'Youth' Symphonies

[eschiss1]

I think one can almost safely put lost or at best misplaced next to the Fuchs; the only reason I know of that we even know of Robert Fuchs' early efforts- at least of one of them; I don't know about the other - is that a performance of it was mentioned in a contemporary journal... hopefully some library with at least almost-full score and parts will now correct me!

(I'm guessing this is how one knows of many other works too. Google, archive.org, etc. have scanned in many such journals and one sees these concert reviews mentioning works of some interest- ...ok, interest to me... some of which may be lost, some of which fortunately have been preserved at least in part by libraries or others, &c. I say "fortunately" even if they are very, very far from being masterpieces because I think libraries, so far as they have space and digital space (now), are good at preserving things, and I'm glad that they can and do, and that they've considered it part of their mission. And I babble. Apologies.)

[John H White]

I'll do my best Giles, but I think you'll agree that only unfinished symphonies by top composers like Schubert, Bruckner, Mahler and Elgar are worth tinkering with. I suspect that the fate of anything I've written, finished or unfinished, will be the recycle bin, and most people will add rightly so!
     Cheers,
         John.

[eschiss1]

Promised myself long ago that even my own horrible work would not see the recycle bin (well, at best, would be scanned and digitally saved, but that technology didn't exist at the time) - your (definitely, by definition, better) stuff should not suffer that fate either.

[John H White]

eschiss, I'm sure anything you have written must be better than anything of mine. I was lucky enough to have my 2nd symphony played through by the Wirral Symphony Orchestra at one of their rehearsal meetings, but they decided not to take it any further. The majority of people I have sent Cds of a synthetic performance of this piece, including some members of this forum, have been too polite to make any comments on it!
        Cheers,
              John.

[eschiss1]

3-years late update about that Fuchs 1872 symphony fwiw... - not so lost as I supposed. 2 movements (of I'm guessing probably?? the same G minor symphony?) are in autograph score at the Austrian National Library. http://data.onb.ac.at/rec/AL00491192

[minacciosa]

There is an early symphony (in A minor) by Franz Schreker. His style changed dramatically; in his first compositions he was a pretty standard late romantic, but his mature style is one of the most original in 20th century music.

[Gauk]

The OP mentions the Strauss early symphonies (the first written at the age of 16) but they don't appear in the list. I have a very strange LP of the D minor symphony. It is not the usual black plastic, but turquoise and translucent!

[sdtom]

The OP mentions the Strauss early symphonies (the first written at the age of 16) but they don't appear in the list. I have a very strange LP of the D minor symphony. It is not the usual black plastic, but turquoise and translucent!

What was the year of manufacture?
Tom

[adriano]

Bizet composed his C major Symphony at the age of 13.

[Alan Howe]

No: it was written in October/November 1855 shortly after Bizet had turned 17.

[JimL]

The Symphony in C is heavily modeled on the Symphony No. 1 in D by Bizet's teacher/mentor, Gounod.  There are even some thematic resemblances.

[adriano]

Of course, you are right as usual Alan - and I see that in here mistakes are corrected within the hour: I know it was composed in 1855 (and rediscovered in 1933 amongst the Reynaldo Hahn collection). Weingartner conducted it in Basle in 1935.
Apparently I am not able anymore to make a simple calculation: 1855 minus 1838. Starting from right 5 minus 8 I came to 3 instead of 7 :-( Is this the beginning of dementia?
Sorry, but I better put on a longer period of silence before daring to come back to this forum without complexes.

[Gareth Vaughan]

Not at all, Adriano. I make mistakes like that every day (particularly where arithmetic is concerned) - and yet I congratulate myself that I can still do more complicated mental arithmetic more quickly than many of our teenagers and students today. It is sad that some have not even been taught how to calculate what 10% of something is, without resort to electronic means!!! We are not doing too badly, my dear chap.

[Alan Howe]

I make mistakes like this all the time too. You should see me trying to agree my bank statement at the end of the month. To err is human - and to err mathematically is all-too human. It's good to have an all-too human conductor of note with us here at UC...

[sdtom]

The topic has inspired me to get out a recording of the Rachmaninoff Youth Symphony
Tom