2010 in retrospect

[albion]

As we approach the end of another year, it would be interesting to find out what members have found special in the world of recordings during 2010 and what they are looking forward to in the coming year.

Personally, I think that this has been a fantastic year for anybody interested in British music. A year that begins with a first-class recording of Sullivan's Ivanhoe and closes with Boughton's The Queen of Cornwall is pretty special. In between I have particularly relished discs of Holbrooke and Foulds from Dutton and Wallace's Lurline from Naxos.

Through discussions on this forum I have also caught up with recent releases of Draeseke, Raff, Hamerik, Langgaard and Rufinatscha.

Looking forward to 2011, I anticipate purchases including Macfarren's Robin Hood from Victorian Opera Northwest, Schreker's Der Schmied von Gent (CPO), York Bowen's Symphonies 1 & 2 (Chandos) and (hopefully) volume 54 of the Hyperion RPC series featuring works by Arthur Somervell and Frederic Cowen. No doubt there will be some pleasant surprises too!

[Alan Howe]

For me personally the highlight of 2010 was the release of the two Gernsheim Piano Quintets on Toccata - partly because I had been involved in getting the CD off the ground, but mainly because it was proof that there are still masterpieces out there waiting to be discovered.

As far as 2011 is concerned, I'm looking forward to:

Urspruch Symphony/PC on cpo
Cliffe VC/d'Erlanger VC on Hyperion
Rufinatscha 6 on Chandos
Klughardt Symphony 3/VC on cpo
Jadassohn Symphonies on cpo
Hofmann Frithjof Symphony on Sterling
Noskowski Symphonies 2 and 3 on Sterling

Not bad, eh?

[Tartini]

Looks very interesting. I must add Kalliwodas symphonies (no. 2 and 4) on CPO.  If they are as good as his 6th. More symphonies by Cliffe had also been welcome.

[Hofrat]

2011 should bring us the symphonies of Joachim Eggert by Naxos.

[Gareth Vaughan]

I look forward to more Holbrooke from cpo, but also to the disks mentioned by Alan.

[Syrelius]

2011 should bring us the symphonies of Joachim Eggert by Naxos.

Have they solved the problems re conductor?

[petershott@btinternet.com]

I judge the quality of the year by how many times I'm forced to visit the timber yard to acquire material to construct yet more new shelves for CDs (this year the CD collection has expanded by a fearsome 18 metres - there is a line in a Beckett novel about how astonishing it is that mathematics helps you to know yourself).

As Albion remarks above, it has been a wonderful year with Ivanhoe at one end and The Queen of Cornwall at the other - and all kinds of unsungs becoming sung at last in between. Thank you Hyperion, Chandos, Dutton Vocalion, Signum, Delphian, MDG, Divine Art, Timpani and many others not forgetting Naxos.

However for me what has proved especially treasurable has been the blossoming of Toccata. True, the label did exist before 2010, but it is in this last year that any (bar Telemann) Toccata recording has become a truly compelling purchase. Just contemplate:

Alkan - 2 CDs of organ music to keep company with the piano works
Algernon Ashton - a wonderful discovery
Vytautas Bacevicius - especially Symphony 2 with its harrowing fears of WW2 by a Lithunian Polish composer never to return to his homeland
Julius Burger - yet another Viennese late romantic who sought refuge in USA
Gernsheim - the CD of the year surely
Herzogenberg - delightful 4 hands music played by Goldstone & Clemmow
Jadassohn - another indispensable to those with ears and souls
John Joubert - wonderful song cycles from a distinguished British composer far less sung than he ought to be
Liszt - the Stradal transcriptions, 'astonishing' doesn't begin to do it justice
Ester Magi - an Estonian composer of whom we need to hear far more
David Matthews - please, please, may Volume 2 of the String Quartets follow on fast
Gunter Raphael - along with the CPO discs another startling discovery
Taneyev - the piano concerto
Matthew Taylor - hurrah for the vitality of contemporary chamber music
Boris Tchaikovsky - some very significant bits and not mere chippings from the composer's bottom drawer
Ferdinand Thieriot - I believe they're playing the String Sextet in heaven right now
Tovey - chamber music, and again, please, please, Volume 2
Harri Vuori - not sure whether I'd choose to spend my penultimate day on earth listening to this, but quite brilliant Finnish symphonic wizardry
Weinberg - may it become a complete survey of the Violin Sonatas!
Hugh Wood - marvellous stuff and don't be daunted by it

There are of course many other Toccata CDs. (My next Toccata order will probably include the piano music of Galynin and Lyadov - any views on these discs?) We get first class recordings together with notes and commentaries that put many other labels to shame (with the exception of course of the Graham Johnson commentaries on the Schubert songs on Hyperion, an act impossible to follow). Behind this steady stream of excellent and very welcome recordings is the manifest indefatigable energy of Toccata in making hitherto inaccessible or unknown music at last sung. Despite the wealth of things coming from other labels, does not Toccata deserve heartfelt thanks from those with a special interest in hearing unsung music? Let us hope that 2011 will see Toccata continuing to flourish.

Peter

PS And if anyone picked it up - my last day on earth? Insofar as I can arrange it that of course will be spent in the company of Die Meistersinger. What other?

[albion]

As far as 2011 is concerned, I'm looking forward to:

Cliffe VC/d'Erlanger VC on Hyperion

I look forward to more Holbrooke from cpo.

These will both be mandatory purchases! The former is already scheduled for next February:

http://www.hyperion-records.co.uk/al.asp?al=CDA67838

[Hofrat]

Syrelius;

As far as I know, Naxos is still looking for a conductor.  Bust they are optomistic that they will find one.

Sorry that I can not supply any new information concerning the Eggert recordings.

[M. Henriksen]

By the way, another post on this forum referred to CPO's release plans for 2010, and recordings of van Gilse's 3rd Symphony plus Edvin Kallstenius' Symphonies nos. 1 & 2 particularly interested me. I'm eagerly awaiting both releases. Does anyone have more updates on these?


Morten

[Ilja]

No, but I know that Van Gilse's Third was recorded in the first months of this year. However, CPO can take an awfully long time getting their material to release. Reznicek's First took about four years or so.

[Peter1953]

2010 was another very successful year for my CD collection of unsung composers. How to make a choice out of so many new discoveries? Fascinating British piano sonatas from Ashton, Dale and Hurlstone. Volume 2 of Czerny's Piano Sonatas by Martin Jones. Captivating chamber music from Draeseke (the Cello Sonata op. 51 being my favourite). And let me not forget Raff's 'Die Tageszeiten' on Sterling. But for me the trouvaille of the year is Röntgen's PC op. 18 (another version will be released by cpo soon).
Looking at Alan's list of new releases, 2011 will be another great year. But most of all I'm looking forward to Noskowski's Symphonies 2 & 3. If these symphonies are of the same calibre as the 1st (IMO a masterpiece), it could be a serious candidate for the disc of the year 2011.

[Alan Howe]

But most of all I'm looking forward to Noskowski's Symphonies 2 & 3. If these symphonies are of the same calibre as the 1st (IMO a masterpiece), it could be a serious candidate for the disc of the year 2011.

Noskowski 3 is an undoubted masterpiece: it is played regularly on BBC Radio 3's Through the Night programme in a Polish radio performance which, I imagine, will be the one that Sterling license for release. Unless it's short, I would think that No.2 will occupy a separate CD.

[eschiss1]

I seem to vaguely recall somehow that Noskowski sym. 2 was the main matter of a limited distribution LP at one point (haven't heard, though) and not brief, no... I agree about symphony 3, wonderful stuff.
Eric

[Mark Thomas]

I believe that Bo plans at least three Noskowski CDs, with successive symphonies being the main work in each case.