Frank Martin

[Dax]

Received this recording today:



A world premiere recording of a long neglected ballet. Looking forward to digging into this one. Probably over the weekend.

Hear (and see) a performance of the whole thing at https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jMZ7cjJBZG0

(Das Märchen vom Aschenbrödel or just plain Cinderella)

or a few minutes of extracts at https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YG4ULN059aQ

Also highly recommended is Danse de la peur (2 pianos + small orchestra) at
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4vNIfgtnOKc

and Poèmes de la mort (3 male voices + 3 electric guitars) at
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GQ4CvxKPCZ8

[snyprrr]

whimper

bumpo

[Ken B]

bumpo

natty

[Klaze]

I think I need a Cornet: de Leeuw, Zagrosek or the one on MDG?

[The new erato]

Zagrosek. I have all three and while all are different and valuable, Zagrosek strikes out.

[snyprrr]

Zagrosek strikes out.

you mean, he "hits a home run"... "strikes out" is the bad thing! 0:)

[The new erato]

you mean, he "hits a home run"... "strikes out" is the bad thing! 0:)

Sorry. Zagrosek strikes home. I shouldn't use metaphors from games I'm not too familiar with!

[Klaze]

Thanks!

[Ken B]

Sorry. Zagrosek strikes home. I shouldn't use metaphors from games I'm not too familiar with!

Three checks you're out!

[The new erato]

Three checks you're out!

Not home?

[pjme]

From Alex Ross' blog:

Frank Martin's austere choral masterwork will receive an exceedingly rare New York performance on Sunday at Trinity Wall Street, with the New Amsterdam Singers undertaking the task. The archives of the New York Times suggest that the last — indeed, only — local performance was in 1952, when the Dessoff Choirs presented it. Olin Downes, of the Times, described the work as "unfortunately invertebrate," a phrase that applies rather better to Downes's style than to Martin's. Tony Tommasini gave a much warmer reception to Harmonia Mundi's 2010 recording.

Good! Golgotha is an impressive work.

Peter

[ritter]

A new relese from the enterpising CPO label:



Press blurb:

"Frank Martin was one of the most eminent Swiss composers of all times and along with Arthur Honegger certainly the leading representative of his guild in Francophone Switzerland. Today it is above all in the field of large-format vocal composition that he ranks with the most remarkable composers of the twentieth century. Many texts describing dances of death began being written during the middle years of the fourteenth century. Painters and engravers like Hans Holbein and Albrecht Dürer depicted this subject. Perhaps the most famous pictorial representation of these danses macabres was produced in Basle. It consisted of thirty-seven pictures painted on the cemetery walls of the local Dominican Monastery beginning in the mid-fifteenth century. Today only nineteen fragments of these paintings survive. In 1943 the pantomime Mariette von Meyenburg asked her uncle Frank Martin to compose the music for a stage performance that would feature the traditional, empathetic, and understanding figure of Death, thereby deliberately opposing the horrors and mass slaughter of World War II. Frank Martin developed a scenario for a professional dancer who would portray Death and for a dozen pantomimes. The »action« consists of eight scenes in which Death meets with individuals whose time is over. They are portrayed by the members of boys' choir and accompanied by a small orchestra. Martin has a large jazz band play the music of the dances of death – the so-called musique profane. The work was performed on a mere two occasions in Basle, in 1943 and 1992, but with great success. The music was never published. Maria Martin, the composer's widow, suggested that a concert suite be developed on the basis of the Danse Macabre in Basle, 1943 to save the music from oblivion. However, this strategy would not have kept the complete version – a genuine masterpiece – from suffering the very same fate. Therefore, we have decided to produce the complete original version".

[The new erato]

Thanks to you and cpo!

[Scion7]

Interesting piece that holds one's attention througout:

[vandermolen]

In Terra Pax is my favourite of the works I know. Only discovered it as it came with my double LP set of Honegger's 'King David'.

[snyprrr]

Interesting piece that holds one's attention througout:

Is it that one, or Ansermet?,... that I first heard on a scratchy library LP (I believe it was released on Decca/London on CD)? The opening, with the scratchy LP, made a huuuge, creepy, Lon Chaney impression on me: it's like the perfect 'Dance of the Vampires',; it might have worked in a horror film?!?!

I haven't heard any other version really give me the same chills, even the CD version of that same performance. Ahh, that scratchy old LP!!


But, the piece keeps moving the entire time- sometimes I think the colors are too maudlin, but, it plays well against Schoenberg's Piano Concerto. Both pieces have an idealized Neo-Classical sound, imo, which still tended "towards the graveyard".


The problem for me was, then, having to snorkle through the rest of his output looking for something as memorable, and, I don't think I currently have an all-Martin disc. I remember not being that impressed with the DoubleDecca years back. The Violin Concerto could use fresh ears here.

...seem to recall liking the astringent(?) Cello Concerto,... would like to hear the Harpsichord Concerto...

HELP!!

[snyprrr]

Fartin' martin's Spartan Shartin'




anyone?,... anyone?,... Bueller?,...



Martin's Spartan _______??

[snyprrr]

Martin's Spartan Tartan




thank me later

[Scion7]

Fartin' martin's Spartan Shartin'



anyone?,... anyone?,... Bueller?,...

HERE:  https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IISJXKl1Ih4

Now, go take your 250mg of anti-anxiety meds, and listen.

[Scion7]

*bump*