Ups and downs in the repertoire

[adriano]

That film music series, incidentally, was my idea. I had started it on Marco Polo with 4 Honegger CDs in 1987...
I had even furnished the new "film stripe" artwork pattern accompanied by a film still, since the original "re-painted" composer portraits on blue background were simply horrible.

[Alan Howe]

Might have known...!!

[sdtom]

Great idea, my friend.

[chill319]

In response to Ilja's original question, I wonder if it might make sense to consider as a separate set of venues the academic stages where sponsored groups perform. I suspect there's predictable turnover of recent composers there, as elsewhere, but also more attempt than one would find in major venues at preserving or promoting unsung music of previous generations. Is there a web resource that focuses on college and university concerts? It might be interesting to sort through a decade or two of those programs to see if any specific composer threads sort themselves out.

[gnicholls]

There are arts funding agencies, music information centres, performing rights organizations, classical music broadcasters & the recording industry, performing rights organizations, managements of performing organizations, concert artist managers, unions, organizations of composers and performers. In academia, there's music sociology and a field of historical musicology called reception history. Given the extent to which classical music is publically funded, the descriptive statistics related to this issue ought to become available to us, the musical public. Are they?

[Ilja]

Individually, sometimes. Collectively, rarely if ever.

[brendangcarroll]

Please forgive me but I have to correct the following comments:

"Korngold's the major exception from this time ..... he's someone who primarily composed for film"

In fact, Korngold primarily comosed for the opera house and concert hall; he was only in Hollywood for ten years and wrote just 18 scores.

"But I'll add that IMHO a lot of Korngold's concert work -- his pre-film compositions in Austria etc. -- is honestly quite "unsung" in my mind. Die Tote Stadt gets occasionally noticed, but the rest you hardly hear at all"

Die tote Stadt is now a repertoie opera in Europe. In the past 3 years alone, there have been productions in Warsaw, Vienna, Budapest, Chemnitz, Basel, Kassel, Wermland Oper n Sweden, Nantes (I could go on) and the Canadian premiere occurred in Calgary only last year, while in the next 18 months alone, new productions have been announced for Dresden, Milan, Berlin, Toulouse, Hamburg and even a touring production in the Netherlands! I would not say that it is an opera that is "occasionally noticed". far from it. In late 2018, THREE productions will play almost simulatanously in Germany alone.

The Korngold Violin Concerto is also now a repertoire work with over 60 recordings listed (and two more about to be released this year) and since 2016, over 2000 performances worldwide, making it one of the most popular 20th century violin concertos.

I could add equally impressive statistics for Korngold's chamber works and lieder. Of all the 'suppressed composers' his come-back has been the most impressive. Unsung he is not.


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[Alan Howe]

Like virtually all sung composers, however, there are works which remain unsung. I'm sure we can all name them, but I hate lists, so I'll leave it at that...

[soundwave106]

There are also *regions* where a composer remains mostly unsung too. My perspective is a United States one.

The Korngold violin concerto has been "sung" for a while, no question there -- unfortunately I failed to clarify this exception. But from my perspective, that seemed to be it in the States for a long time. I'm glad to hear Die Tote Stadt, some of his chamber works, and others of his other pre-Hollywood music are moving into the "sung" category over in Europe!

Maybe a little bit will sneak over here sometime. A quick check on Bachtrack shows a *few* non-Violin Concerto performances also making the rounds as well in the States (a couple performances of Much Ado About Nothing and a performance of the Piano Quintet in Seattle). It is, unfortunately, not quite as extensive as Europe yet, but actually it's more than I expected.

[eschiss1]

For a more extensive though not complete list of upcoming Korngold performances see also Schott.