe another wind or two. It's emotionally neutral, hard to describe, very weird. Finally, the rest of the orchestra gets bored and takes back over for an exuberant, again Hindemithian finish.
Symphony No. 2 is substantially longer at 44 minutes, though the booklet thinks it should only take 35 and the composer predicted (before any performances) that it would last 40. This was written just a year after No. 1. It starts with a three-minute slow introduction for winds alone, based on a chromatic theme that touches 10 of the 12 tones. The main allegro is more intensely contrapuntal, intellectualized stuff, with, again, Reger's rigor and Hindemith's forceful energy. There's a calm reprieve around 10' that is like a much less atmospheric version of the similar moment in Mahler 7. The slow movement is pretty dour and contrapuntal (again), but the scherzo is a surprising romp with triangle and glockenspiel, whooping horns. The trio section foregrounds bassoons and violas and gives them a fun rocking motion to play through. The scherzo actually kinda reminds me of Claudio Santoro, even.
Then we get a 15-minute andante finale that starts out in the hushed mystery of a modern nocturne. It builds to a humongous climax around 5:30-6 that evokes Respighi to me. Then we slowly wind back down to nocturne mode again. Another minutes-long crescendo with contrapuntal references to all the past themes slowly tries to bend the music to a conclusive major key sense of triumph. Structurally, David is so concerned with "solving" the end of his symphonies in this way that he reminds me of Bruckner. This is an odd work, but the second half especially is very compelling and the scherzo is a great single track to test whether you will like the composer. I'll listen again.
Symphony No. 4 was written during World War II and almost immediately destroyed in bombing. After the war ended, David rewrote the whole piece from memory (something that Martinu also did, though that score was merely lost I think). The first two movements function as a prelude and fugue, a shortish slow introduction and fugal allegro that are interrelated. Winds take the forefront in the prelude and then again in the rather shy, "ohne hast" scherzo. This movement is the symphony's longest by far and has a dervish-like repetition of the same idea. The finale...well, it winds up being another prelude and fugue situation.
CPO is halfway through this series, as there are eight numbered symphonies. I will listen to the next four with interest, but I find David's almost pathological fascination with fugues means that he is best heard in small doses. Only one symphony at a time, please. So far my favorite is the First.
(https://static.qobuz.com/images/covers/mb/qk/iv4gfnayeqkmb_600.jpg)
I avoided listening to Antonio Rosetti for a long time because I kept getting him confused for those early romantic poets named Rosetti. But actually he was a Czech guy named Frantisek Antonin Rossler! That makes me way more interested, especially since he wrote lots of woodwind concertos and partitas.
All the works here are in E flat except one in E. C. 56 begins with the two horns, then moves on to an orchestral intro in which they participate. Their duets are expertly written, and the music is graceful, stylish good fun. There's even a moment at 4:45, track 1, where the two horn players whoop upwards in a slide. In C. 57 the highlight is the double cadenza. All three concertos have a "Romance" slow movement.
Finally, there's a four movement Notturno for small classical featuring opening and closing marches, a romance, and a "Menuetto fresco." It's another charming little piece, well crafted and well played.
The orchestral playing is consistently stylish and graceful. I appreciate the recorded sound, too, since it does not place the horn players too far forward. Maybe they could have a little more left/right separation at times, but the duet-cadenzas are very clear. Very charming.
Really appreciate your Johann Nepomuk David comments and Reflections. Very helpful read.
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I think somebody posted about this CD last week? But I couldn't find the post. The trios were written in 1789 and the quartet in 1804, by a pianist who was described by Ries as having a gentle and "ladylike" style. Apparently Sterkel was one of the first piano virtuosos to whom the young Viennese circle brought Beethoven, as a test of Beethoven's skills.
These three pieces are totally charming examples of the era, played by a HIP ensemble here. The piano used is a copy of a 1790 "hammerpflügel." The trio Op. 30 No. 2 has an especially catchy finale tune, while the most interesting feature of Op. 30 No. 1 might be the genial "romance" that acts as an introduction to the finale (a la Waldstein Sonata structure). All of this music is in sunny major keys and aims to charm and please. It succeeds.
The piano quartet is slightly more mature, confident, and ambitious, and I sometimes hear foreshadowing of Schubert's piano trios. Very enjoyable.
One complaint: the booklet notes have bold text for the names of works that are NOT on the CD, and do not bold the names of works that ARE, so if you are skimming the booklet for information about the specific pieces, do not use the bold text as an indicator!
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When Grieg and Svendsen died in 1907 and 1911, the Norwegian music scene needed an heir apparent. David Monrad Johansen, who worshipped Grieg, eagerly took up that challenge, moreso than his younger colleagues Saeverud and Tveitt, who were too personally eccentric and musically adventurous. They also represented Norwegian musical spirit in their works (Saeverud's antifascist resistance folksong arrangements, Tveitt's Hardanger folk tunes), but in a less showy, mainstream fashion.
Unfortunately, Johansen contrasted with Saeverud in another way. He was an enthusiastic fascist and happily helped the Nazi occupiers. He ended up serving several years' hard labor for treason after the war, and his reputation remained justly low during his lifetime.
Maybe it's my knowledge of his Nazi leanings, but the first thing that sticks out about the Piano Concerto is its martial nature: it starts with menacing, marching snare drums and the strings playing a one-two one-two. The musical language is "gently" modernist - it is basically tonal, just a little grouchy, evocative of extremely early Bartok or Szymanowski, maybe, not quite Prokofiev. The first movement ends quietly, as if the march has finally been subdued. The first real "folksy" Nordic moment is the secondary dance subject in the finale. The ending is rather sudden: from a quiet interlude, the pianist rears up and charges both hands from bottom to top.
Pan, a 12-minute symphonic poem, has been compared to Richard Strauss in some places, but I hear more of Nielsen's Helios Overture or Sibelius. Epigrams on Norwegian Motifs is the first totally folk-tune-based composition here, seven short tunes arranged in colorful ways. (This was written in the 1960s, one of his very few post-WWII commissions.) Then the disc ends with the Symphonic Variations and Fugue, also based on a Norwegian folk song. You could easily imagine it on a program with Grieg's Old Norwegian Romance variations, and perhaps Dvorak's Symphonic Variations, too. Unlike some predecessors, the fugue here starts slowly and quietly, after a series of quiet variations. The fugue gradually builds in one big crescendo to
A mildly interesting byway. Oliver Triendl is as good as ever - the dude will learn to play anything! - and the orchestra and sound are very good too.
(https://static.qobuz.com/images/covers/kb/w7/pzzsyxrr4w7kb_600.jpg)
Among recitals of Dohnanyi's piano music, this one is rather short (less than an hour), and aside from the Three Singular Pieces Op. 44, it focuses on his early Brahmsian period. The Brahmsian stuff - a passacaglia and four rhapsodies - is all very good, virtuosically written, if a little bit melodramatic at times. But Brahms' Op. 79 is melodramatic too. Every so often, a bit of Hungarian color flashes bright in the music, as well. (Rhapsody No. 2's theme definitely sounds like something from a Liszt rhapsody.) It must have been great fun to see the young Dohnanyi on tour, playing these works live. No. 3, the only one in a major key (C), is actually the most adventurous, while No. 4 is based on our old friend, Dies irae.
The Three Singular Pieces are a little more unusual, and date from Dohnanyi's later days teaching in Florida. No. 1 features clattering rhythms; it sounds like the pianist's fingers are tripping over each other. No. 2 is a suitably scampering nocturne titled "Cats on the Roof," while the finale is a perpetuum mobile with an instruction in the score to truly play it in perpetuum. (A few bars of concluding music are provided as an "escape" for the pianist who wants to stop.)
Is there a good complete edition of Dohnanyi's piano music? Any other recommended recitals?
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Popping into this disc only for the 25-minute Dance Suite, a student work which Khachaturian's teacher, Myaskovsky, criticized heavily for undeveloped themes and boring bass lines. The young composer then used those critiques to strengthen his First Symphony.
What's funny is that, within 15 seconds of the Dance Suite starting, you can already hear so much Khachaturian personality. The Caucasus folk tunes, the color, the big orchestra...it's all there. The limitations are most definitely there too, exactly as Myaskovsky described them. The centerpiece is the Uzbek Dance, which occupies almost half the suite's total runtime because it starts and ends with totally undance-like largo laments. The final dance's insistent bass drum thwacks reminded me of Nielsen's Aladdin Suite, and near the final climax there's a section that Khachaturian reused in Gayaneh. Inexperienced, but fun, Khachaturian.
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Vaughan Williams' first two quartets are early works, one influenced by Dvorak and Stanford (his teacher at the time), the other by the French impressionists. The first, unnumbered, is surprising in its austerity - by which I mean there just aren't a lot of notes! RVW was clearly already economical and exacting rather than rich or florid. Apparently Stanford disapproved of the very mild English folk flavor in the second movement. The finale, a set of variations with fugal elements, doesn't sound at all inspired by Dvorak, Brahms, or the usual subjects, and represents the young composer going his own (stern, grim) way.
No. 1, really his second, is in G minor but sounds totally unlike Debussy's work in the same key. The best parts are the scherzo and finale, which have a more relaxed air to them. The opening viola solo immediately establishes Quartet No. 2 as the product of a more mature composer with more complex things to say. This tight, somewhat pessimistic piece developed from music for the WWII propaganda drama The 49th Parallel and was premiered in 1944; its two themes are that wartime bleakness and a fixation with the viola. (Reading between the lines of the booklet note, RVW seems to have had an unrequited affection for a young viola player. He wrote on the score that he would charge her "1000 kisses" as a price for writing it.) The slow epilogue finds a small semblance of peace.
Accomplished playing and very good recording. I don't know this repertoire nearly as well as some of our Brits do, but this disc sounds good to me.
Quote from: Brian on May 06, 2025, 11:24:54 AMIs there a good complete edition of Dohnanyi's piano music?
Martin Roscoe on Hyperion, 4 volumes.
(https://i.scdn.co/image/ab67616d00001e02bb175302199e51e71a256d4b)
Kabalevsky's Cello Concerto No. 2 is a masterpiece, or something close to it. What about the piano concertos? No. 1 is a very interesting work of synthesis, with some language from Rachmaninov, a structural idea (the lively and tempo-changing variations movement) from Prokofiev 3, and even, in the finale, the kind of folks festival color that would in the future be a hallmark of Khachaturian. The gentle, syncopated beginning of the concerto has a jazziness that is startling, even from the 20s - I have to assume its resemblance to jazz is coincidental. Though a youthful and not especially original work, its mix of styles and influences is tremendous fun, and Michael Korstick sounds like he is having fun playing it.
No. 2's first movement reminds me a lot of Prokofiev 3. It doesn't sound like it, to be clear, but it has some of the same contours (relaxed opening that builds to faster hijinks, frequent and exuberant switches between major and minor key). The first movement seems to be easing into a lyrical state of bliss when the pianist launches into an absolutely gigantic, wildly difficult cadenza, more like Prokofiev 2 than 3. The slow movement is a much-needed break from Kabalevsky's furiously energetic pace, which returns in the finale with more martial rhythms and echoes of Prokofiev. This is a tremendously entertaining piece. I know it's not "top drawer," but it is the next drawer down and loads of fun.
No. 3 and No. 4, only 17 and 13 minutes long, were written for the type of youth competitions that also inspired Shostakovich No. 2. No. 3 seems to be deliberately comedic, like the pompous, ridiculous military episodes in the first movement. It also has very simple, trite, old-fashioned romantic melodies. No. 4 has an especially cheery, rompy finale that, with all its snare drums, is like a Russian version of the Ravel concerto. The slow movement rather insistently gets hung up on repeating one note. A 12-minute Rhapsody also has a student feel since it uses the song "School Years" as its basis. This one's more fun than the concertos, though, and has a theme-and-variations type feel to its playful joking around with the theme.
If the Third and Fourth Concertos fall far short of the first two because they're written for children, the two-CD set has one more surprise: an orchestration, as piano concerto, of Schubert's Fantasy in F minor for two pianos. The orchestration doesn't imitate Schubert, nor does it add ridiculous Soviet trumpets and xylophones. Aside from the very last chord, it's very faithful to the original, while also being completely persuasive as a concerto. In other words, it works. If I were a chamber orchestra and wanted to trick people into seeing a Schubert concerto, I would absolutely program it.
(https://static.qobuz.com/images/covers/0a/sq/u98q85l4isq0a_600.jpg) (https://static.qobuz.com/images/covers/aa/fu/sl7fe91epfuaa_600.jpg)
I hadn't listened to the Onslow symphonies since college, but they are still fresh, fun, lively, extremely well-crafted pieces that stand out, along with Farrenc, in the French-but-also-Germanic symphonic world between Haydn-Paris and Saint-Saens. (Obviously they don't stand out as much as Berlioz, who in that context seems to have come from another planet!)
No. 1's most interesting feature is the slow movement, which has some resemblance to a funeral march (Eroica's, specifically), and is more entertaining, not less, when you know the models it copies. No. 2 has a bustling minor-key energy that reminds me of Mendelssohn's First. Its substantial sonata form finale is almost like another first movement. No. 3's minor key mood is a little less frenetic, a little more moody, and the scherzo comes second, but overall I think this is the least interesting in the cycle. (This might also be because the CD containing 1/3 is recorded more distantly and more low-level than the CD containing 2/4.) No. 4 has a really grandiose G minor introduction and another exciting minor-key scherzo with repeated trio. The finale, subtitled "Le coup de vent (Souvenir du Rhin)," is a genuine tone poem and a charmer of one at that. It might not provide the payoff you expect from the first movement of this 32-minute symphony, but it's incredibly cool for its time. It's arguably more Rhenish than Schumann's!
(https://static.qobuz.com/images/covers/pc/j0/v2lwqmew1j0pc_600.jpg)
Not much is known about Emilie Mayer's three violin sonatas, including the order in which they are written. So I'll write about them in CD performance order.
The sonata in D starts with the pianist offering a minor-key fakeout introduction, what seems to be a moody beginning but really is a bit of a trick before the violinist offers a sunny major-key theme of Schubertian simplicity. The rest of the piece has that kind of amiable simplicity about it; the violin part is almost all melodic and has very few virtuoso techniques of any kind. The sonata in E flat is similarly confident, melodic, and easy to like. The most interesting feature here is the scherzo, which is actually a rondo (!). How many examples are there of rondos that aren't finales? Especially ones that are scherzos? The real finale, afterwards, is a "Les adieux" style affair with an adagio introduction that reprises itself near the end. We finish with a sonata in F; I think most listeners on GMG will recognize a Schubert impromptu quote in the first movement's piano part. The finale is maybe the only track on the CD that rises to a Beethovenian level of drama.
This is totally lovable music, without grandiosity. It would have been a joy for 1850s people to play at home with their friends. My favorite Mayer CD yet.
(https://static.qobuz.com/images/covers/fa/df/rwcwjim8ddffa_600.jpg)
Friedrich Benda was the last in the Benda family dynasty (at least until their descendant Christian became a conductor and cellist, and recorded a lot of good albums for Naxos). He wrote these three viola concertos in the 1790s, probably, and they look back a little back from that time, especially in these performances, led by a HIP conductor with a modern-instrument chamber ensemble. Harpsichord continuo is prevalent, orchestral introductions are brief, and the concertos are modest in form, about 20 minutes each. The Third even ends with a "La chasse" finale.
Old-fashioned but charming.
(https://static.qobuz.com/images/covers/ka/0m/gnknlyf120mka_600.jpg)
Oh heck yes! This is almost all music from Ginastera's early years, when he combined Argentinian folk music, complex rhythms, and Bartokian sophistication into a heady brew of exciting miniatures. 34 of 36 tracks date from this period, just one of them more than 4 minutes long (part of the 1950s Sonata No. 1). I know some of these treasures already, like the early Danzas argentinas, Op. 2, but didn't know Malambo, Ginastera's direct answer to Bartok, or the miniature homages to Copland and Villa-Lobos. Full of goodies.
Sonata No. 1 is a 15-minute masterpiece, and an eclectic one: though the first movement has the same hard-charging rhythms as the previous miniatures, the quiet presto scherzo seems like a creole descendant of Chopin's notorious finale to his Sonata No. 2, and the slow movement is haunting and mysterious, almost Cagelike in its minimal, precise notes.
Korstick omits only one of Ginastera's piano pieces, the late Sonata No. 2, which apparently is calculated along mathematical rather than musical lines and proudly part of the 70s/80s avant garde. The booklet note writer includes some unnecessary, in my opinion, insults of that absent piece. Instead, Korstick plays Ginastera's arrangement of a baroque organ toccata by Domenico Zipoli; the Argentine renders it sensitively on piano, and Korstick plays as if it's Bach. It is a much-needed mental break before the very short but very violent Sonata No. 3, Ginastera's final completed work.
The booklet note writer also offers the rather funny story of young student Korstick playing Sonata No. 1 for Ginastera. Apparently the older composer praised Korstick's technique and coloristic skill, signed the score, and (despite the student's direct request) offered no critiques or suggestions for improvement. Honestly...same.
Quote from: Brian on May 18, 2025, 05:44:39 AM(https://i.scdn.co/image/ab67616d00001e02bb175302199e51e71a256d4b)
Kabalevsky's Cello Concerto No. 2 is a masterpiece, or something close to it. What about the piano concertos? No. 1 is a very interesting work of synthesis, with some language from Rachmaninov, a structural idea (the lively and tempo-changing variations movement) from Prokofiev 3, and even, in the finale, the kind of folks festival color that would in the future be a hallmark of Khachaturian. The gentle, syncopated beginning of the concerto has a jazziness that is startling, even from the 20s - I have to assume its resemblance to jazz is coincidental. Though a youthful and not especially original work, its mix of styles and influences is tremendous fun, and Michael Korstick sounds like he is having fun playing it.
No. 2's first movement reminds me a lot of Prokofiev 3. It doesn't sound like it, to be clear, but it has some of the same contours (relaxed opening that builds to faster hijinks, frequent and exuberant switches between major and minor key). The first movement seems to be easing into a lyrical state of bliss when the pianist launches into an absolutely gigantic, wildly difficult cadenza, more like Prokofiev 2 than 3. The slow movement is a much-needed break from Kabalevsky's furiously energetic pace, which returns in the finale with more martial rhythms and echoes of Prokofiev. This is a tremendously entertaining piece. I know it's not "top drawer," but it is the next drawer down and loads of fun.
No. 3 and No. 4, only 17 and 13 minutes long, were written for the type of youth competitions that also inspired Shostakovich No. 2. No. 3 seems to be deliberately comedic, like the pompous, ridiculous military episodes in the first movement. It also has very simple, trite, old-fashioned romantic melodies. No. 4 has an especially cheery, rompy finale that, with all its snare drums, is like a Russian version of the Ravel concerto. The slow movement rather insistently gets hung up on repeating one note. A 12-minute Rhapsody also has a student feel since it uses the song "School Years" as its basis. This one's more fun than the concertos, though, and has a theme-and-variations type feel to its playful joking around with the theme.
If the Third and Fourth Concertos fall far short of the first two because they're written for children, the two-CD set has one more surprise: an orchestration, as piano concerto, of Schubert's Fantasy in F minor for two pianos. The orchestration doesn't imitate Schubert, nor does it add ridiculous Soviet trumpets and xylophones. Aside from the very last chord, it's very faithful to the original, while also being completely persuasive as a concerto. In other words, it works. If I were a chamber orchestra and wanted to trick people into seeing a Schubert concerto, I would absolutely program it.
(https://static.qobuz.com/images/covers/0a/sq/u98q85l4isq0a_600.jpg) (https://static.qobuz.com/images/covers/aa/fu/sl7fe91epfuaa_600.jpg)
I hadn't listened to the Onslow symphonies since college, but they are still fresh, fun, lively, extremely well-crafted pieces that stand out, along with Farrenc, in the French-but-also-Germanic symphonic world between Haydn-Paris and Saint-Saens. (Obviously they don't stand out as much as Berlioz, who in that context seems to have come from another planet!)
No. 1's most interesting feature is the slow movement, which has some resemblance to a funeral march (Eroica's, specifically), and is more entertaining, not less, when you know the models it copies. No. 2 has a bustling minor-key energy that reminds me of Mendelssohn's First. Its substantial sonata form finale is almost like another first movement. No. 3's minor key mood is a little less frenetic, a little more moody, and the scherzo comes second, but overall I think this is the least interesting in the cycle. (This might also be because the CD containing 1/3 is recorded more distantly and more low-level than the CD containing 2/4.) No. 4 has a really grandiose G minor introduction and another exciting minor-key scherzo with repeated trio. The finale, subtitled "Le coup de vent (Souvenir du Rhin)," is a genuine tone poem and a charmer of one at that. It might not provide the payoff you expect from the first movement of this 32-minute symphony, but it's incredibly cool for its time. It's arguably more Rhenish than Schumann's!
(https://static.qobuz.com/images/covers/pc/j0/v2lwqmew1j0pc_600.jpg)
Not much is known about Emilie Mayer's three violin sonatas, including the order in which they are written. So I'll write about them in CD performance order.
The sonata in D starts with the pianist offering a minor-key fakeout introduction, what seems to be a moody beginning but really is a bit of a trick before the violinist offers a sunny major-key theme of Schubertian simplicity. The rest of the piece has that kind of amiable simplicity about it; the violin part is almost all melodic and has very few virtuoso techniques of any kind. The sonata in E flat is similarly confident, melodic, and easy to like. The most interesting feature here is the scherzo, which is actually a rondo (!). How many examples are there of rondos that aren't finales? Especially ones that are scherzos? The real finale, afterwards, is a "Les adieux" style affair with an adagio introduction that reprises itself near the end. We finish with a sonata in F; I think most listeners on GMG will recognize a Schubert impromptu quote in the first movement's piano part. The finale is maybe the only track on the CD that rises to a Beethovenian level of drama.
This is totally lovable music, without grandiosity. It would have been a joy for 1850s people to play at home with their friends. My favorite Mayer CD yet.
(https://static.qobuz.com/images/covers/fa/df/rwcwjim8ddffa_600.jpg)
Friedrich Benda was the last in the Benda family dynasty (at least until their descendant Christian became a conductor and cellist, and recorded a lot of good albums for Naxos). He wrote these three viola concertos in the 1790s, probably, and they look back a little back from that time, especially in these performances, led by a HIP conductor with a modern-instrument chamber ensemble. Harpsichord continuo is prevalent, orchestral introductions are brief, and the concertos are modest in form, about 20 minutes each. The Third even ends with a "La chasse" finale.
Old-fashioned but charming.
(https://static.qobuz.com/images/covers/ka/0m/gnknlyf120mka_600.jpg)
Oh heck yes! This is almost all music from Ginastera's early years, when he combined Argentinian folk music, complex rhythms, and Bartokian sophistication into a heady brew of exciting miniatures. 34 of 36 tracks date from this period, just one of them more than 4 minutes long (part of the 1950s Sonata No. 1). I know some of these treasures already, like the early Danzas argentinas, Op. 2, but didn't know Malambo, Ginastera's direct answer to Bartok, or the miniature homages to Copland and Villa-Lobos. Full of goodies.
Sonata No. 1 is a 15-minute masterpiece, and an eclectic one: though the first movement has the same hard-charging rhythms as the previous miniatures, the quiet presto scherzo seems like a creole descendant of Chopin's notorious finale to his Sonata No. 2, and the slow movement is haunting and mysterious, almost Cagelike in its minimal, precise notes.
Korstick omits only one of Ginastera's piano pieces, the late Sonata No. 2, which apparently is calculated along mathematical rather than musical lines and proudly part of the 70s/80s avant garde. The booklet note writer includes some unnecessary, in my opinion, insults of that absent piece. Instead, Korstick plays Ginastera's arrangement of a baroque organ toccata by Domenico Zipoli; the Argentine renders it sensitively on piano, and Korstick plays as if it's Bach. It is a much-needed mental break before the very short but very violent Sonata No. 3, Ginastera's final completed work.
The booklet note writer also offers the rather funny story of young student Korstick playing Sonata No. 1 for Ginastera. Apparently the older composer praised Korstick's technique and coloristic skill, signed the score, and (despite the student's direct request) offered no critiques or suggestions for improvement. Honestly...same.
Thank you for the Kabalevsky comments 🙂
Quote from: Florestan on May 06, 2025, 11:44:14 AMMartin Roscoe on Hyperion, 4 volumes.
...and what a wonderful series it is too! Though Dóhnanyi's style didn't change radically over the course of his career, it's still interesting to track his development from the quasi-Brahmsian early works to the quirkier and more unpredictable later works. A particular favorite of mine from that series is the tremendously entertaining 6 Concert Etudes, Op. 28. And what a fine pianist Martin Roscoe is!
Quote from: Spotted Horses on May 10, 2024, 07:06:34 AMThe "forgotten 19th or early 20th century romantic music" genre is probably my least favorite. There are a few exceptions. One (according to my reading notes) is the Herzogenberg Symphony No 1, which I compare to Brahms in my notes of a decade ago.
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That symphony, in my view, is a masterpiece. If Brahms had composed it as his own, he could have been proud in doing so. And in general about Herzogenberg - every time I listen to his best music (e.g. Piano Trios, Symphonies, the choir song "Wie schön hier zu verträumen" etc.), I am left in wonder at how he, being so close to Brahms in general stylistic traits, at the same time makes it impossible for me to ever mistake a work of his for that of Brahms or the other way around...
And here are the two of my all time favourite Piano Trios, by Heinrich von Herzogenberg (and it's not just the music, the recording itself is truly excellent...)
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Quote from: GoranTch on May 31, 2025, 08:14:02 AMAnd here are the two of my all time favourite Piano Trios, by Heinrich von Herzogenberg (and it's not just the music, the recording itself is truly excellent...)
(https://media1.jpc.de/image/w2400/front/0/0761203733521.jpg)
I endorse your enthusiasm on Herzogenberg. His chamber music represents the summit of his art IMO. I'd also recommend the cello sonatas, piano quartets and some string quartets to anyone interested in exploring his music.
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Ferdinand Hiller was a friendly guy, and made friends with everybody. As a teenager, his best friend was Mendelssohn; later, his friend Schumann dedicated the piano concerto to him and his friend Chopin dedicated the nocturnes op. 15. His friend Rossini helped him stage his first opera, and he had a long correspondence with Alkan and Berlioz.
Hiller's own taste was more conservative than, say, Berlioz; he succeeded Mendelssohn in Leipzig and his formative experience as a teen was when his teacher, Hummel, took him to see Schubert at the piano for Winterreise. The CPO booklet for this album was not uploaded to Qobuz, but it appears that one symphony here was published and the other was not.
The two symphonies are very much in the same mold as Mendelssohn and maybe younger Schumann. The melodies are consistently less memorable, and I couldn't point to any feature of either as original. Both start in an energetic, stormy minor key and then gradually coil around to major key endings. Perfectly pleasant and harmless.
There is an unusual amount of performance noise (instrumental clicks, chair squeaks).
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This is a mixed collection: Liszt works arranged by Dupré for organ and orchestra, by Weiner and Bischof for orchestra without organ, and a solo organ version by Liszt himself of his symphonic poem Orpheus.
We start with Dupré's rendering of a Fantasy and Fugue on a Chorale by Meyerbeer into effectively a full 27-minute organ concerto. It is fabulous. The organ part is still juicy, but Dupré adds fun brass fanfares (in 5'), growling bassoons, and a series of woodwind-organ duels in the fugue. Since much of the music is very quiet or involves very low bass organ sustains, I do advise against listening when there is any background noise in your environment. My air conditioner affected my experience.
The Weiner (Weinen, Klagen, Sorgen, Zagen) and Liszt arrangements are predictably excellent, though Weinen... loses some of its coherence and consistency when rewritten for full orchestra. Orpheus by contrast is pretty darn great in this form. Finally we have Bischof, who did not invent Biscoff cookies, and whose arrangement of the Prelude and Fugue on B-A-C-H has been described by other commentators as having the bright, even lurid colors of Schoenberg orchestral arrangements. Sure enough, the most memorable part may be the highly decorated wind, brass, and percussion parts. It's bright and wild. Some of the interjections at 11' are maybe in poor taste, but fun.
An interesting disc for Liszt and orchestration junkies.
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I've heard so much about E.T.A. Hoffmann as writer and inspiration for Schumann, Offenbach, etc. but this might be my first introduction to his actual music. The overtures are a pleasing mix of Weber and Rossini ("Das Kreuz an der Ostsee" quotes "Il signor Bruschino"), with a bit of obvious late Mozart too ("Der Trank der Unsterblichkeit").
The main course is the half-hour ballet Arlequin, which is more in the classical mold than the throughwritten style of Adolphe Adam a little bit later. I think the track titles are not ideally translated; one of them is called "Indicates That They Have Lost The Belt." Anyway, the ballet is completely wonderful fluff.
An hour of cheery fun light music.
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Joining the GMG crowd on this one and...yup. These are great. I own the CPO twofer disc of various Herzogenberg trios and quartets. Might need this one as well. Brahmsish, but not directly imitative. Highly communicative and emotional, but not sappy. Just really darn good romantic cello music. My sense is that the later sonatas are more small-scale, more for domestic playing, in contrast to the bigger First.
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More endearing wind music by Frantisek Rössler, a.k.a. Antonio Rosetti. Dieter Klöcker's clarinet is unusually "fruity" in this recording, and the music is gentle, friendly, and breezily virtuosic. Neither concerto is on Mozart's level, of course, but they're very pleasant. The double horn concerto is in the same mold, and is similar to the other double horn concertos I've heard from this composer. I swear I've heard one of the finale's melodies in another piece before. A pleasant late classical hour.
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These are post-Strauss tone poems, reminiscent of Karlowicz and maybe Korngold. They use a big, colorful orchestra to depict spring, idylls, and a festival. (Qobuz didn't upload the booklet so I am unaware of additional plot details.) Where Marx falls short of Strauss and even Karlowicz is his melodic inspiration. Instead, the motifs here are more like coathangers on which to place rich, colorful orchestral effects like clothing. Broadly speaking, Eine Fruhlingsmusik is celebratory and glittering, Idylle is calmer and slower with plenty of harp, and Feste im Herbst is a lot like the first piece again, but with a small Hungarian episode at about 9:30.
The result is ear candy: sweet, rich, entertaining, but instantly forgettable. I probably won't be back for more.
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This is the fourth recording of the Rautavaara violin concerto, and I think maybe the third of the serenade, which is one of two written for Hilary Hahn. (The other is omitted here because it was completed by Kalevi Aho after the composer's death.) The concerto is maybe not as reverently spiritual as 90s-00s Rautavaara, instead having more in common with Sibelius, Nielsen, a little Vaughan Williams, maybe even the slow movement of the Korngold concerto. It's in two movements of about equal length: one slowish, one fastish, with lots of monkeying around by the xylophone and (I think) glockenspiel in the background. The fast movement has an extended slow interlude for solo oboe, with the violin remaining respectfully silent at first, then taking over the material. The final minutes feature a lot of virtuosic fiddling and a punchy orchestral accompaniment, but not a lot of thematic-motivic conclusion. Instead of a puzzle being resolved, the concerto's ending is a mood being fulfilled.
The first of his two Serenades, written for his wife in his final years, is suitably ethereal, beautiful, heartwarming, and simple. It's not so far, indeed, from the soundworld of the Four Last Songs. Rautavaara was economizing with notes, making them all sing of his love. The violinist is active as leader almost constantly.
Autumn Gardens does a great job sounding like its title. It's moody, slow, beautiful but decaying at the same time. It's not quite autumnal in the melancholic Brahmsian sense, but rather more like a picturesque ruin, seeing the prettiness in the falling leaves. The first two movements play without pause, though there is not much difference between them, except perhaps that the second is even slower. The third movement has a little bit of faster motion at times - falling leaves? calling birds?
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This is a 90-minute set featuring nine composers, including at least one excerpted part of a larger work.
CD1
Sara Gurowitsch, Kol Nidrei: Simple, almost like a recitative and aria; very sweet, positive musical language. 6 minutes
Jacob Weinberg, Clarinet Quintet: Influenced a little bit by Roussel-like neoclassicism, maybe Euro cafe jazz, and containing a central recitative and aria movement. (This time labeled as such.) The very short finale is the only place where you might detect Eastern European influence. 12 minutes
Samuel Gardner, Hebrew Fantasy: Here's where the Jewish musical influences really come out to play for the first time. Wonderful solos for every player (the viola gets a good tune in the second movement) and a satisfying alternation of episodes. 17 minutes
Fabian Gorodezky, Jewish Rhapsody: This seems to be a series of folk/popular melody arrangements with skillful writing of each tune/accompaniment but basically no transitions between them or larger structure. Without access to a booklet, I don't know if the melodies really are arrangements, or if they are original. 15 minutes
CD2
Alexander Krein, Esquisses hebraïques: Description is somewhat like the Gardner piece, but shorter movements all around. Also enjoyable. 10 minutes
Sholom Secunda, Song for the Guemara: A simple, beautiful, hushed slow ballad. 4 minutes
Boris Levenson, Two Jewish Folk Songs: Exactly what it says. The second one is a dance, so there's a slow-fast structure to the piece. 6 minutes
Alexander Grechaninov, Clarinet Sonata No. 2., second movement arranged for clarinet with string quartet: I do not know the original piece but this excerpt fits perfectly in the program. At least one variation is a solo clarinet cadenza. 10 minutes
Abraham Wolf Binder, Variations on a Prayer Motif: This has been paired last with the Grechaninov because of the structural similarities between two sets of variations, I think, and because they both take us back from the explicitly Jewish folk music of the middle of the program back to the broader western classical language again. 8 minutes
I suppose I should be aware of a prejudice in myself, that I enjoy the "more Jewish sounding" or more traditional music here more than the ordinary Western clarinet quintets that happen to be by Jewish composers. But that's not because I make any particular demand of the composers; it's because I find the musical language so attractive.
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Robert Fuchs was a legendary teacher - students include Enescu, Korngold, Madetoja, Mahler, Melartin, Schmidt, Schreker, Sibelius, Wolf, and Zemlinsky - and a friend of Brahms, who admired his work. He was so modest and unwilling to engage in self-promotion that his own compositions never gained much ground in the repertoire. I've enjoyed his five string serenades, by far his most famous works (though they are roughly ordered in quality, with No. 1 being the best). I've also heard some good chamber music.
What about his symphonies? No. 1 in C starts out in a surprisingly gentle, bucolic fashion; its musical language maybe evokes the Brahms Serenades rather than symphonies. The whole work follows in this gentle, friendly fashion, and although it may not rank (among pastoral romantic symphonies) alongside, say, Dvorak 5 or 6, or even Svendsen 2, it is exquisitely well-crafted. I appreciated a lot about the orchestration, tunefulness, and skillful development of tunes.
No. 2, in E flat, starts with a heroic French horn call; the intro reminds me of a horn-centric version of the start of Schumann's First. This, however, is not a slow introduction but rather the beginning of a slowish and epic-length first movement allegro which will boast an unusually long, interesting development section. We then get two intermezzo-like middle movements, neither of them really slow, though the first one does have tiny hints at a more lyrical, sweeping melody. The third movement is a minuet (!), with a trio livelier and louder than the outer portions. The finale reverts to the relaxed happiness of the First Symphony.
No. 3 has only been recorded by Leon Botstein, on another independent label. I'll probably seek it out at some point to be completist.
I love the stories written by ETA Hoffmann. I will check the recording!
Quote from: Brian on June 17, 2025, 10:53:50 AM(https://static.qobuz.com/images/covers/wa/q9/azqucahcoq9wa_600.jpg)
I've heard so much about E.T.A. Hoffmann as writer and inspiration for Schumann, Offenbach, etc. but this might be my first introduction to his actual music. The overtures are a pleasing mix of Weber and Rossini ("Das Kreuz an der Ostsee" quotes "Il signor Bruschino"), with a bit of obvious late Mozart too ("Der Trank der Unsterblichkeit").
The main course is the half-hour ballet Arlequin, which is more in the classical mold than the throughwritten style of Adolphe Adam a little bit later. I think the track titles are not ideally translated; one of them is called "Indicates That They Have Lost The Belt." Anyway, the ballet is completely wonderful fluff.
An hour of cheery fun light music.
Thanks for that, it should be right up my alley.
I have some other music by Hoffmann, including his complete piano sonatas, and it strikes me as too Classical for such an arch-Romantic writer. I mean, one would expect mad Kreisler to out-Beethoven Beethoven in rage and quirkiness, but that's not the case at all. Mild-mannered Classicism is the name of the game --- not that I dislike it but the difference between Hoffmann's prose and his music is striking.
Yes, I have heard a symphony, a piano trio and a sacred choral work (Miserere?) by Hoffmann. The E flat major symphony is quite nice but heavily indebted to Mozart's #39, not unfitting, as Hoffmann did change his middle name to Amadeus in honor of Mozart.
I don't remember much about the choral piece, Hoffmann is on record for claiming that old quasi-palestrinian style would be the only real church style but this was obviously difficult to square with his admiration of Haydn, Mozart, Beethoven who wrote rather different church music, but the piano trio is also closer to Hummel and early Beethoven than to middle Beethoven or early romanticism.
Hoffmann also wrote a moderately successful opera: Undine; I have never heard it and it seems to have been replaced during the later 19th century by Lortzing's rather light-popular treatment of a similar story and later by Dvorak's Rusalka.
Quote from: Symphonic Addict on June 01, 2025, 12:01:49 PMI endorse your enthusiasm on Herzogenberg. His chamber music represents the summit of his art IMO. I'd also recommend the cello sonatas, piano quartets and some string quartets to anyone interested in exploring his music.
Fully agree with this, his best chamber music consists of, again, works which Brahms could have been rightfully proud of if he had composed them himself...
Quote from: Brian on June 17, 2025, 10:53:50 AMJoining the GMG crowd on this one and...yup. These are great. I own the CPO twofer disc of various Herzogenberg trios and quartets. Might need this one as well. Brahmsish, but not directly imitative. Highly communicative and emotional, but not sappy. Just really darn good romantic cello music. My sense is that the later sonatas are more small-scale, more for domestic playing, in contrast to the bigger First.
Yes, the First especially really is a major work, a true high point in the repertoire for the instrument.
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Rontgen's Piano Concerto No. 3, in D minor and from the late 1880s, takes a straightforward romantic form. It's in four movements (with an allegretto added), about a half-hour, and starts with the piano declaiming a Brahmsian minor-key melody. This first movement is like a miniature version of the Brahms D minor concerto. The allegretto, by contrast, is a gentle, courtly dance with quite a bit of triangle. The slow Romanze is led by a long, graceful cello melody; if it was a solo cello, I'd think Rontgen was stealing from Brahms again. It's almost three minutes before the piano enters. The romance eventually segues straight into a gentle dancing rondo finale. It's almost like Rontgen fused the two Brahms concertos, then shrunk that combined colossus to one-third the size. Derivative? Yes. Exquisitely crafted, wonderfully played, unceasingly entertaining, and worthy of the style it copies? Also yes.
Concertos 6 and 7 are much smaller, only about 18 minutes each, the Sixth in one movement, the Seventh in three. (CPO's booklet misnames the three movements, copying and pasting the first three movement markings from the Third.) Amazingly, these "Siamese twin" concertos were written simultaneously in December 1929 and finished just six days apart.
No. 6, in E minor, starts with a very strange string melody, very much warning the listener that we've moved forward 40 years in time. (Unlike, say, Glazunov, Rontgen really did evolve. Not as much as someone like Stravinsky, but he didn't stay stuck in the 1880s until the end.) The fantasia-like structure bounces around through a variety of moods, tempos, and even musical languages. No surprise, maybe, that Rontgen eventually reverts to a more romantic mode of expression, complete with virtuoso cadenza. No. 7 has a jovial C major key but there are plenty of shadows through the second and third movements. There's also a neoclassical element to the outer movements, not fully Martinu but clearly someone inspired by Bach.
Interesting stuff! Triendl, as ever, is a mark of both adventure and quality.
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Earlier in this thread I mentioned "Sinding's violin concerto"...I didn't realize there were three! This 2CD set begins with No. 3, probably because it has the catchiest opening. The orchestra sets out a catchy tune in heroic flight, then the violinist immediately enters to develop it. The slow movement has a vaguely Nordic-folkish character, but only very mild. The finale is just long enough and has a catchy, punchy ending. All three movements are concise, catchy, and full of violin pyrotechnics. (The piece is only 21 minutes long.) The concerto lacks the type of A-list Big Tune that puts a romantic concerto in the permanent repertoire, but it has everything else in spades. A great success, I'd say.
Two shortish pieces follow, a Legende and Romance, both pleasant. On the second disc, Suite im alten Stil is probably Sinding's most famous work? I've long had a violin and piano version on a Naxos CD.
Violin Concerto No. 1 starts with the same basic rhythm/idea as the finale of Bruch's same-name piece. It's a little surprising because I'm so used to this tune signaling an ending, not a beginning. The first movement is in jovial good humor, and Sinding was clearly proud of the ending, which modulates very dramatically into a minor key to set up the slow movement. Concerto No. 2 is the weakest of the three, I think, because it is the longest but it is not more interesting to justify its length.
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Simon Le Duc was a French composer, 14 years older than Mozart, who died at a similar age (34 or 35). He left three symphonies and three "orchestral trios," written so that they could be scaled down for chamber music performance if necessary, and all six pieces fit on one CD. This CD has 'em all, in HIP performances. (Sometimes I can just barely hear a fortepiano continuo.)
These are transitional symphonies from the form's first days, but they offer lots of variety, quirks, and colorful orchestration. I like the roles of the horns in the symphonies. The playing is also excellent. If you appreciate, say, the first 15 or so Haydn symphonies, you should definitely hear this.
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Kallstenius, a Swedish musical bureaucrat (librarian, copyright advocate, composers' board member), gained a reputation for somewhat stern, tough, modernist works that featured very small motifs treated rigorously. The booklet says he was even given the nickname Gallstonius! "He was an intellectual composer...his music is not always easy to follow." The booklet tries to make us afraid. Symphony No. 1 is described as "rugged and screeching." (It was premiered, inappropriately, in a pops concert between Schubert and Johann Strauss.) Perhaps afraid we won't like the Symphony, CPO has paired it with two lighter pieces, a Sinfonietta and the even less structured Musica Sinfonica (with folk music inspirations).
A century after its premiere, Symphony No. 1 doesn't sound so "screeching" anymore. It's not atonal honking, for example ;D However, the rigorous musical language, not made for easy listening, certainly makes it incredibly inappropriate for its original pops concert setting. I'd say it is a little tougher to digest and more academically rigorous than, say, late Wiren, and certainly moreso than anything by Atterberg. Though not as contrapuntal as Johann Nepomuk David, that is an okay comparison.
I actually found the two "lighter" pieces somewhat tougher, because they are in fact not that much lighter. Kallstenius found himself trapped between his impulse to be "light" and his inherent nature, and the result is kinda neither.
CPO's booklet translation is unusually full of errors and typos.