Mengelberg the composer

[Wheesht]

For anyone who is curious about music composed by Willem Mengelberg: The Lucerne Symphony Orchestra will perform his "Festliche Messe" from 1895, the year he left his post as chief conductor there, on 20 September 2016:
http://www.sinfonieorchester.ch/de/events/mengelbergs-luzerner-messe

[adriano]

Good news 
Incidentally, in Lucerne, 22 years old Mengelberg was a piano teacher of a young gifted boy of 14 called Fritz Brun...

[Brucknerfan]

I am always interested in hearing compositions by famous conductors, but at this point in my life I am restricted to what I can listen to online.  Are there any recordings of Mengelberg's compositions available online?  I am glad to find recordings of works by Furtwaengler, Walter and other well-known conductors on YouTube, even a concerto by Frederick Stock of the Chicago Symphony Orchestra.

[eschiss1]

Hrm. His arrangement of the Dutch national anthem has been posted here it seems from an older record.

[britishcomposer]

A couple of years ago I uploaded his 'Improvisationen über eine Original-Melodie zu Radierungen von Rembrandt' (1906)
The link is still available in the Downloads Archive:
http://www.unsungcomposers.com/forum/index.php/topic,1481.msg27762/topicseen.html#msg27762
Otherwise you can find it by searching youtube for it.

[Justin]

His "Improvisation" reminds me a bit of Richard Wetz and that late-romantic sound.

[eschiss1]

Here is some information by the way on the Improvisations posted in association with a 2000 Donemus score. (Worldcat doesn't seem to list an older one except in the sense that the Donemus is "©1998". Hrm, I find only one work by him offhand actually published before the 1970s (in printed form, though Worldcat doesn't identify a publisher... maybe Donemus Webshop does, will check.)) Donemus has several Mengelberg works for rental with score and I think sound samples, including the 1895 Feierliche Messe mentioned above. The official Mengelberg website seems (that I see right now?) to concentrate on his recordings of others' music, plus his one known recording of his own music, the Dutch national anthem, of which it provides a sound file (sample or whole thing, I should check.)

(Eg looking at a sample 21 pages of score of WM's 1906 Sinfonietta for strings in D minor (apparently not published until 2018...) (the first 269 bars of the opening movement), downloaded free from the Donemus website. Looks intriguing, it does...)