Sir Eugene Goossens(1893-1962): a Catalogue of the Orchestral and Choral Music

[Dundonnell]

This catalogue is provided in response to a specific  request made last night

It has been difficult to compile because Goossens was in the habit of later orchestrating pieces he had originally composed for piano, violin or small instrumental combinations.  Apart from the Phantasy Concerto for Violin and Orchestra, which a number of people have been hoping would be recorded soon, the piece which stands out for me is the massive choral work "The Apocalypse". This was premiered in Sydney in 1954 but shortly afterwards disappeared (along with Goossens' good name ).

SIR EUGENE GOOSSENS: A CATALOGUE OF THE ORCHESTRAL AND CHORAL MUSIC

1911-12: Variations on a Chinese Theme for orchestra, op.1: 27 minutes     +  (ABC Classics cd)
1911:   Miniature Fantasy for string orchestra, op.2: 8 minutes
1912:   Symphonic Poem "Perseus", op.3
1913:   "The Eternal Rhythm" for orchestra, op.5: 20 minutes   *  + (ABC Classics cd)
1916:   Two Sketches for clarinet and strings: 7 minutes
1917:   "Four Conceits" for orchestra, op.20: 8 minutes
1917-18: "Tam O'Shanter"-Scherzo after Burns for orchestra, op.17a: 3 minutes     +  (ABC Classics cd)
1919:   "By the Tarn" for string orchestra, op.15, No.1: 5 minutes   *    + (EMI cd)
             "Jack O'Lantern" for string orchestra, op.15, No.2
             Prelude to "Philip II" for small orchestra, op.22: 9 minutes
             Lyric Poem for Violin and Orchestra, op.35: 7 minutes
c.1922:"Silence"-A choral fragment for chorus and orchestra, op.31: 8 minutes
1922:   Sinfonietta, op.34: 15 minutes
1923:   Phantasy Sextet for Strings for string orchestra, op.37
1927:   Rhythmic Dance for orchestra, op.30: 3 minutes
             Three Greek Dances for small orchestra, op.44: 14 minutes
1927-29:Oboe Concerto, op.45: 12 minutes    + (ABC Classics and ASV cds cd)
1928:   Concertino for double string orchestra, op.47: 13 minutes   + (ABC Classics cd)
1929:   "Judith" for orchestra (Ballet music from the Opera)        + (Dutton cd)
1930:   Variations on "Cadet Roussel" for orchestra: 3 minutes   + (Dutton cd)
1933:   Suite "Kaleidoscope" for orchestra, op.18: 9 minutes   + (ABC Classics and Signum cds)
1935:   Three Pictures for Flute and Orchestra, op.55: 18 minutes
             Intermezzo from "Don Juan de Manara" for orchestra: 5 minutes
1938-40:Symphony No.1, op.58: 39 minutes   *   + (ABC Classics and Chandos cds)
1942:   Pastorale for string orchestra, op.59: 8 minutes
             Phantasy Concerto for Piano and Orchestra, op.60: 25 minutes      + (Chandos cd)
             Cowboy Fantasy for orchestra, op.61
1943-45:Symphony No.2, op.62: 38 minutes    *    + (ABC Classics cd)
1945:   Victory(Jubilee) Fanfare and 'God Save The Queen' for orchestra: 4 minutes
1948:   Phantasy Concerto for Violin and Orchestra, op.63: 22 minutes
1953:   Coronation Fanfare for orchestra
             "The Apocalypse" for soprano, contralto, tenor, bass, double chorus and orchestra, op.64: 110 minutes     *
1956-60: Divertissement for orchestra, op.66: 18 minutes     + (ABC Classics cd)
1958:   Concert Piece for two harps, oboe, cor anglais and orchestra, op.65: 22 minutes     +  (ABC Classics cd)


and     "Star-Spangled Banner" for orchestra: 4 minutes
             Two Nature Poems for orchestra: 12 minutes

[albion]

the piece which stands out for me is the massive choral work "The Apocalypse". This was premiered in Sydney in 1954 but shortly afterwards disappeared

A studio recording was issued (as a 2-LP set) by ABC in 1984 conducted by Myer Fredman - I've put a post on the download requests board.

[petershott@btinternet.com]

Struth!! What speed!! But in making the suggestion I did not intend to deprive you of sleep! Many many thanks.

[Sydney Grew]

. . . 1929:   "Judith" for orchestra . . .

An interesting list - like all your lists - thank you. According to Grove's Dictionary, "Judith" is a one-act opera. My records show that I recorded a broadcast of it a few years ago, but I have not yet listened to it. So I will investigate, and if possible - and if there is any interest here in one-act operas - it may be possible to post it.

[albion]

"Judith" is a one-act opera. My records show that I recorded a broadcast of it a few years ago, but I have not yet listened to it. So I will investigate, and if possible - and if there is any interest here in one-act operas - it may be possible to post it.

That would be very welcome.

[patmos.beje]

I have Goossens' opera DON JUAN DE MAÑARA in a good recording from a radio broadcast on 4th November 1959.

According to Wikipedia (!!!) the recording is with Monica Sinclair, Marie Collier, Helen Watts, Marion Lowe, Bruce Boyce, Robert Thomas and Andrei McPherson and was conducted by Goossens himself.

I can make this available if there is an interest.

The Phantasy Concerto for Violin Op 63 is what I would most like to hear.

[Christo]

Great list again, many thanks.  A few remarks:

The Divertissement for orchestra, op.66, is also on the ABC Classics set (three cds, I had to import it from Australia in the 1990s  ).
By The Tarn, Op. 15 No. 1, is on EMI CDC 7 49933 2 (English Miniatures, the Northern Sinfonia of England under Richard Hickox).

Edit: and there's another,  finer, version available of the Concerto en un mouvement, Op. 45, the Oboe Concerto, at ASV 'English Oboe Concertos' CD DCA 173 (Ruth Bolister with the Elgar Chamber Orchestra under Stephen Bell).

[Dundonnell]

Thanks for the additions   The list was compiled at rather great speed and rather late at night, which would certainly explain missing the Divertissement recording, given that I had the ABC boxed set in front of me

With reference to "Judith". I am aware that it is an one-act opera composed by Goossens in 1925/1927, first staged in 1929. The reason I included Judith as a work for orchestra is that such a piece exists in the Chester catalogue. I am speculating that this is Ballet Music from the opera which Goossens sanctioned for separate performance

[petershott@btinternet.com]

Yes, I believe Goossens arranged a suite from the opera (although at present I can't verify this).

I recall having in my collection the EMI LP set. It may have been EMI Australia, but it was certainly widely available up and down High Streets in England around 1983-84. I remember a pretty good performance of the piece, but can't recall the soloists, orchestra or conductor in the recording. Could it have possibly been Handley who was conducting many Goossens' works in Australia at the time? Of course, the opera became especially associated with Joan Sutherland - it formed her great breakthrough in Sydney in 1951 before she came to London. Obviously Goossens didn't write the part for Sutherland (it was written 30 years or so before her time), but the role calls for a voice and a presence such as hers.

Part of what motivated my suggestion to Dundonnell that he might offer us the benefit of a Goossens catalogue was my belief that had scandal not intervened, Goossens might well have become a colossus in 20th century music. For the biological determinists, music was part of his genetic make-up. Both father and grandfather had distinguished musical careers. There is a rather good book (well written, well researched, and wonderfully readable) by Carole Rosen entitled 'The Goossens', and the chapters dealing with the very young Eugene and his siblings (including Sidonie and Leon who later developed renowned reputations as harpist and oboist) are joyful to read. In my teens I recall hearing and seeing Sidonie Goossens performing in a Prom, and it was a most moving occasion.

Back to Eugene: he developed a distinguished career in America, becoming principal conductor of the Cincinnati SO and there is widespread evidence of the quality of his music making in America. Then to Australia in 1947 and for a subsequent 9 years. His musical activities there were prodigious. I believe it was Goossens perhaps more than anyone else who put Australia firmly on the map as a place of progressive musical activity. Had recording technology and the recording industry existed in the 1950s in the ways when it really took off in the 1960s, then maybe the name of Goossens might have become as well known in the popular mind as names like Karajan or Klemperer - true giants in the history of the gramophone. And a career as a composer alongside that of conductor.

But then, after his knighthood and recognition by the establishment, it all suddenly stopped. And all because of a bungling and over zealous police force and excessively prurient law enforcement agencies in Sydney anxious to squash anything that might smack of immorality. Goossens had developed a relationship with the artist Rosaleen Norton, somewhat of a wayward eccentric who attracted notoriety by calling herself a paganist. But heavens, what else could a creative gal do in the stuffy climate of Sydney in the 1950s? Her work, if you seek out reproductions of it, is certainly colourful, talented and interesting if not perhaps of permanent interest. Alas, letters, photographs, paintings, and a curious rubber contrivance all tumbled out of Goossen's suitcase at the airport. His career was ended, and interviews with those who knew him in the last few years of his life reveal a sad and completely destroyed man. But 'pshaw, the contents of that suitcase were pretty limp stuff, and to my mind, infinitely less immoral than the current shenanigans of key members of the present British government and their associates. In my view his greatest crime was to wrap up the pictures in the suitcase in a brown paper parcel marked 'Brahms'. Hard to forgive him that particular crime.

[Dundonnell]

You are obviously right to draw attention to Goossen's distinguished career and its very sad disintegration. When one considers the colourful personal lives of a number of his conductor contemporaries it seems particularly unjust that Goossens was singled out for this treatment

I pointed out before that Goossens, at the very end of his life and a desperately ill man, was absolutely determined to conduct the premiere of his friend Robert Still's Symphony No.3. Still had dedicated the work to Goossens and, against his doctors' orders, Goossens insisted on conducting the symphony at the Royal Festival Hall on 30th March 1962. He could barely walk to the podium and conducted sitting down. A few weeks later Goossens returned to the recording studio to commit the work to LP (now available on Lyrita cd). His reading of the piece is superb. A few weeks later on 13th June Goossens died.

I have always thought that this adds a degree of poignancy to a very fine symphony.

[albion]

I have Goossens' opera DON JUAN DE MAÑARA in a good recording from a radio broadcast on 4th November 1959.

I can make this available if there is an interest.

Yes, please!

[albion]

Yes, I believe Goossens arranged a suite from [Judith] (although at present I can't verify this).

Goossens extracted 'ballet music' from the opera for concert performance - it begins about 57 minutes into the complete opera.

The full score of this segment was separately published by Chester in 1929. Goossens recorded it with the New Symphony Orchestra and the bass Arthur Fear (as Holofernes) for HMV (C1706): this composer-conducted performance is available on a Dutton disc - http://www.duttonvocalion.co.uk/proddetail.asp?prod=CDBP9766.

[petershott@btinternet.com]

Thanks, Albion. Your omniscience always impresses me!

I wonder if EMI will ever release on CD the recording that I once possessed on LP and referred to by Dundonnell. The once major labels such as EMI currently seem to be trawling the depths of their vaults and making anew just about everything they once recorded (and usually under quite naff titles such as 'Great Symphonies' or whatever) - apart, of course, from the gems that they do have and for which there are no recorded alternatives.

A strange business is the record industry. You can now buy such things as recordings of the Ring performed in a cowshed somewhere in Europe (or America!) in the 1920s and in execrable sound. (Do people, even Wagner fanatics, buy such things?) In contrast, a recording of The Apocalypse conducted by Myer Fredman would probably not be considered a candidate for reissue.

No need for any reply: these are just Sunday morning musings.

[alberto]

The Symphony n,1 I got in an Unicorn Lp Kp 8000 (David Measham, Adelaide Symphony, 1977 recording): a very fine symphony.
The slighter "Kaleidoscope" for orch. op. 18 I have in a double CD Signum (Sig x121-00) along with Casella, Wellesz, von Schillings, Rathaus under the slightly misleading title "Expressionismus").

[Christo]

The Symphony n,1 I got in an Unicorn Lp Kp 8000 (David Measham, Adelaide Symphony, 1977 recording): a very fine symphony.

A much cherished LP! I still prefer Measham's reading, even if the orchestra might be not the equal of the other two (with Handley and Hickox conducting) on CD. Since I bought this LP somewhere around 1983, I have a week spot for Goossens. I find the symphony epic and tragic at the same time, impressive indeed.