Albert Wolff

[Sibeliusfan]

Many years ago I heard the Flute Concerto by the French composer and conductor Albert Wolff (1884-1970). I even taped the work and I remember it as fine music in the tradition of Fauré. Not highly original, but good to know.
Some forty years later, the cassette is long deleted and as far as I know, Wolff's reputation as a composer never really made it.
I know he wrote some operas and a symphony, but I am keen to hear some more of his music and hope to find a recording of the concerto after all these years.

[adriano]

I like Wolff's recordings very much!
There is another Symphony by a French "composer-conductor" I always wanted to record, Piero Coppola's Symphony in A minor, published in 1925 - a score which I have been given by a French Publisher who always hoped that this would happen. I never heard it and I suppose it is difficult to find a broadcast. Marco Polo did not find it interesting enough - anyway, the whole series with works by composer-conductors I once suggested, never was realised. At least some German works of this category are being produced by cpo. The 2nd Symphony by Paul Paray was recorded on Mercury, as his Mass in memory of Joan of Arc, as far as I remember... Some morder recordings of these works are, of course avaiulable, but nobody surpasses Maestro Paray's tension...

[Simon]

Here is a link to a recording of Wolff's 4 Pièces brèves, for flute and orchestra. Sounds slightly out of the remits of this forum, but I understand that it is a late work by Wolff. I would be glad to see a complete list of works, including his chamber music.

http://m.ina.fr/audio/PHF07008963

[adriano]

... and here is a link to the Paul Paray Society's website, which is very well done and has an interesting CD catalogue. They are on the way of publishing his complete works on their own label. A complete list of works is, unfortunately, not available from them.

[Sibeliusfan]

Thanks Simon for the link. Lovely music, reminding me, indeed, of the flute concerto. So come on, conductors and orchestras!

[Sibeliusfan]

It took me almost seven years, but if anyone is interested: a recording of Albert Wolff's Flute Concerto is available at https://zoeken.beeldengeluid.nl/program/urn:vme:default:program:2101608140126577431?q=albert+wolff+fluitconcert

[Ilja]

So far as I can see, there is no possibility to play the music via the site. Perhaps my browser's somewhat extreme safety settings get in the way, but otherwise one needs to request the recording from Beeld & Geluid (Netherlands Radio Archives).

[Sibeliusfan]

That is correct, but it's the only way (as far as I know) to hear this concerto.

[CelesteCadenza]

It is interesting that this old thread was resurrected at almost the precise moment that I encountered a work that may be a ballet by Albert Wolff [I first learned of such occurrences of frequency illusion, or cognitive bias, as the "Yellow Volkswagen phenomenon"; it has more formally been termed the "Baader-Meinhof phenomenon", but I digress]. The work in question is allegedly a ballet by Albert Wolff that I stumbled upon at archive.org. It is identified as "Ballet 'Loiseau[sic] Bleu' (The Blue Bird) - Albert Wolff".

The piece could well accompany a ballet (or a film) as it consists of a number of contrasting sections that (to my ears) alternate from Paul Juon to wannabe ersatz Mozart. It sounds played by a chamber ensemble with a prominent role for the piano.  I am well aware of Wolff's opera L'Oiseau Bleu, and have a recording; this work seems totally unrelated, though the 1959 broadcast recording of the opera is so murky it's hard to tell and is uninviting to carefully audition. Searching for information on any Blue Bird ballet by Wolff leads to many hits, but all to his 1919 opera of the same name.

So, since this thread is renewed, perhaps the experts and sleuths here might properly identify the work. It can be heard here:
https://archive.org/details/cd_aubin-wolff-compositions_francine-aubin-albert-wolff

I find that for the container-ship that is archive.org, the Pogonyi CD Collection is reasonably well-curated and total misattributions are rare. FWIW, the accompanying piece, the overly-long Symphonie Juive by Francine Aubin (Tony's frau) is correct and identical to the Saphir release LVC1131.