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Pippa passes by Frederick Corder

Started by alberto, Monday 30 May 2011, 10:59

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alberto

I have just discovered on the web the programs between 1813 and 1912 of the Royal Philharmonic Society (they will be well known to many members of the forum: www.ebooksread.com/authors.eng.  .....storyof.the-philharmonic-society-of-london-1813-1912).
I am focusing on years 1880-1900. My interest was taken by some orchestral works with literary associations.
The first is "Pippa passes", after Browning, by Fredrick Corder (London first performance 1898), defined "orchestral dramatic scene". As the Browning work doesn't appear to me the most likely subject/source for a merely orchestral work (but anyway much more likely than, say, "Also sprach Zarathustra"), there's anybody who can give further information about Corder's piece?
For instance, is the piece inspired to/by some particular verses/lines prefacing the score?
Corder's idiom I may roughly imagine through the concert overture "Prospero" (Hyperion CDA66515).
(By the way, Corder's work will be worlds apart from Charles Ives' "Robert Browning" overture (1911, according to Ives himself; later according to others), which, anyway, had still late romantic hints in the slow sections).
Other wish-list listenings with literary associations:
Alexander Mackenzie: orchestral ballad "La Belle Dame sans merci", after Keats (1899)
Arthur Somervell: orchestral ballad "Helen of Kirckannel",
after Walter Scott (1893) .

alberto

Sorry, mistype. "Helen of Kirkconnel".

Gareth Vaughan

You may like to Know that Cameo Classics has recorded Mackenzie's "La Belle Dame Sans Merci" with the Malta Philharmonic Orchestra. I've heard the takes and can state that this is a fine performance by an enthusiastic group of players. Their conductor, Michael Laus, is married to the opera singer Miriam Gauci and, besides being an inspiring orchestral maestro, is an accomplished harpsichordist. He is the soloist in Cyril Scott's Harpsichord Concerto which was recorded at the same time.

jimmattt

Gareth, do you know of a link to the Cameo recordings of the Mackenzie and Scott pieces you mentioned. I didn't find them on the Cameo Classics website. Thanks.

alberto

I thank Gareth V. for the useful information. It seems to me that the Mackenzie/Scott CD has to be released yet.

eschiss1

another link gives a specific date for what I presume was the premiere of the Corder, fwiw - April 29 1898.

eschiss1

a skimmish Worldcat search reveals among published, and library-held-archive manuscript, Pippa passes-related material, very little that isn't individual songs or song cycles - I expect the Corder is an unpublished manuscript perhaps with his estate. (The one exception I find  - though I haven't looked entirely though the admittedly brief list - is Wilhelm Rettich's (1892-1988) incidental music in vocal score reduction, published by Astoria Verlag Berlin as recently as 1981.)
Eric

Gareth Vaughan

The Cameo disk hasn't been released yet - and probably won't be until the autumn. Cameo is recording quite a lot this summer with the MPO: Brull's Violin Concerto; Somervell's Symphony in D minor "Thalassa"; Bantock's "Macbeth"; Kenneth Leighton's 1st PC; the PC by Ruth Gipps; Walter Gaze Cooper's Oboe concertino; Jadassohn's Serenade for Flute and Strings - and other delights. So there'll be a lot of editing to be done before these works appear - and, as you folks probably know, Cameo is a one-man band.
I'll keep everyone posted.

Returning to the subject of this thread, I'd really like to find the MS of Corder's "Pippa Passes". It definitely wasn't published. Does anyone know its whereabouts? - and before you say anything it's not where one might expect - the RAM.

albion

For interest, and given the complete inadequacy of the list in Grove, here* are Corder's principal works (some opus numbers vary between sources) -

*moved to Composer Reference board.


Mark Thomas

Absolutely fascinating. Thank you, John. No chamber music at all, then?

albion

Quote from: Mark Thomas on Monday 06 June 2011, 22:17
No chamber music at all, then?

Not as far as I'm aware - although even if there were, I'd trade it all in for a taste of The Nabob's Pickle;)

eschiss1

Op.11 sort of counts, sort of doesn't (mostly doesn't, I guess.)(as chamber music.) I see it was published (or republished) (as Rumänische Weisen : für Klavier und Violine) by Breitkopf...

giles.enders

Thank you Albion for the Corder list, the operettas sound a hoot.  Possibly so dated they could be fun.

ahinton

The thread title as presented here does look almost as though it is intended to convey the notion of someone called Pippa ignoring Mr Corder by passing by him...

Lionel Harrsion

Quote from: ahinton on Tuesday 07 June 2011, 10:34
The thread title as presented here does look almost as though it is intended to convey the notion of someone called Pippa ignoring Mr Corder by passing by him...
Perhaps she didn't like the look of him! :o