Unsung Tone/Symphonic Poems?

[sdtom]

I've not heard them

[sdtom]

Something I can highly recommend is CD# 8.555242 Orchestral works of Liadov 10 tracks of pure heaven which I will comment on. As many know and not a part of this section of the forum my collection of 3000 CD's was dumpsterized (is that a word?) by my daughter. This CD showed up on my doorstep and is gladly welcomed?
Tom

[sdtom]

I had the opportunity to listen to "The Voyevoda" as a filler piece on a "Manfred Symphony" release. The 20-minute work while certainly not by an unsung composer Tchaikovsky is certainly one of his seldom played works.

[Christopher]

Would you rate it as any good?

[eschiss1]

Not to be confused with his recently reconstructed opera composed 20 years earlier of the same title (not a tonepoem but even more unsung! )

[sdtom]

I would rate it as very listenable as well as Manfred.

[Kevin]

I would rate it as very listenable as well as Manfred.

I've always rated his Shakespeare symphonic poems and Francesca da Rimini highly but I go back and forth on whether The Voyevoda is a good work or not. The Manfred Symphony is without a doubt one of his masterpieces, I think it's only the rambling finale that sets it back a bit.

For the Shakespeare stuff I turn to this often:

https://www.prestomusic.com/classical/products/7936929--serebrier-conducts-tchaikovsky

[sdtom]

That is all well and good Kevin but I have the Leaper on Naxos plus this new recording. Is this one that much better? The Hamlet is not to be missed.

[sdtom]

There is a new Hamlet on the Raff recording.

[Mark Thomas]

Sorry, Tom, I don't understand that: Hamlet? Raff?

[eschiss1]

For a moment I thought you were sliding into a mention of Raff's Hamlet Shakespeare overture but while his pupil MacDowell wrote one as did of course many others- Raff's set didn't include any indecisive Danish princes, I don't think.

[Mark Thomas]

For a moment I thought you were sliding into a mention of Raff's Hamlet Shakespeare overture

No, not I, Eric. I was just puzzled. Raff did make some sketches for a fifth Shakespeare Prelude - for King Lear - but Hamlet figures nowhere in his output. Hence my puzzlement, which continues.

[Kevin]

That's fascinating to learn he was contemplating King Lear. I wish he would've gone through with it. I treasure the Preludes(wish he called them symphonic poems)

[Mark Thomas]

I can't see that what Raff called them matters much. The term "symphonic poem" was used for a multitude of different forms of (mostly) single-movement descriptive and programmatic compositions, and Raff's Shakespeare preludes wouldn't have raised any eyebrows if he'd used that description instead. I suspect the reason he didn't has it's roots in his complicated relationship with Liszt, who first used the term for works which Raff, then his amanuensis, had helped him compose in the early 1850s.

[Kevin]

You see I'm still a little confused by the term "orchestral preludes" in my mind it can come down to three options:

1) The preludes are proper symphonic poems in the Lisztian tradition. I completely understand what you say about his complicated relationship with Liszt , maybe that's why he chose not to call them symphonic poems.
2) They are concert overtures in the Beethoven/Mendelssohn tradition. They display a general mood instead of a specific programme.
3) They are a unique Raffian creation. The chandos booklet describes them as prefiguring film scores by a few decades.

(What the preludes are(or not) has been bothering me for ages)