Piano concertos

[JimL]

I do know who the owner of the Sterndale-Bennett piano concerto No6 is. A 90 year old woman who married into the family.  The worry is, what will happen to a number of MS which she ownes. 
Giles Enders

Somebody, I don't care who, but somebody should be prepared to immediately contest her will when she shucks the coil mortal should she consign the MS to the furnace!  I wouldn't put it past her. 

[Gareth Vaughan]

I don't know why she should want to consign the MS to the furnace, having jealously guarded it all these years. However, there is no asccounting for the actions of such people. But if she did decide to destroy it she'd probably do so without our knowledge, before she died so contesting her will would achieve nothing.

I believe I heard a rumour that the MS of the concerto may find its way to the Bodleian Library when this lady dies. If so, roll on that day! However, it was just a rumour.

[giles.enders]

There have been many false hopes about her sending this to the Bodeian library.  This is where many of the Sterndale Bennett MS are.  It is MONEY she covets and there are heirs.
Regards
Giles Enders

[Gareth Vaughan]

In that case, she's not likely to destroy it, is she?

[albion]

This document may be of interest to members - Music for Piano and Orchestra: The Recorded Repertoire:

http://www.siue.edu/~aho/discography/Discography.pdf

[thalbergmad]

The gentleman that compiled that excellent list was a member here for a short period, but he seems to have vanished.

Thal

[eschiss1]

In that case, she's not likely to destroy it, is she?

No. But while libraries aren't invulnerable either (bye bye Alexandrian), and libraries have whole stacks of scores they refuse to allow copies / scans of too- I anyway still think possibly irrationally that the score has a larger chance of getting lost forever this way than some other (also careful) ways.

[albion]

The way to ensure survival is dissemination. This thought prompted my recent uploads of recordings: for example, as nobody else seems to have recorded or noticed the performance of Stanford's Te Deum, Op.66 in 1999 (it's not in the British Library Sound Archive) if I had walked under a bus tomorrow that recording was probably gone, or at best inaccessible.

Utilising the wonders of digital media is the best way of sharing scores and recordings, thus vastly increasing their chances of survival. It's a tragedy that digitisation technology was not available before such unmitigated disasters as Chappell's 1964 fire.

[eschiss1]

and while I don't like much music written for films unfortunately, there's still been quite a lot that's good and great (and written by very good to great composers), and I seem to recall that Benjamin Frankel's film scores, at least, mostly are lost except in short score because (I think) of the storage they've received. Just to pick up on your point briefly. Anyhow, sorry. Piano concertos ... (One was made, I'm told, from a suite  from Mieczyslaw Weinberg's music for the film The Cranes are Flying...)

[Gareth Vaughan]

The way to ensure survival is dissemination.

Absolutely. Spot on! So we all know what to do. I won't be more specific than that.

[FBerwald]

I just finished listening to Raff's Suite for Piano and Orchestra Op. 200 and I'm stunned!!! Why is this not better known. Its absence from the concert halls is absolutely criminal. And WHAT was Hyperion thinking NOT including this in the Romantic Piano Concertos? This would have been a best seller...

[Gareth Vaughan]

And WHAT was Hyperion thinking NOT including this in the Romantic Piano Concertos? This would have been a best seller...

I know, I know. I did try to persuade Mike Spring - actually, to be fair, he did want to record the Raff Suite, but it wasn't top of his list. He's not a big fan of the PC, however. But all three of Raff's concertante piano works could have been got on one disk and made a good addition to the RPC series: Piano Concerto; Suite; Ode to Spring.

[Mark Thomas]

'Twas not to be and I guess that Sterling's recording of the Suite will stymie any change of heart on Hyperion's part now. At least the Suite now has a good performance set down for posterity.

[Gareth Vaughan]

Indeed so - and we are all very grateful to you, Mark, and Tra for facilitating that. The real treat, however, is Die Tageszeiten - and Hyperion had no plans to record that!

[Mark Thomas]

Yes, Tageszeiten must count as the Raff discovery of the decade. Who knew (apart from Tra)?