German Music Folder

[JimL]

I've uploaded an expansive early Symphony of 1887 and four well made and substantial orchestral works by Georg Schumann dating from the 1906 to the 1930 (although his idiom didn't really change).

Just downloaded the B minor Symphony.  Love it - except aren't there supposed to be 4 movements?  The 3rd movement scherzo seems to have gone missing.  I mean it's just not there.  There are files for movements 1, 2 and 4 and a text file.  Was it uploaded later at a different address, perchance?

[Mark Thomas]

Well it was there and I've now replaced it. Sorry about that, Jim. I'm delighted that you enjoy the Symphony though and now you'll enjoy it even more.

[JimL]

 

[Rainolf]

Any chance of getting movement titles for the Büttner symphonies?  I just downloaded the 1st and it seems kind of strange that there are 3 files, but there seem to be 4 movements.  I think the first movement and the second movement scherzo run together, but I'm not sure.

Here are the titles of the movements of Symphonies No. 2 and 3:

Nr. 2
1.Allegro ma non troppo, affettuoso
2.Presto
3.Introduzione e Finale: Adagio-Sehr ruhig-Allegro-Sehr ruhig-Allegro / Rondo [Allegro]-Poco animato-Ruhig-Animato

Nr. 3
1.Allegro (Bewegt, mit erhabenem Ausdruck)
2.Adagio (Einfach und innig)-Moderato quasi Allegretto
3.Finale: Leidenschaftlich bewegt

[Rainolf]

Hello Mark!

There is the same problem, JimL has mentioned for the Georg Schumann Symphony, with Abert's 3rd Symphony. This folder contains no 2nd movement.

[Mark Thomas]

The Abert is fixed now too.

[britishcomposer]

This makes me wonder what's up with mediafire: both Abert and Schumann were complete when you uploaded them, Mark.
A few of my own uploads have disappeared, too. I haven't deleted them for sure! 

[eschiss1]

Still haven't found movement titles for the Büttner symphonies (hopefully someone will scan them in in a few years when they are no longer in EU copyright- he died in 1943. If a US library has them and does this they can be scanned in now, since they were published before 1923. That would solve the problem right there, mostly, unless the sources disagree on movement headings- example: Gouvy 2nd symphony, where the full and reduced scores published around the same time both by Richault do disagree, very substantially ).

Anyhow, just listened to Büttner 1 and some of 2, and was impressed and interested. Interested by how much they made me think of some works written 50 years or so later (one or two of the Cuclin symphonies I know- maybe they both make me think of other works I know less well, by Richard Strauss or others. There are passages in the first Büttner symphony that sound a bit like Berlioz, and others that sound much, much more like things in the finale of- either Cuclin 9 or 11, need to recheck - than like anything else I really can think of right now.  Enjoyable, I should be clear... looking forward to listening to the rest. Has been taking me a bit to catch up.)

Should pay more attention now to the finale of Draeseke's Comica, on Music Choice TV - ah, just ended.

[Mark Thomas]

As discussed elsewhere, I've uploaded John White's MIDI realisation of Franz Lachner's Sixth Symphony.

[oldman]

Thanks to John White for the recreation  of the lachner 6th.  It is wonderful to be able to hear such wonderful music.   

As thank you, if Mr. White is interested, I would be willing to use his score to recreate a performance using the Garritan orchestra.  All I would need would be MusicXML versions of the sibelius originals source files ( I use Finale 2010 to compose)  And  PDF of the score to correct any conversion errors. In return I would recontribute to the site Finale versions of the score along with performances in WAV and MP3 format using Finale 2010.

Let me know if there is interest.

[Sydney Grew]

A word or two more about Wolfgang Fortner: at one time - for a few years - he was regarded as being very much of the avant-garde, and was undeniably very influential, but now he seems to have faded into considerable obscurity, and it has become difficult to find performances.

Mr. Lebrecht suggests, interestingly, that he "emerged from the war as a twelve-note convert, perhaps as a personal act of repentence." I have read that suggestion elsewhere too, as an explanation of the whole Darmstadt phenomenon and post-Webern serialism. Anyway, Fortner's 1947 Symphony seems to have been his turning-point, and this third quartette came a year later.

The only name I can be certain of among the players is that of Siegfried Palm (the violoncellist). The rest sound like "Helmut Radeloh (first violin), Walter Busch (second violin), and Karel Weiter (viola)," but I cannot find any of those people with Wikipedia or Google.

In 1952 Fortner described his technique of composition thus: "My method is to 'extract' a mode from the twelve notes, with non-serial relations within this mode. I lay down about six notes as a harmonic field, and use the remainder to form the mode, in which the melodic formation then proceeds freely but not serially."

[Holger]

Hi Sydney,

a few words on the performers of the Fortner.

The quartet is the Radelow-Quartett with Helmut Radelow, Violin I, Walter Bösch, Violin II, Karel Walter, Viola and Siegfried Palm, Cello.

However, you are right the players of Violin II and Viola are impossible to find via Google. This leaves some ambiguity about the spellings: in case of the second violin, the only little question which remains is whether it's Walter or Walther (both are possible and there is no difference in pronunciation, Walter is more common however), while the viola player is difficult because he could rather be from Czechia (the announcer says Karel and not (the German version) Karl - which implies some more possibilities for the family name, e.g. Valter or so).

[Sydney Grew]

Many thanks, Holger, for helping out so quickly!

[eschiss1]

Hrm. Musicsack lists none of these people, I think?... though if it weren't for Holger's confirmation, I would have suggested Radelow, say, might have been a possible sound-near for some others the compiler does list (not always as string players).

[Holger]

Eric, the spelling of Radelow is absolutely correct, 100% sure about that. First, the speaker doesn't leave any doubts here (however, it might be difficult for non-Germans since you have to know that the ending -ow in German names tends to be pronounced as a long o), and second, you can get information about the existence of this quartet via Google, also naming Helmut Radelow as first violinist (but with different partners, which is of course no problem since the members will simply have changed, for instance, Siegfried Palm was cello player at the NDR SO in his earlier years, he may have joined the quartet at that time since the quartet was obviously located in Hamburg).

Basically, what I found out is that the Radelow quartet was a string quartet which was mainly active in Hamburg in the 1950s. For me, it's not very surprising that we cannot get any further information. There have been large masses of German string quartets, and you cannot expect to get precise information on any of them which used to perform decades ago.