Unsung 20th Century Symphonists

[Alan Howe]

I've decided to take a punt on the Lyrita CD containing two of Robert Still's symphonies plus Searle's 2nd. If I can't get on with the Searle (although I'll work at it), there's always the Still...

[dafrieze]

Go for it - they're all wonderful symphonies!

[Alan Howe]

Thanks for the encouragement!

[eschiss1]

Whereas I was bored stiff by my audition of the Robert Still symphonies the Lyrita LP of which I bought at a local booksale. I'll give them another go or two or three, but only occasionally.  Taste etc. !!

[Dundonnell]

I find Searle's 3rd, 4th and 5th Symphonies pretty thorny and intractable but I love the 1st and 2nd.

I first got the know the 1st Symphony in the original Decca LP incarnation where it is played by the LPO under Boult(demonstrating yet again that Boult could conduct more 'difficult' music and coupled with Matyas Seiber's Elegy for Viola and Small Orchestra and the marvellous and utterly terrifying Chamber Cantata "Three Fragments from 'A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man'"(with Peter Pears as narrator). Lyrita then coupled the Boult 1st and the Krips 2nd on LP before issuing the cd of the Krips 2nd and the Still 3rd and 4th. Apparently Decca refused to re-licence the Boult 1st to Lyrita for the cd release.

The 2nd Symphony is a great work too, in fact just the kind of music I really like The Lento second movement has a passage where the brass thunder out the most ominous and baleful repeated chords: a passage which never fails to thrill intensely.

[Arbuckle]

Karol Szymanowski: Symphony No. 4
Eduard Tubin: Symphony No. 5
Franz Syberg: Symphony
Franz Schmidt: Symphony No. 4
Boudewijn Buckinx: Symphony No. 3

or
Hans Rott: Symphony in E
Ture Rangstrom: Symphony No. 4 "Invocatio"
Florence Price: Symphony No. 3
Erich Korngold: Symphony F# minor
Libby Larsen: Symphony No. 1 Water Music

or....

[semloh]

Arbuckle - I like the "or"s in your response! I started on this as soon as Alan asked the question and I now have a list with only Rangstrom's 4th on it - every time I listen to another symphony I delete the rest and start again, and I haven't even got past the Scandinavians yet! But it's fun trying.

[eschiss1]

... *looks at original post in thread* guessing Mr. Howe has already pursued Schmidt's 4 symphonies. And if you have a list of symphonies, erm, hint hint hint *cough cough no* *points*
Not quite so well-known and not much mentioned in this forum (but not yet obscure- I find I have nothing in my collection by way of 20th-century symphonies that gets there, maybe to my surprise) there's Hendrik Andriessen (ok, he gets the occasional mention), Guillaume Landré (recorded at least on Donemus), Revol Bunin (whose 8th symphony is recorded, and whose 5th and 6th symphonies are, I think, on YouTube, so he also meets/met the "recorded" criterion- good stuff), among others...

[jimmosk]

Harold Shapero: Symphony for Classical Orchestra
Samuel Barber: Symphony #1
Kaljo Raid: Symphony #1
Joseph Ryelandt: Symphony #3
Karol Szymanowski: Symphony #4 (Symphonie Concertante for piano and orchestra)

-J

--
Jim Moskowitz
The Unknown Composers Page: http://kith.org/jimmosk/TOC.html
My latest list of unusual classical CDs for auction: http://tinyurl.com/jimsCDs

[JimL]

Arbuckle, doesn't Rott's symphony predate 1901?  Which would make it NOT a 20th Century symphony.

[reineckeforever]

Rott died in 1884, only for this i didn't add to my list.
Alan, thx for Searle! very interesting!!
Andrea

[markniew]

for the beginning a number of Polish symphonies:
Zbigniew Turski - no. 2 "Olympic" on CD
Bolesław Szabelski - two on CD/LP
Jan Krenz - nos 1-3 , first on CD, rst in radio recordings
Kazimierz Serocki - radio recordings
Tadeusz Baird - at least one recorded on CD
Artur Malawski - radio recording
Witold Maliszewski - radio recording
Grażyna Bacewicz - no. 3 on CD
Aleksander Tansman - on CDs

other names will follow
Marek

[Alan Howe]

Hi Marek. Thanks for your fascinating list. I would be very interested to hear a Maliszewski symphony if you have the time to upload it...

[semloh]

Dear Latvian - just a gentile reminder of your kind offer re a Diamond symphony.

My list of favourite unsung symphonies now contains two items - to Rangstrom's 4th, I've added Larsson's 2nd, and just deciding which Tveitt to include - maybe the 1st. Does anyone have a favourite Tveitt symphony?

Also, where to begin with Tournemire? I'm working my way through them but they aren't making a huge impression - they seem so loose and unstructured - maybe I'm missing something?

[chill319]

This is just a list of personal favorites, not an "objective" list, as my listening has been far narrower than that of many members of this forum. I'm also skipping pre-WWI symphonies (Asrael, for instance, or d'Indy 2) because it was such a different world. So here goes, in no particular order:

Bax 2. What he achieves in the last movement is for me every bit as empyrean as the finale of Mahler 2, but translated to the much more difficult post-WWI world. Not many symphonies take me farther than Beethoven, but this one does.

Enescu 3. When I listen to later Enescu, I get the same sense of magisterial musical discourse that I hear in Bach. Both strike me as complete musicians with little ego and a fine balance between heart and mind.

Tubin 5. A worthy successor to Beethoven 5 in its motivic rigor and overwhelming drama.

Furtwängler 3. Less beautiful than 2, but just as well written, and here F has found a voice entirely his own. (I'll cheat and tack on the exposition to the first movement of Furtwängler 1 -- nowhere did F put his studies with Schenker to better use, and nowhere has Brahms's profound harmonic logic been better extended [albeit with a Brucknerian surface]).

I'd better stop at 4. Too many candidates trying to squeeze in.