Godard from Dutton

[Alan Howe]

How about this new CD from Dutton containing Godard's 1st Piano Concerto and his Symphonie Orientale...?
http://www.duttonvocalion.co.uk/proddetail.asp?prod=CDLX7274&cat=385
...unfortunately it doesn't look as though it can actually be purchased yet!

[edurban]

Wow.  This must be the Golden Age of unsungs on record!

David

[Mark Thomas]

The Piano Concerto s rather a nice piece, if you have Chloë Hanslip's recording of the Violin Concertos then you'll get the idea. The Symphonie Orientale, at least in the old radio dub I have of it, is amongst the most laughably awful pieces of "serious" music I know. The movement titles should be enough to warn anybody off. I'll buy the CD for the Concerto and hope that some miracle has been worked on the Symphony.

[eschiss1]

Well, Mr. Vaughan did say Hyperion had no (immediate) plans to record the Godard concertos

[albion]

The Symphonie Orientale, at least in the old radio dub I have of it, is amongst the most laughably awful pieces of "serious" music I know. The movement titles should be enough to warn anybody off.

Although unheard, I'm afraid I rather warm to the idea of ...

Symphonie Orientale pour orchestre op.84 (1884)
i. Arabia: Les Éléphants (Andante con moto)
ii. China: Chinoiserie (Allegro moderato)
iii. Greece: Orientales, Sara la baigneuse (Andantino con moto)
iv. Persia: Le rêve de la Nikia (Quasi adagio)
v. Turkey: Marche Turque (Tempo di marcia)

... are you sure that 'seriousness' is the aim rather than pure escapist entertainment? 

[JimL]

I'm not too sure Godard was very geographically savvy.  Elephants in Arabia?  Camels, maybe, but elephants are either African or Asian.  They may be found in desert terrain in southwest Africa, but not on the Sinai or Arabian peninsulas, nor am I aware of them being found in any parts of northern Africa above the Sahara Desert (i.e. Arab North Africa).  If anybody knows of elephants being associated with anything Arabian fill me in.

[edurban]

I just adore the March of the Mogul Emperors from Elgar's Crown of India.  When the horns bray (elephants trumpeting?) and then the big gong strokes underline the final chords, I just love it, and have since I was in High School.  I suspect the Symphonie Orientale is for me...

David

[albion]

Elephants in Arabia?

I'm not sure that they have necessarily to be native - they could have been imported for the sole purpose of carrying some corpulent potentate or other - or maybe they simply escaped, wandered over a couple of borders and got a bit lost!

[Gareth Vaughan]

I believe Hannibal famously took elephants in his army against Rome. And whence came Hannibal? From Carthage... On the north coast of Africa.

[JimL]

He probably traded with the natives from down south for them.  And I believe the Carthaginians were long gone before the Arabs arrived. 

[Gareth Vaughan]

Oh, yes. I'm sure you're right, Jim. But I think Godard might be allowed a little poetic license!

[JimL]

I'm sure you're quite right, Gareth!  But poetic license wasn't the question.  Biogeoethnographical accuracy was! > <

[FBerwald]

C'mon Hyperion!!!! WAKE UP!   

[Alan Howe]

I'm sure you're quite right, Gareth!  But poetic license wasn't the question.  Biogeoethnographical accuracy was! > <

I think you'll find that the very camp music makes such questions of fact seem totally irrelevant...

[Mark Thomas]

Not to sound plonking ('cause I'm never that, am I?  ), but I did describe the Symphony as "laughably awful " having had the advantage of actually hearing it.