Not what it says on the tin

[giles.enders]

The Alkan /Klindworth concerto is a long way from just orchestrating three etudes.  Klindworth found that the more he tried to orchestrate them, it took too much away from the piano part.  He eventually just kept the themes and wrote a concerto around them.  I believe that Alkan was more or less indifferent about it.

[giles.enders]

There is also another issue I have and it is this; Alan says who would we be without Elgar's third symphony which I agree is something very special but then who would want the travesty of the so called Elgar piano concerto which can only do his reputation some damage.  Similarly, I am pleased to have the completions of Schubert's symphonies but have to say that in some ways this is an academic exercise as clearly Schubert knew what he was doing when he abandoned them. These are both 'sung' composers so no more of them. 

[Ilja]

Whether Schubert 'knew what he was doing' when he abandoned those pieces is a matter of debate. Certainly in the case of the 'Unfinished' there is good evidence that his hand was forced by a deadline he couldn't keep. And there are numerous cases in which the composer's hand was forced rather more forcibly, such as Bruckner. Personally, I'm grateful for various people's efforts to elaborate upon what the composer left. But of course, it has to be made clear to prospective listeners.

... and to be honest, I rather like the 'Elgar' PC... Call it a guilty pleasure.

[Gareth Vaughan]

I agree to a large extent with both Giles and Alan. It should be made clear whether the work in question is a newly discovered original work of the composer, more or less intact, or a piece that has had to be newly orchestrated (and whether that orchestration is based on a short score of the composer's or wholly the work of a new hand), or a realisation of a piece from fragments left behind (the details of how many or how extensive these fragments may have been can be left to the CD booklet). "On the tin", IMHO, there should be something like, e.g.: Granados (reconstructed Melani Mestri) - Piano Concerto; or, in another case, Stanford (orchestrated Geoffrey Bush) - Piano Concerto No. 3.
This, it seems to me, would not be too much to ask, and it would be helpful to the potential purchaser.
In the case of the Klindworth/Alkan concerto, it would be more accurate to describe it as: Klindworth: Piano Concerto based on etudes by C.V. Alkan. though Klindworth would have done better to leave Alkan's music alone. Alkan knew what he was about.

[Alan Howe]

The Granados isn't really a reconstruction at all, but an invention. From Hyperion's website:

Like Albéniz, Enrique Granados (1867–1916) was a brilliant pianist (he studied with Charles de Bériot in Paris) and a composition pupil of Felipe Pedrell. Both are best remembered as composers of overtly Spanish piano cycles (Albéniz's Iberia and Granados's Goyescas), but both also wrote extensively in other forms, including opera, a form in which Pedrell was also active. The Centre de Documentació Musical de Catalunya in Barcelona has two tantalizing fragments of a piano concerto by Granados which Melani Mestre has taken as the point of departure for a finished work. The first of the Barcelona manuscripts is a two-piano sketch in Granados's hand, with a dedication 'à mon cher maître Camille Saint-Saëns', and the subtitle 'Patético'. Though this manuscript has no date, Melani Mestre has suggested that it was written in 1910, around the time Granados was at work on Goyescas.

The sketch opens with a long, brooding piano solo, and the tempo changes to Allegro grave non molto lento when the orchestra makes its first entry. Altogether there are some 250 bars of music in this sketch, which breaks off in the middle of a bar. A second autograph manuscript is much neater, but the opening solo, marked Lento grave e quasi recitativo, is considerably shorter (just eighteen bars—less than a quarter of the length of this solo in the sketch), before the initial fully scored orchestral entry. This manuscript has several blank pages between orchestral entries where Granados may have intended to add the solo part, and it ends with nine pages of full orchestral score before stopping abruptly.

Musicologists will never agree about the viability of completing a work that exists only in a fragmentary state, and for which there is no surviving continuity draft to indicate what Granados's intentions might have been for the entire movement. Putting those questions to one side, what Mestre's completion demonstrates is that the surviving sources provide ample material for a single movement of considerable interest. The music is unusually dark and sombre, centred on C minor (the key of Beethoven's 'Pathétique' Sonata, presumably no accident given the subtitle 'Patético' on the sketch), and Granados can be heard here at his most gravely expressive and harmonically resourceful. It is unclear whether he set out to write a three-movement concerto (there is some evidence that he did), or whether he thought that this substantial single movement could stand on its own. Mestre believes that Granados had a three-movement work in mind, and to create that (since there is only material for the first movement in the Barcelona manuscripts) he has taken two solo piano works, orchestrating and adapting them for piano and orchestra. The second movement is based on two pieces: Oriental, No 2 of the twelve Danzas españolas, and Capricho español. The finale is an arrangement of the Allegro di concierto.
(emphasis added)

[Alan Howe]

The problem with this thread is that we have been talking about a wide range of compositions - from orchestrations and reconstructions from existing incomplete material on the one hand to virtual recompositions on the other. In the case of the former it seems to me that it is perfectly valid to feature the original composer in any advertising material, provided that the orchestrator/arranger's name is present in the small print, as it were. In the case of the latter, I would say it ought to be the other way round.

[Richard Moss]

alan's comment brings to mind a phrase containing the words 'head' and 'nail'. 

However, in fairness to the record industry, I've now checked Rachmaninov's 5th and Brahms '3rd' that I mentioned in my previous post and in both cases the CD cover clearly states the work is an arrangement/transcription of whatever, so at least that is 'honest'.

  I've re-checked a few others I've got (e.g. Beethoven's 10th symphony) and again its origin is honestly stated on the CD cover, so no deception there either.

Are we talking about works that members feel are almost 'deliberately' misleading or just nuances of crediting their origin?

Cheers

Richard

[Gareth Vaughan]

The Granados isn't really a reconstruction at all, but an invention

In that case it ought really to say so "on the tin" - i.e. the cover of the CD booklet. Wouldn't you agree?

[Alan Howe]

Oh quite. As I suggested in a previous post.

[sdtom]

This situation has been going on in the soundtrack industry for quite some time. As an example Copland wrote a Red Pony Suite for the concert stage as well as material for the film. Similar, but the trained ear can pick up the difference. The same can be said about Herrmann and The Devil and Daniel Webster. Rosza went so far as adapting his Violin Concerto for the film The Private Lives of Sherlock Holmes. Vaughn-Williams wrote his Sinfonia Antarctia first for the film Scott of the Antarctic and later created a concert version which made no mention of the film. It should have clearly stated that this material was adapted. It certainly did not say in the opening credits for Dracula that the music was Tchaikovsky's Swan Lake. A very interesting thread.
Tom

[Gareth Vaughan]

Vaughn-Williams wrote his Sinfonia Antarctia first for the film Scott of the Antarctic and later created a concert version which made no mention of the film. It should have clearly stated that this material was adapted.

I don't agree at all. The Sinfonia Antarctica is not "a concert version" of Vaughan-Williams' (note spelling) music for the film "Scott of the Antarctic". VW uses the themes from the film to produce a genuinely symphonic work which is rightly included in the canon of his symphonies. Why should he say that he uses material from his film music here any more than stating he employs themes from his opera "The Pilgrim's Progress" in the 5th Symphony? I suppose a composer may do what he likes with his own work!

[eschiss1]

e.g. recordings of Mussorgsky's Pictures (Toradze's, I'm told) or Medtner piano works (one volume of Fellegi's, on MP) where substantial uncredited/mentioned editing is performed either by the pianist or by the author of the, well, edition they're using? I suppose that may qualify after a fashion...

[TerraEpon]

This situation has been going on in the soundtrack industry for quite some time. As an example Copland wrote a Red Pony Suite for the concert stage as well as material for the film. Similar, but the trained ear can pick up the difference. The same can be said about Herrmann and The Devil and Daniel Webster. Rosza went so far as adapting his Violin Concerto for the film The Private Lives of Sherlock Holmes. Vaughn-Williams wrote his Sinfonia Antarctia first for the film Scott of the Antarctic and later created a concert version which made no mention of the film. It should have clearly stated that this material was adapted. It certainly did not say in the opening credits for Dracula that the music was Tchaikovsky's Swan Lake. A very interesting thread.
Tom

Copland's and Herrmann's examples are hardly relevant here. They are exactly 'what it says on the tin' in those cases.

[Alan Howe]

We're getting off-topic here. This thread concerns arrangements (of whatever sort) of other people's music where the finished article wouldn't otherwise exist. This can involve everything from expert reconstructions or completions of existing material/sketches to the creation of works which were never envisaged in the first place, such as the Granados PC (or at least, the two thirds of it that come from quite different sources).

Composers can do what they like with their own music. That's a completely different issue. And we're not talking here about the use of certain music in other contexts, such as films. So, back to the original topic, please...

[Gareth Vaughan]

Thank you for bringing us back into line. This topic was wandering off its focus.