Appeal from Pianist Recording JB Foerster's Entire Piano Music Output

[JP]

Dear all, I 'm passing on a request from American pianist Ms Patricia Goodson who is undertaking a ginormous project to record the entire keyboard repertory of J.B. Foerster 's piano music on the Brilliant Classics label. While she has almost accomplished this objective, she requires some top-up funding to finish up with the final crucial phase of her recording sessions. 

In the forwarded message below, Ms Goodson was making reference to the rare Foerster pieces which she belatedly discovered and is including them alongside the more established compositions as part of a projected 4-CD set that will be released later this year.  You can hear some of the excerpts here in addition to the hyperlink to her kickstart webpage in her her email below.   

http://www.patriciagoodson.com/web/music_details.aspx?ItemId=988675

In view of this momentously unprecedented and groundbreaking initiative that she is undertaking to surface Foerster 's long glossed over piano compositions to the world of music lovers, please give her your generous support.

Best wishes to one and all,
JP

---------- Forwarded message ----------
From: Patricia Goodson <pg@patriciagoodson.com>
Date: Sun, Jan 20, 2013 at 12:22 AM
Subject: I am launching a Kickstarter Project! Please have a look - it`s only up for 20 days.

I would be most grateful if you would help spread the word.  Here is an invitation I have just sent out, which you may use if you like.

The music I found was mainly Jičínská Suita, which I had been told at the outset was an orchestral reduction.  I later learned that the original version was for piano (even if it is terribly awkward to play, it might as well be an orchestral reduction but Foerster created it himsel.) so I felt I needed to include it.  It is about 22 minutes long, so that's a lot of recording time.  The other pieces maybe are a little bit known, I don`t know.  One is Greetings to president Masaryk on his 80th birthday, which was published in a newspaper which I found on microfiche and copied out.  Others were Allegretto Capriccioso, Petites Esquisses, March for the Young National Front.  I think that`s about it.

Thank you again for spreading the word!

cheers,
Patricia
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Just Hatched: Foerster Kickstarter Project!

As many of you know, I have spent the past several years recording the complete piano works of Czech composer Josef Bohuslav Foerster.  The project is nearly ready, and today I am launching a Kickstarter project to raise money to finish it, and to raise awareness about the CD and Foerster`s beautiful piano music.

Please have a look at the project here:

http://www.kickstarter.com/projects/1230126388/dreams-memories-impressions-piano-works-of-jb-foer?ref=email

where you can learn a bit more about Foerster and hear how lovely this completely forgotten music is.  Feedback is welcome, though I am not sure I can change anything in it.

I would be very grateful if you could support the project by sending the Kickstarter link to your music-loving friends, and of course if you can find a way to join the project by making a small contribution.

Thank you very, very much!
xox,
Patricia

[JP]

Greetings one and all.  I'm pleased to bring to your attention that  a 4-CD set featuring the complete solo piano works of JB Foerster will be released on Brilliant Classics very shortly sometime towards end-Nov early Dec:

http://www.brilliantclassics.com/release.aspx?id=FM00084087

http://www.jpc.de/jpcng/classic/detail/-/art/Josef-Bohuslav-Foerster-S%E4mtliche-Klavierwerke/hnum/3538719

You can hear excerpted previews of this recording here: 

http://www.patriciagoodson.com/web/music_details.aspx?ItemId=988675

http://www.patriciagoodson.com/web/music_details.aspx?ItemId=1130134

...and also read about her blog that chronicles her final recording and post-production editing sessions here: 

http://www.kickstarter.com/projects/1230126388/dreams-memories-impressions-piano-works-of-jb-foer/posts

http://www.kickstarter.com/projects/1230126388/dreams-memories-impressions-piano-works-of-jb-foer/posts?page=2

Best wishes. 

[Balapoel]

Great news. It will be on my must-buy list. However, looking through the list, I didn't see:
Stopy ve sněhu [Footprints in the Snow: 2 Easy Mood Pieces]   1926

Is the material lost?

[eschiss1]

Looked that one up on Worldcat myself and got an ambiguous reply (see this) - at least where I am it says "Sorry, no libraries with the specified item were found." (... making me curious why it's listed on Worldcat at all anyway.)

The Czech national library (about to close, for some time!, in less than a week, sigh) -does- list it - see this link. --

Main entry      Foerster, Josef Bohuslav, 1859-1951
Title      Stopy ve sněhu [hudebnina] : dvě nálady ve snažším slohu pro klavír na čtyři ruce / Jos. B. Foerster
Imprint      Praha : K.J. Barvitius, c1926
Physical descr.      7 s.

[eschiss1]

And there one sees, I am going to guess, why that work isn't in the list, btw: it's not a solo piano work. pro klavír na čtyři ruce. _Four hands_. Unless the scope has extended from the beginning when it was just a solo-works project, that is! (Hrm. Should check to see if the left-hand only works are in that list, etc., after I get some sleep. )

[Balapoel]

Ah, correct. They also didn't include Opp 1, 25, and 33, which are all 4-hands pieces.
Thanks, Eric.

[JP]

from: Goodson Patricia <pg@patriciagoodson.com>
date: Mon, Mar 31, 2014 at 5:45 AM
subject: pozvanka/invitation 29.4.2014

Patricia Goodson and Music Now Prague cordially invite you to a concert celebrating the launch of the Brilliant Classics CD "Dreams, Memories and Impressions: the complete solo piano works of Josef Bohuslav Foerster" to be held on

Tuesday, 29 April 2014, at 7:30 p.m. in the Czech Evangelical Church, Korunní 60, Praha 2, Vinohrady.

Performers include Irena Troupová, soprano, the Stamic Quartet, and Patricia Goodson, piano.

The concert will be held in cooperation with the JB Foerster Society as part of their "Josef Bohuslav Foerster: European" concert series. You are invited to enjoy a glass of wine after the concert.

For more details see:

http://www.patriciagoodson.com/web/events.aspx

https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/1230126388/dreams-memories-impressions-piano-works-of-jb-foer/posts/802563   

(latest blog entry appended below)

Dreams, Memories, Impressions: piano works of J.B. Foerster
by Patricia Goodson

Update #12
Apr 7 2014
Launch concert looms...
Comment

Hi everyone,

and greetings from Prague, where spring is (very early) in full sway.

I hope all of you got your CDs and have enjoyed them. 

The disks have gotten five reviews, all very positive, and I expect to get several more in the coming months.  Every one of them expresses gratitude that the music has been brought to light again, and also they mention your Kickstarter support!  I have posted most of them on my Facebook page, which is an open page anyone can view.

They are even selling pretty well!

The official launch concert will be April 29th at 19:30 in the Czech Evangeiical Church at Korunní 60 in Prague.  This is a really lovely venue which has (and I certainly hope it still has!) a good piano.  I am going to check that this week!

I have "donated" the concert to the JB Foerster Society, which recently underwent a welcome restructuring, the timing of which unfortunately precluded them from getting grants adequate to fund their concert series.  So this concert will be part of their "JB Foerster: European" series, and as such will feature the wonderful soprano Irena Troupová singing Schumann (Foerster admired Schumann!)

Also the Stamic Quartet will join me to perform another unknown Foerster gem, the "Komorní Hudba", which is a one movement work for piano quintet.   

I will pick and choose the rest of the program from among my favorites, which will include Erotovy Masky, a movement from Jičin Suite, and Den.

If you are in Prague, or know people here, please spread the word!!  I would like to have  "Full House for Foerster" but that`s not an easy thing to bring off! 

Thanks again for your interest and support.  If you would like to be on my mailing list, please let me know.

Cheers,

Patricia

[Sharkkb8]

Good news for those Foerster fans of the iTunes-download persuasion - this 4-cd set is available from iTunes (USA anyway) for $9.99!   This is the default iTunes price for one cd, and so getting 4-for-the-price-of-one is a pleasant prospect.  And if you're still reading UC, thank you, Patricia, for your ambitious project - I know what I'll be listening to tonight!

https://itunes.apple.com/us/album/foerster-dreams-memories-impressions/id875862640

Gregory

[JP]

Dear all, following in close succession to the release of JBF's piano music set on Brilliant Classics exactly a year ago, here's the rare April 2014 premiere of his 1-Movt phantasy-style (uncanny musical resemblance to his contemperaneous Brit counterparts in form & style) piano quintet in a stirring performance given by Patricia Goodson and the Stamic Quartet on YT:

https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=BfBQNd7LK48

After a preliminary listen-thru, one might get the distinct impression that this work represents the more modernistically chromatic and tonally adventurous facet amongst Foerster's broad and stylistically variable spectrum of compositions. The somewhat angular phrasings and slightly dissonant harmonies here and there at the outset and closing passages of the piece remind me of the music of Martinu, Poulenc, Roussel, not to mention the early neoclassical phase of Stravinsky while the more lyrical middle section readily brings to mind the late Anglo-Gallic Romanticism of Vaughn Williams, Bax, Ravel, Magnard and Pierne with just a hint of early Szymanowski and the unmistakably identifiable lush exuberance that one associates with Joseph Marx's music embedded elsewhere.

As a commercially recorded piece, it would serve as an excellent bonus item in a follow-up set featuring JBF's 4-hand piano works.  Alternatively, it would make an excellent filler to Vitezslav Novak's piano quintet and piano quartet (the latter also scarcely available).

Meanwhile, happy listening and best wishes to one and all!

[eschiss1]

Thanks!!