Richard Flury A Florentine Tragedy

[Alan Howe]

...from Toccata Classics, a late one-act example of verismo, in German:
https://toccataclassics.com/product/richard-flury-a-florentine-tragedy-opera-in-one-act/

Sounds good to me...

[Mark Thomas]

Beautifully performed, and rather (Richard) Straussian. I'm not one to look a gift horse in the mouth and Toccata do seem to be on something of a roll at present, producing lots of romantic-era goodies.

[adriano]

Just going to visit Flury's son today, Mark :-) He lives oustide Solothurn.

[Mark Thomas]

Ahh, Solothurn. I have very happy memories of a couple of visits there. Have a great day.

[adriano]

Incidentally, Flury's son Urs Joseph, besides being a conductor and arranger, is an excellent composer! On the "Musikszene Schweiz" label there is a very interesting CD with his symphonic poem "Vineta", his Cello Concerto (with soloist Pierre Fournier) and his Sinfonietta for strings. He also composed a Passion oratorio, on Swiss dialect texts. More can be found in the discography of his website:

https://ujflury.ch/inhalt/

On Richard Flury there is a comprehensive 330-page biography (in English) by Chris Walton, who also is the author of the best Othmar Schoeck biography so far. This has been published by Toccata Press. The Schoeck biography by University of Rochester Press.

It was great to be a guest in the magnificent countryside villa where Richard Flury lived. A house full of memories, music, paintings and sculptures - and a huge collection of books, manuscripts, scores and letters. Flury was a very prolific composer. Now there is a revival of his operas too. Besides the Toccata CD of "Eine Florentinische Tragödie", there will be, in autumn, a Swiss Italian Radio production of his full-evening opera "Casanova e l'Albertolli" - conducted by Diego Fasolis!

And this is Flury senior's website:

https://richardflury.ch/inhalt/

His discography is quite impressive. New recordings of his Symphonies are also planned. Of course, it's all fully sponsored, Toccata would never have the funds to produce all this. A real scandal that the Swiss goverment's cultural institution and Pro Helevtia do not sponsor CDs with Romantic or Post-Romantic composers anymore... Switzerland should be proud for having had so many excellent composers! During all those 2002-2016 years I was working on my Fritz Brun project, I could not believe how our press did practically ignore all this! It was more important to review and praise Cecilia Bartoli's and Sol Gabetta's concerts and recordings. That no one is a prophet in one's own country, is still a sad reality overe here too.

[Alan Howe]

What a relief it is to encounter Flury's 42½-minute one-acter after the bloated score that is Korngold's Heliane. And what a relief it is too to hear some decent singing: the Bianca (Julia Sophie Wagner) has a strong, steady voice and, quite frankly, Chinese tenor, Long Long, could give Brian Jagde a singing lesson. Berlin could learn a thing or two from the cast on offer here.

This is a great advert for Toccata Classics. Kudos to Martin Anderson and his cast and recording team.