Cello Concertos by Rietz and Gross

[Alan Howe]

...from Ars:
http://www.jpc.de/jpcng/classic/detail/-/art/julius-rietz-cellokonzert-op-16/hnum/4228364
I'm assuming that the Gross Cello Concerto coupling is by Johann Benjamin Gross...

[Mark Thomas]

Oo, this is good news. A very tempting release.

[edurban]

Verrry nice.  Also contains Rietz' Op.2 Fantasie for cello and orchestra.

Sounds like a period group?

'Bout time we had something Rietz wrote for his own instrument.  Can't let the wind players have it all...though that clarinet concerto is a little charmer.

Thanks for this news!

David

[Alan Howe]

Nice music, but spoilt for me by the weedy-sounding solo cello and the awful period orchestra. Authentic? The jury's out. But this is a missed opportunity, I feel. Why do HIP performances have to sound this cold and glassy?

[eschiss1]

They don't have to be, I've heard some rather good ones, so it's a pity that they often are as you describe...

Have seen the Rietz cello-fantasia in its original parts, and am curious about it. A good performance and recording would be nice! (His output is under-explored anyway ) Have been rather curious about J.B. Gross' music too, from what I've seen of it. Hrm. I find myself hoping that if I hear this CD that I like it better than that. Or that better performers etc. will attempt the same program. Or something.

[Alan Howe]

I'd say that the best piece on the CD is Gross' CC, which has a particularly impressive and dynamic opening movement - and I even managed to accustom myself to the horrid period orchestra and their wheezy strings. (Hyperion would do this so much better...)

[eschiss1]

Hrm. Looking at the Gross worklist at IMSLP, I wonder if it's the otherwise unidentified 1834 work- the other concertos are in D minor, C major and G minor, not B minor. Assuming the worklist is accurate, assuming "B minor" is accurate for the CD. (Several of his concertos are @ IMSLP and can be compared to at least eliminate them as possibilities, though his 1834 one isn't, at the moment. Though a B minor cello sonata of his (Op.7, pub. 1833) also exists- not a usual key for cellos (no open strings for the composer to play with, he thinks, paraphrasing the notes to a recording of one of his favorite string quartets (from 1930...)), I thought, and here he uses it two years in a row...

Though if the sound sample @ JPC is of the opening of the concerto (transposing if needed to B minor if it isn't already, F#-B-B'-F#-D-B-C#-D-B-F#-G-A...) then it's not Op.14 which opens differently (A C# D...)

(actually, Op.38 and a fair number of other works are digitized at SBB. Hrm. Lots of opportunities to see works by Gross there, yep.)

[eschiss1]

The B minor concerto "in question", in manuscript (1828 estimated date from its RISM-Online listing ) is also at SBB and digitized, by the way. Feel free to read along while listening, and all'that.

Correction: RISM says there's 48 pages of manuscript, but only 4 seem to have been scanned (the first three of each movement, and the color-check.) Not sure what's up with that; not usual for SBB. Something new, or a bug...

Ah. It's a "schriftprobe", according to RISM - not a complete scan, for one thing. Sorry! My mistake

[Mark Thomas]

THis recording is now available for download, from ClassicsOnline amongst others, no doubt.