German Music Folder

[semloh]

No, none of these are my own recordings. They all date from the 1960s I think.

Many thanks for these works by Platen, Mark. This is the height of romanticism, and I love it! 
The beautiful, flowing melodies just seem to come from nowhere. The two intermezzi are very sweet. There's a distinctly 1930s romantic movie quality at times, a la Steiner or Korngold (es. in the Prelude), and I can't understand why this music and its composer are not better known. Maybe - as you suggest - he's not an undiscovered musical genius, but it's easy on the ear and full of attractive melody, and appeals to us romantic types! 

[Mark Thomas]

I'm delighted that Platen has struck a chord with several people. I've always been fond of his music, which I got to know from these recordings given me by an old friend who has been collecting German radio broadcast recordings for many years and has a huge collection. Many of my uploads come from him.

My next one doesn't, however. It's of a broadcast of Bernard Hermann conducting a performance of Raff's Symphony No.3, the Im Walde. No, not the famous LP recording he made of No.5 Lenore, but a 1949 radio broadcast of the wonderful Third Symphony. Herrmann was a great devotee of Raff and thought it a disgrace that his reputation was then at such a low ebb. For more about Herrmann and Raff, you can read the page on him at raff.org but better still download his performance of the Third Symphony and enjoy that.

[eschiss1]

I -knew- I'd heard his name- Sibley library uploaded score and part of Platen's rather impressive-looking C-sharp minor violin sonata of 1906 (published- hrm- sometime between 1908 and 1920...) back in March 2010 to their site.

[Mark Thomas]

Platen's Violin Sonata is amongst the pieces I've uploaded, Eric.

[eschiss1]

I -really- have to stop assuming I've already checked these things- or something.  Downloading now with many thanks.

[Mark Thomas]

I've now added a second Raff symphony to the German Music thread - this time a very good performance of the Fourth Symphony from the English Chamber Orchestra conducted by Alun Francis, broadcast by the BBC almost exactly twenty years ago on the centenary of his death.

[Alan Howe]

broadcast by the BBC almost exactly twenty years ago

2012-1982=30. 

[Mark Thomas]

True, but I was away when we did maths at school.

[jerfilm]

I tried to download the Kunzen file but it appears that they force you to download the "ilivid download manager" first.  Is that true?  I really don't need another download manager cluttering up my system so would appreciate knowing if there's another way to get it.  Thanks

Jerry

[Alan Howe]

True, but I was away when we did maths at school.

It's fine, Mark. I was there when we did slide rules...

[semloh]

And when I say that we used "log tables" at school, people today think I mean furniture! 

[Mark Thomas]

Moving on from these heart warming expressions of sympathy with my mathematical shortcomings, for my 2000th post here I have uploaded a recording of Urs Schneider conducting Raff's Seventh Symphony, In the Alps. In contrast with Schneider's, in my opinion, woefully lacklustre rendition of the work on his Marco Polo recording, this is an altogether more successful and vigorous account in a concert performance in St Gallen in 2001, subsequently broadcast on Swiss radio. My review of the evening is here.

[Mark Thomas]

Thank you, Atsushi for the Duet from Horst Platen's Der Heilige Morgen. What a joy - rapturously ravishing!

[Mark Thomas]

Thanks also, Atsushi, for the enjoyably colourful Die Weise von Liebe und Tod des Cornets Christoph Rilke (The Lay of the Love and Death of Cornet Christoph Rilke). However, from the dates which you give I think that you might have confused the composer Hans Grimm (1886-1965) with his contemporary, the author Hans Grimm (1875-1959). From the Wikipedia article on the composer, the symphonic poem was published in 1938 and premiered in 1942.

[Mark Thomas]

I've uploaded a set of orchestral variations by Erwin Dressel (1909-1972), written in a determinedly romantic idiom. He was mainly a stage composer but, according to Grove, he wrote four symphonies in 1927, 1929, 1932 and 1948 and it would be fascinating to hear one of them. I can't establish the composition date of these Variations on an old English Folksong unfortunately.