Unsung Viola Concertos

[tcutler]

Could someone point me toward unsung viola concertos (which aside from Bartok and a few others is probably most of them!). Thanks very much!

[edurban]

York Bowen's concerto, which comes coupled with an excellent concerto by Cecil Forsyth on Hyperion.  Fine playing from Lawrence Power.  A real find, and not just for viola players and their groupies.

David

[Dundonnell]

In my cd collection I have Viola Concertos by:

Samuel Adler
Kalevi Aho (with chamber orchestra)
William Alwyn (Pastoral Fantasia with string orchestra)
Sir Malcolm Arnold (with chamber orchestra)
Stanley Bate
W.H. Bell('Rosa Mystica')
Sir Richard Rodney Bennett('Lady Caroline Lamb': Elegy)
Michael Berkeley
Ernest Bloch (Suite and 'Suite Hebraique')
York Bowen
Benjamin Britten ('Lachrymae' with strings)
Geoffrey Burgon ('Ghosts of the Dance')
Arthur Butterworth
Frederick Delius('Caprice and Elegy')
Cecil Forsyth
Benjamin Frankel
Steven R. Gerber
Morton Gould
Eero Hameennniemi
Howard Hanson('Summer Seascape No.2' with strings)
John Harbison
Paul Hindemith ('Der Schwanendreher' with small orchestra, 'Trauermusik' with strings, Concert Music, op. 48 with large chamber orchestra, Kammermusik
            No.5 with large chamber orchestra and Kammermusik No.6 for viola d'amore)
Alun Hoddinott (Concertino with small orchestra)
Vagn Holmboe (Chamber Concerto No.5 with chamber orchestra)
Gustav Holst ('Lyric Movement' with small orchestra
Herbert Howells('Elegy' with string quartet and string orchestra)
Gordon Jacob Viola Concerto No.1, Viola Concerto No.2 with strings, Concert Piece, Three Pieces and 'Passacaglia Stereophonica')
Joseph Jongen (Suite and 'Allegro Appassionato')
Viktor Kalabis('Tristium'-Concertante Fantasy with strings)
Giya Kancheli (Liturgy-'Mourned by the Wind')
Erland von Koch
Elizabeth Maconchy ('Romanza' with small orchestra)
Bohuslav Martinu(Rhapsody-Concerto)
David Matthews(Concertino 'Winter Remembered' with strings)
John McCabe (Concerto funebre with chamber orchestra)
Darius Milhaud (Concerto No.1)
Gosta Nystroem ('Hommage a la France')
Paul Patterson
Krzystof Penderecki
Allan Pettersson
Walter Piston
Miklos Rozsa
Edmund Rubbra
Ahmed Adnan Saygun
Alfred Schnittke
Ralph Vaughan Williams (Romance and 'Flos Campi' with wordless chorus and small orchestra)
Sir William Walton

Most of these are fairly modern works and not sure obviously what your taste might be If any of them strike you or might interest you then I am happy to make particular recommendations.

The Stanley Bate is gorgeous however

[eschiss1]

there's also an unrecorded 2nd viola concerto by Holmboe.

Some others (some of these are at IMSLP):
2 by Joseph Küffner (early Romantic era. The one at IMSLP is no.2.)
Emil Kreuz op.20 (turn of the 20th century)
Szeremi opus 6 (published ca.1912)
Frederick Charles Hay (pub. 1928.)
Malipiero - Dialog V (1956)
Andrey Arends viola concertino op7
Ferdinand Manns - romanze for viola
Hans Sitt (romance, op.72)
Concertpiece, op.27b by Kudelski

[JimL]

Don't forget the Romance in F for viola and orchestra, Op. 85 by Max Bruch.  Wonderful work.  There's also a Gran Sonate for viola and orchestra by Paganini.

[Dundonnell]

Dundonnell, which of these concertos you listed are more romantic in style? Thanks!

For 'romantic' I would suggest:
Alwyn
Bate
W.H. Bell
Bloch
Bowen
Butterworth
Delius
Forsyth
Hanson
Howells
Jongen
Rozsa
Vaughan Williams
Walton

[vandermolen]

Stanley Bate's is terrific - a lovely work. Maybe the influence of his teacher Vaughan Williams is not as assimilated as in his wonderful Third Symphony (actually an earlier work) - but it is still a very fine work. I much prefer the Walton Viola Concerto (hardly unsung perhaps) to his better known Violin Concerto and your old friend Edmund Rubbra also comes to mind.

No doubt you'll be rushing out to buy the York Bowen 

[chill319]

William Schuman, Concerto on Old English Rounds for Viola, Women's Chorus, and Orchestra. A large work. Recorded by Bernstein and the NY Philharmonic with the Camerata Singers under Donald McInnes.

[Dundonnell]

William Schuman, Concerto on Old English Rounds for Viola, Women's Chorus, and Orchestra. A large work. Recorded by Bernstein and the NY Philharmonic with the Camerata Singers under Donald McInnes.

....and desperately requiring a new recording

[FBerwald]

What about Hubay's Viola concerto. Already recorded I think.....

[eschiss1]

Just recently. Actually a Morceau de Concert, Hubay's opus 20 (not, I think, called Concerto by the composer- a distinction considered important on IMSLP, at least) composed in two parts (1884-1888) and published by Hainauer of Breslau. (Julius Hainauer seems to deserve to have a full biography written of him, I think, judging from the various hats he wore and things he did that I have read about- not "just" a publisher of music he- or even just a publisher...; but that is more tangential than I have ever... never mind ...)

[Callipygian]

A real gem is the Klebanov viola concerto (Essay Recordings, Philharmonia Virtuosi New York) (http://www.amazon.com/Dmitri-Klebanov-Japanese-Silhouettes-Concerto/dp/B00000083X/ref=sr_1_1?s=music&ie=UTF8&qid=1317736703&sr=1-1). Of course, there are also quite some fantastic viola sonatas (most notably the Shostakovich one). Igor Fedotov has recorded some rather unknown ones from USSR composers at Naxos (http://www.amazon.com/Soviet-Russian-Viola-Music-Kryukov/dp/B0030UO9QS). On youtube, there are lots of recordings of viola concerts (well-known ones, but also e.g. Walton, Bunin, Gubaidulina). For contemporary viola concerts, check recordings and cd's by Nobuku Imai or Suzanne van Els. And for the Romantic sound, listen to Primrose

[Dundonnell]

Mention of William Primrose, the great viola player.

Primrose wrote that the two hardest viola concertos to play were the Milhaud 2nd Concerto and the Peter Racine Fricker.

I have never-to my knowledge-heard the Milhaud. Has it been recorded? I do have a cd containing Milhaud's First Viola Concerto.

The Fricker was first performed by Primrose at the 1953 Edinburgh Festival. I have a tape recording of a later performance and should be able to make it available on here soon

[eschiss1]

It's Milhaud's opus 340 and I know of no commercial recording at any rate...

[Callipygian]

Milhaud's opus 340 has never been recorded commercially. However, there is a radio recording of the premiere Primrose gave with the German Radio Orchestra. In this interesting overview of 'recently' composed viola works, the brilliant American viola virtuoso Kenneth Martinson (check out his recording of the Milhaud works for piano and viola!) talks about Milhaud's output for viola and mentions that he has a copy of the radio recording (perhaps we should contact him and ask him to share it?  ). Here is the link to the document: http://kennethmartinson.com/pdf/review_column_10.pdf. It also lists his contact info, so if someone is bold enough, go ahead and get us that recording