I just got a CD with 4 of William Henry Fry's works. I really like what I heard and he's totally unsung for me. I wasn't sure if he has been mentioned here (maybe that's where I got the idea to get it :) ) and was curious what everyone else thought of his works.
A man of many talents, Mr. Fry. Politician, Associate Editor of Mr. Horace Greeley's New York Tribune, lecturer, writer on fly fishing and artificial fish-breeding...oh yes, and composer. The pieces on the Naxos disc are mostly things Fry tossed off (he wrote very fast) for specific occasions and represent about the same place in his worklist that modest instrumental pieces occupy in the work of any opera composer. Best is the Macbeth Overture which was recorded at least twice before Naxos. Niagara is a kind of experiment in orchestration, and Santa Claus is naive fun, (I've heard it performed pretty effectively with narration.)
These are not the pieces Fry staked his reputation on (though there's no need to make apologies for Macbeth, IMO.) To hear those we need a recording of the marvelous bel canto opera Leonora (1845, rev.46 and 58.) A second grand opera, Notre Dame of Paris (actually Fry's third opera), though written at top speed and during a period when Fry's consumption was well advanced, is a worthy piece in a somewhat more advanced style. The last performances of Leonora were in New York City in 1987, and since then, nothin'. (Disclosure: that production used the edition/reconstruction I made as my Master's project.)
It would also be good to hear the big Stabat Mater and some of the other choral music (like the 'Ode for the Opening of the NY Crystal Palace'.) Fry rushed to complete a large-scale Mass as he lay dying, but the conclusion is only a fragment, and the piece is unorchestrated.
Fry was a true eccentric, but a genuinely talented composer. Leonora is a remarkable work.
David
As far as I've seen, that CD is the only recording of his music, aside from a single piece of the CD called "The Wind Demon" (preformed by Ian Hobson, IIRC).
It's pretty good, though not THAT good that I was contemplating buying the tracks at eMusic and selling my CD (never did though, and now I'm not on eMusic any more).
'Leonora' sounds like the sort of thing Naxos might be persuaded to tackle?
To be honest, I don't think either Niagara or Santa Claus are things to be ashamed of either - both of them are great fun, and especially Niagara always helps when you need to convince people that more idiosyncratic things were going on in music before Brahms.
When I first heard Fry's 1854 Niagara symphony, it struck me as a work which (from a 19th-century point of view) so brashly privileged broad gesture over conventional symphonic argument that the composer might well have felt at home with twentieth-century minimalism. For those who've had a chance to hear it: Don't you think the naturalistic means Fry uses to depict the falls are similar to those found in Wagner's contemporaneous prelude to Das Rheingold? Something was in the air.
George Bristow's Symphony 2 ("Jullien") in d minor, from 1855, is much more respectful of the best European models. Krueger and the RPO recorded it in the early days of stereo; I don't think Bridge has rereleased it yet. Bristow, too, wrote a "Niagara" symphony in his later years (not sure of the number; it would have to be 5 or higher). Is there an air check out there somewhere? It would be fun to hear the two Niagaras together.
Thanks for the comments thusfar! It certainly sounds like Fry's works are not very well published -- which is a shame, because it sounds like he has some interesting pieces to offer!
As for Bristow -- I only have one Symphony of his -- I really like it and really want to get more of his works too.