Belgian music

[Elroel]

Hello all,

I have repaired the upload for De Vocht's Violin Concerto, by adding the second part.

As far as Decadt's Monograph concerns: the is file is gone from Mediafire. I will be uploading  it hopefully tonight.

Sorry for the inconvenience.

Elroel

[lechner1110]

  Thank you Elroel,  My country's violinist plays nice unknown concerto     

[eschiss1]

Hanssens violin concertos-
apparently he wrote at least two, one in D major and one in A. The one in D- the one we have - has the movement scheme Allegro non troppo / Andantino / Allegretto (see RISM , again. Click weitere incipits to see all 6 incipits - the violin solo starting about 2 minutes (56 bars of common time) into the first file being the first.) (Also concertos for flute and perhaps for piano if these are independent works- at least one of those for piano is an arrangement of one of those for flute.)

(The finale Allegretto begins ca. 1:14 into track 3.)
The manuscript copy at Brussels Royal Conservatory is signed 1848 July 2 (well, le 2 Juillet 1848), Gand (apparently by Tourbée who made the copy, not by the composer- in any case the work was composed -by- 1848, for what that's worth.)

[eschiss1]

What's even nicer, there is a scan of (just the cello and bass part- but more than nothing, which is printed-musically-speaking, what one had...) of this concerto at Madrid library. Search for Hanssens, and click the right links, and you'll find the PDF- it helps to use Google Chrome if Spanish is not one's native language... (Madrid estimates a date of 1825-or-so for the concerto- would have to look into that but it's not impossible as some dates, e.g. that 1910 publication date for the Simonsen symphonies that weren't to be written for a decade...)

Hrm. The other concerto seems to be more usually called the Grande Fantaisie in A major.

[eschiss1]

Thanks much for the Legley 3rd concerto!
I see from CeBeDeM that it was commissioned for Jenny Spanoghe, composed in 1990, and that the movements/sections are
#Andante molto e tranquillo - Allegro risoluto
#Quasi adagio
#Non troppo vivo

[fr8nks]

I have uploaded Jean Absil's Piano Concertos Nos.2 & 3 and Symphonies Nos.3 & 4. Unfortunately PC No.1 and Symphony No.2 and his Serenade all appear on CD Musique en Wallonie 3602.

[eschiss1]

Well, it means hopefully somewhat wider distribution for what I assume is fairly good stuff, so it's not -that- unfortunate. Thanks!

[fr8nks]

I've added movement titles for Absil's PC No.2 and I've uploaded two new works. I've also added movement titles for Symphony No.3.

[eschiss1]

I wonder if that LP of Absil's symphonies 3 and 4 had much international distribution - I can't seem to find out anything about it. But the 3rd symphony has track titles now but not the 4th symphony which actually arrived subdivided? Well, better something than nothing, and always thanks for the music!

[jowcol]

Music of Joseph Jongen




1. Serenade for Strings
Belgian String Ensemble
Nicolai Berezowski, Conductor

2. Commentary

3. In The Fragrance of the Pines
Lucian Laporte Kirch, Cello

4. Outro

From the collection of Karl Miller
Source: Radio broadcast, date unknown

Wikipedia Bio
Joseph Jongen
Marie-Alphonse-Nicolas-Joseph Jongen (14 December 1873 – 12 July 1953) was a Belgian organist, composer, and music educator.
Contents

Biography
Jongen was born in Liège. On the strength of an amazing precocity for music, he was admitted to the Liège Conservatoire at the extraordinarily young age of seven, and spent the next sixteen years there. Jongen won a First Prize for Fugue in 1895, an honors diploma in piano the next year, and another for organ in 1896. In 1897, he won the prestigious Prix de Rome, which allowed him to travel to Italy, Germany and France.

He began composing at the age of 13, and immediately exhibited exceptional talent in that field too. By the time he published his Opus 1, he already had dozens of works to his credit. His monumental and massive First String Quartet was composed in 1894 and was submitted for the annual competition for fine arts held by the Royal Academy of Belgium, where it was awarded the top prize by the jury.

In 1902, he returned to his native land, and in the following year he was named a professor of harmony and counterpoint at his old Liège college. With the outbreak of World War I, he and his family moved to England where he founded a piano quartet. When peace returned, he came back to Belgium and was named professor of fugue at the Royal Conservatoire in Brussels. From 1925 until 1929, he served as director of that institution; a quarter of a century after leaving the directorship, he died at Sart-lez-Spa, Belgium.

Compositions
From his teens to his seventies Jongen composed a great deal, including symphonies, concertos (for cello, for piano and for harp), chamber music (notably a late string trio and three string quartets), and songs, some with piano, others with orchestra. (His list of opus numbers eventually reached 241, but he destroyed a good many pieces.) Today, the only part of his oeuvre performed with any regularity is his output for organ, much of it solo, some of it in combination with other instruments.

His monumental Symphonie Concertante of 1926 is a tour de force, considered by many to be among the greatest works ever written for organ and orchestra.[1] Numerous eminent organists of modern times (such as Virgil Fox, Jean Guillou, and Michael Murray) have championed and recorded it. The work was commissioned by Rodman Wanamaker for debut in the Grand Court of his palatial Philadelphia department store, Wanamaker's. Its intended use was for the re-dedication of the world's largest pipe organ there, the Wanamaker Organ. as part of a series of concerts Rodman Wanamaker funded with Leopold Stokowski and the Philadelphia Orchestra. Mr. Wanamaker's death in 1928 precluded the performance of the work at that time in the venue for which it was written, but it was finally performed for the first time with the Wanamaker Organ and the Philadelphia Orchestra on 27 September 2008.

[Balapoel]

Quick question about the Jongen pieces:
I can find no reference to a  serenade for strings nor a In The Fragrance of the Pines
Could these refer to:
2 pieces, op.51, vc, pf, 1916
or
Serenades for string quartet, Op. 61 (1918)
2 pieces, 4 vc, op. 89, no. 1 (1929)
or 2 esquisses for string quartet, op. 97 (1933)?

[jowcol]

To be honest-- I wouldn't know any better, but the names were from the radio broadcast, and they could have been Americanized.

[minacciosa]

The Frgrance of the Pines is more commonly known as " Dans la douceur des pins". An exquisite performance of it can be heard here: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jKR7ra1BQvk

[eschiss1]

I can't find offhand any work by Leon or Joseph Jongen whose title is The Fragrance of the Pines in French either - that I can tell - though there are many individual songs by both composers bundled into opus groups and unpublished groups that I for one don't know of (which doesn't say much) and which CeBeDeM and RecMusic don't list (which also doesn't say much) though they might be on one of a few recent recordings of vocal works by him...

[eschiss1]

ah ok. Thanks, that does do it. It's Joseph Jongen's Opus 51/1 of 1916 for cello and orchestra, cello and piano or piano solo. I don't know what his opus 51 is in general (at the moment) that it's the first -of-

Hrm. Op.51/2 is a caprice-impromptu. Op.51/1 was published the next year; not sure about op.51/2. There is a recording of both of them on a CD of Jongen's complete cello works (Phaedra, ca.2002) by Karel Steylaerts and Piet Kuijken.