Request for assistance

[britishcomposer]

Kalinnikov live, no, but I have a recording of a live performance, Yuri Ahronovich conducted the German SWR SO. It's my favourite recording. The orchestra isn't always homogenous but Ahronovich infects it whith an inspiring zest. Judging from this recording he was a hugely underrated conductor.

[MartinH]

In the US there are some works that have been consigned to community, amateur, and layman's orchestras. The Kalinnikov first is firmly there and appears frequently. I've played it several times in the past dozen years with various groups. It's not that difficult to play. Similarly, the Borodin 2nd, Hanson 2nd, the symphonies of Franck and Chausson. I'm unaware of any amateur group doing the Rott - no doubt the large rental fees having something to do with that.

[eschiss1]

YouTube has a video of the Binghamton (NY, I suppose, which is an hour away from me) playing the first movement of the Kalinnikov first, for instance (in 2012). Hadn't thought to look at community orchestras in my searches (I should have; sometimes some of them- especially if I include those in Canada in "them", e.g.- play some delightfully unusual stuff - I think some works by Vagn Holmboe and Havergal Brian* were premiered, or given rare performances, by community orchestras in the US and Canada, e.g., so ignoring them as I seem to have done is counterproductive to my search purposes...



*And the local chamber orchestra here in Ithaca does this and that, too. That said, I know, I know already - not within our current remit, but I will say this- if I have to stick to the remit for every single _subclause_ of a subclause of a sentence even including just those meant to prove a point, I'll be still writing this in 2056** looking for examples, and: NO. Not gonna. By then anyway the remit will have been tightened even further- if the forum still exists...

**... hrm, I should live so long. (Kein ayin hara...)

[eschiss1]

Another answer that comes maybe to mind- a couple of early Ferdinand Hiller symphonies (and other works, including, I think, a work-catalog he kept at the time with incipits) were digitized by GUF on his anniversary a few years back.  I began typesetting the parts of one of them but didn't continue then. (Got further than just the flute part that I uploaded to IMSLP, though.) Depending on the timeframe of this, and whether or not a bit of Ferdinand Hiller relative-juvenilia could satisfy the requirements if the score & parts were newly computer-typeset, well, could soon have a new go... Unless GUF has some rental-fee/other requirements I'm not aware of for the use of their scanned scores, that would be, I think, wholly free except for printer costs etc. on someone's end, I guess...

[sdtom]

Since we were discussing the Naxos re-release what about the first symphony of Ippolitov-Ivanov?

[eschiss1]

sdtom: falls afoul of
"The composer must be truly 'unsung'.".
(See first post of the thread.)
For myself I couldn't call the composer of the first set of Caucasian Sketches (e.g.) unsung...

[MartinH]

I could. When was the last time anyone played Caucasian Sketches in concert? It's even disappeared from the repertoire of amateur groups. It's probably been 40 years since I've played it. There are a lot of younger conductors and orchestra players who have never heard it, or heard of it. The only thing that keeps it marginally alive is the Procession of the Sardar. Only dedicated collectors and people who frequent this board are aware that there are two suites, a symphony, and some other music. Ippolitov-Ivanov has really fallen off the radar.

[Alan Howe]

I can hear shouts of 'Ippolitov-Ivanov? Who's he?' from here  .

[eschiss1]

This on a group where Berwald - who has no such item that's ever kept his name alive in the wider repertoire outside of Sweden (mutatis mutandis Russia/USSR for Ip-Iv, of-co...), except to classical fanatics like us-I-mean-me - is generally considered a bit too relatively sung iirc?

[sdtom]

His sketches are on many popular Russian compilations I'll grant you that but in reality he is pretty obscure these days and the Symphony is unknown by many.

[Mark Thomas]

Berwald? No, I'd say he was unsung, Eric.

[Alan Howe]

Known to us, but out there in the real world - unsung. Definitely. Sadly.

[eschiss1]

Re Berwald: my misreading (seriously, unsarcastically, etc.!)

I was looking at the - how would I once have put it, back in my math student years (or maybe back before then, in science courses...) - the bounding parameters, or something - given in the first post of this thread- and several times thinking to myself, yes-- those are really hard to satisfy all at once... a (composer, music...) pair (triple, whatever...) satisfying some is probably going to fall afoul of one of the others (practically unknown, check; Romantic-era, check; ... score/parts available in nice readable non-manuscript editions that don't also cost a bundle to buy or rent - hrm, so often a problem there given the other conditions (at least for orchestral music) ... &c,&c,...)

[Gareth Vaughan]

I must say I think the requirement that there be "no reading from manuscripts" is absurd. Most 19th century scores of relatively unsung (and some sung) composers will not have had orchestral parts (other than strings) actually printed. They will be available in perfectly legible handwritten form, produced by professional copyists whose job it was to produce easy to read parts for orchestral musicians. In this respect the Fleisher Collection would prove a valuable resource. Anyway, any respectable orchestral musician should be able to read from a professional copyist's part.

[MartinH]

But have you seen the parts from Fleisher? Many of them are quite readable and well done, but some were done by people who clearly weren't professionals in the Clinton Roemer sense! Better than nothing, to be sure, and I'm very, very grateful the library is there, but wouldn't it be nice if the same spirit that the library was created, a new generation would go in and put everything on modern notation software?