Unsung 20th Century Symphonists

[Alan Howe]

We are grateful to you, Marek, for expanding our knowledge!

[Alan Howe]

Having had my symphonic horizons well and truly expanded by this thread - for which many thanks - I have certainly come to one firm conclusion: that Eduard Tubin was one of the genuinely great symphonists of the 20th century. And I find I can't say that of many others...

[Dundonnell]

@mbhaub

I'm not sure, if someone, who dislikes serialism would dislike Searle, too. The idiom of his 2nd symphony reminds me very much of Walton. It's hard to believe, that this should be 12-tone-music. Like it is with the works, Bernard Stevens wrote in the 60s: Constructed alongside 12-tone-rows, but the music realy doesn't sound Schoenbergian.

(My apologies to those who are already familiar with the work of this composer but this is an extract from a thread I started earlier today on another music forum under the title of "Bernard Stevens(1916-1983): a grievously neglected British composer").

'Malcolm MacDonald(yes, the Havergal Brian guy ) rates Stevens as "one of the finest British composers of his time". Stevens was a pupil of Edward Dent, R.O. Morris and Gordon Jacob. He was Professor of Composition at the Royal College of Music in London from 1948 to 1967. A member of the Communist Party until resigning from the party in protest against the suppression of the 1956 Hungarian Uprising, Stevens was a friend of Alan Bush and other creative artists with left-leaning sympathies.

He came to a measure of prominence in 1946 when his First Symphony, entitled "A Symphony of Liberation" was performed under the baton of Sir Malcolm Sargent at the Royal Albert Hall. The Symphony had won first prize in a competition sponsored by the "Daily Express" for a composition to celebrate victory in World War Two.(Can you imagine that happening today particularly from that newspaper!) The adjudicators were Bliss, Constant Lambert and Sargent. A Second Symphony followed in 1964 although it was not heard until 1977.

Stevens wrote a Violin Concerto for Max Rostal, also premiered in 1946. Hanns Eisler, Alan Bush, Wilfred Mellers, R.O.Morris and Rubbra all praised the concerto as one of the finest British violin concertos ever composed and equated it to both the Walton and Britten concertos. The work shows some influence from the music of Ernest Bloch.

There is a noble Cello Concerto from 1952 and a superb Piano Concerto from 1955. The Piano Concerto received its premiere from Martin Roscoe on a Marco Polo disc

All of these major orchestral pieces have been recorded-as has a quantity of Stevens' Chamber Music-and the relevant cds, together with a number of extraordinarily enthusiastic quotations from reviews in a wide variety of music magazines in the UK and the USA  can be found at-

http://www.impulse-music.co.uk/stevens.htm#disc

If you have missed out to date on this exceptionally fine British composer I urge you with all possible enthusiasm to investigate If you are in any way attuned to composers like Bloch, Shostakovich, Rubbra you are unlikely to be disappointed.'

[sdtom]

http://sdtom.wordpress.com/2011/09/22/symphony-in-d-minor-1942ludvig-irgens-jensen-1894-1969/

Someone who is new to me is Ludvig Jensen and his d minor symphony. I like it.
Tom

[Mark Thomas]

I do agree. Irgens-Jensen's Symphony is a real find. I find more in it every time I listen and the Passacaglia, with which it is coupled on the Naxos CD, is another very impressive and rewarding work.

[sdtom]

http://sdtom.wordpress.com/2011/09/26/passacaglia-1928jensen-1894-1969/

This is the passacaglia from the same CD. Overall I'm very impressed. I can understand how Toscanini and Stravinsky championed him

[eschiss1]

The Passacaglia was the first work I heard by him (several times on the radio back in my college days- very impressive stuff, can only agree, glad it's getting new distribution in a new recording!)

[semloh]

Just an aside - what a shame that the website http://www.edmundrubbra.org/ actually advertises holiday destinations! And it is still hyperlinked to various music sites.

[britishcomposer]

The same with Moeran. Does anyone know what happened to the excellent database: http://www.moeran.com/

(No hyperlinks. I don't want to enervate you. )

[albion]

Just an aside - what a shame that the website http://www.edmundrubbra.org/ actually advertises holiday destinations! And it is still hyperlinked to various music sites.

The same with Moeran. Does anyone know what happened to the excellent database: http://www.moeran.com/

(No hyperlinks. I don't want to enervate you. )

Just so long as UC doesn't fold and I log on one day to find it has become the site for Juicy Couture (remember him/ her/ it?) ..........

http://www.unsungcomposers.com/forum/index.php/topic,810.0.html

[Callipygian]

I discovered Janis Ivanovs some time ago and consider him to be the finest Baltic symphonic composer. According to http://www.musicweb-international.com/Finnish_and_Baltic/Finnish_and_Baltic_Symphonies.htm#ivanovs, all of his symphonies except for the 13th have been recorded. This begs two questions: does someone know of a recording of the 13th and is it worth listening to? =)

Some random recommendation for symphonists: Vainberg/Weinberg (check out his 12th!), Peiko (the short 6th is very interesting), Evlakhov (his 1st symphony has been recorded, I have a radio recording of his 3rd, which I consider to be his finest work), Khrennikov's 2nd symphony and Agafonnikov's symphony in memory of Shebalin.

[Dundonnell]

The problem with many of the Ivanovs symphonies is that they were recorded on Melodiya LPs and are not really available at all

I am certainly missing Nos. 6, 7, 9 and 14-19.

[Callipygian]

I remember all of those have been uploaded at one time or another at another forum I regularly visit. I'll see if I can find working links and upload other Ivanovs symphonies I happen to have. I'll add them to the download forum later today!

[Dundonnell]

I remember all of those have been uploaded at one time or another at another forum I regularly visit. I'll see if I can find working links and upload other Ivanovs symphonies I happen to have. I'll add them to the download forum later today!

That would be fantastic!

[eschiss1]

Apparently Ivanovs sym 14 "Ipsa" has been issued (it's an early 2000s recording, not a reissue of an LP) on a limited distribution CD - see Worldcat.