Sterling news: Dente and Hallberg Symphonies to be released

[Mark Thomas]

Hot on the heels of Sterling's release of Per August Ölander's 1876 opera Blenda, comes the news that their next issue will be of the sole symphonies of the Swedish composers Joseph Dente and Bengt Wilhelm Hallberg, together with the latter's Concert Overture No.2. A recording of a radio broadcast of the same performance of Dente's 1887 Symphony used to be available here at UC (the link is now defunct), and it's an attractive, compact piece of work. Hallberg (1824-1883) is a new name to me. Although he was a pupil of Berwald, his similarly small-scale Symphony (c. 1870) and the Overture (c. 1853) are written in a style perhaps best described as very early romantic, and so undeniably anachronistic for their time.

It's good to see Sterling get back into the swing of things with these two releases, licensed from radio stations, and even more welcome, if it happens, will be their proposed issue of the excellent radio recording of Raff's last opera Benedetto Marcello. Fingers crossed!

[adriano]

"Benedetto Marcello": Do you mean the 2002 Bad Urach performance, which was broadcast by SWR? I have this one, it's excellent.

[Alan Howe]

Very welcome news, this - and, of course, for Raff fans everywhere.

https://www.amazon.co.uk/Bengt-Wilhelm-Hallberg-Jospeh-Dente/dp/B07RMGBZ8N/ref=sr_1_2?keywords=hallberg+dente&qid=1558971085&s=music&sr=8-2



Poor value at only 55 minutes, but a must-buy for me.

[Alan Howe]

Audio samples here:
https://www.amazon.co.uk/Hallberg-Dente-Engstr%C3%B6m-Ola-Karlsson/dp/B07RNDQ5SW/ref=sr_1_1?keywords=hallberg+dente&qid=1558971508&s=music&sr=8-1

I have removed from our Downloads board the recording of the Dente Symphony featuring the identical performers as here.

[Mark Thomas]

"Benedetto Marcello": Do you mean the 2002 Bad Urach performance, which was broadcast by SWR? I have this one, it's excellent.

Yes, that's the one!

[adriano]

Good, so let's hope :-)

[eschiss1]

Re the Dente symphony, and hopefully not too tangentially, the first movement of the symphony  may be downloaded freely (score and autograph, actually) from the Swedish Musical Heritage website. (The site also has some other works mentioned by him, one or two of them also downloadable. One is described as "symphony Allegro" in E-flat from 1867, which could be taken either as a finished symphony in one movement in E-flat or an unfinished symphony only one movement of which was finished; if the former, then this CD's description is incomplete.