I see that JPC have at last announced this CPO recording as a new release for September! Also included is the Serenade for large orchestra Op34. I suspect that there may be more than a few here interested...........
Absolutely! Yes, exciting news.
Well spotted, Martin. Thanks. Friends can view it here:
http://www.jpc.de/jpcng/cpo/detail/-/art/Georg-Schumann-1866-1952-Symphonie-h-moll-Preis-Symphonie/hnum/3066793 (http://www.jpc.de/jpcng/cpo/detail/-/art/Georg-Schumann-1866-1952-Symphonie-h-moll-Preis-Symphonie/hnum/3066793)
Audio excerpts (tracks 1-4) of this wonderful symphony are now available at jpc:
http://www.jpc.de/jpcng/cpo/detail/-/art/Georg-Schumann-1866-1952-Symphonie-h-moll-Preis-Symphonie/hnum/3066793 (http://www.jpc.de/jpcng/cpo/detail/-/art/Georg-Schumann-1866-1952-Symphonie-h-moll-Preis-Symphonie/hnum/3066793)
Having just received my copy from jpc, I see that cpo have committed yet another translation howler: apparently the work is G. Schumann's "Price-Winning Symphony". BOGOF, anybody? ;)
Seriously, this sort of thing just won't do. It's absolutely pathetic that their translator doesn't know that the German "Preis" means "prize" as well as "price"!
Well, actually us folk at UC know a fluent Germanophone who is also pretty clued up about music!
How about it, Alan? What would be enormously good would be, not so much the avoidance of howlers (though they are sometimes fun), but the provision of cogently written detailed authoritative notes rather than the convoluted garbage that CPO often provide.
Not to the point, but this mirthful wag can't help but make mention of the enthusiastic customer on Amazon.co.uk who has submitted reviews of the CPO discs of Gilse symphonies. Try the review of Gilse 4 for starters.
Don't forget the Weingartner Symphonies' booklets.... wonderful cerebral hemorrhage Courtesy of Eckhardt van den Hoogen and Susan Marie Praeder.
Is it, erm, kosher to ask how this performance of the Preis-Symphonie compares to that conducted by Georg Schmöhe?
...erm, it's the same performance, Eric (the timings are identical). We seem to have been misled as to the identity of the conductor.
Quote from: petershott@btinternet.com on Wednesday 10 October 2012, 13:44
How about it, Alan? What would be enormously good would be, not so much the avoidance of howlers (though they are sometimes fun), but the provision of cogently written detailed authoritative notes rather than the convoluted garbage that CPO often provide.
I've suggested it to them in the past, but they obviously believe (erroneously) that an English-speaking German is up to the job. This is, of course, a huge mistake - unless the person concerned is truly bilingual. It is also the reason why I never agree to do professional translations into German - that's a job for a German national.
Oh. Whoops. and thanks (time to modify my iTunes info or delete the performance, judgment call there. Ah well.)
I'm modifying. They'll have to pry my download from my cold, dead PC! ;D
But I guess we'll have to delete it from the Downloads Archive!
I did so several hours ago.
Quote from: petershott@btinternet.com on Wednesday 10 October 2012, 13:44
Not to the point, but this mirthful wag can't help but make mention of the enthusiastic customer on Amazon.co.uk who has submitted reviews of the CPO discs of Gilse symphonies. Try the review of Gilse 4 for starters.
What's wrong with an enthusiastic customer on Amazon? My English is absurdly incompetent but I can make my point in English. Can you make it in Dutch?
No, your English is pretty good - in fact extremely good. And no doubt our Dutch is non-existent. It's just that anyone going into print in a foreign language sets themselves up for an almighty fall when they make some obvious mistake or other. Hence my complaint about cpo's badly translated sleevenotes. However, I suppose an Amazon review is somewhat different...
Here's David Hurwitz's partly infuriating, partly spot-on review:
http://www.classicstoday.com/review/symphonic-music-by-another-schumann/ (http://www.classicstoday.com/review/symphonic-music-by-another-schumann/)
But mostly infuriating. I'm afraid that his style irritates me hugely, even when he's praising something.
In the end it doesn't matter. It's discerning listeners like all the members of this forum that count. Infact I advice all my friend to disregard the reviews of the so called "Critic" who think that music outside the sphere of the great B's or S's are worthless. UNSUNG MUSIC is here to STAY ... thanks in big parts to Our forum. If it wasn't for unsungcomposers I wouldn't have heard of Rufinatscha.
Given the economics (to speak blithely, superficially and over-simplistically) of even co-producing and then retaining in one's active catalogue discs like this I expect that critics' opinions matter a lot, in point of fact. (They seem to have affected Hans Rott and Hugo Wolf, if memory serves, though perhaps it doesn't. If they can affect the whole output of those composers I'm sure they can affect whether or not CDs like this one stay on the market or continue to be produced, co-produced , etc.)
What is this "in the end" you speak of?
In the final analysis, Hurwitz's review may not matter to us, but I tend to agree with Eric: the reality is that these critics are widely read and probably pretty influential. The good thing, however, is that a site such as MusicWeb is also widely read and usually much more open to unsung music. So it is essential to take in a range of opinions - including our own on this forum, of course!
And btw, Bruch's symphonies are glorious, Mr Hurwitz!
Hurwitz isn't that negative about Schumann's Preis-Symphonie, but what irritates me is "... the Leipzig tradition, the school responsible for some of the dullest, most academic junk in the history of music, and not just in Germany." and "... Bruch or one of his ilk." Mr Know It All speaks.
At least he made me curious about Schumann's 2nd.
Yes, a kind of egomania: the world must conform to my own particular likes, and if I don't like it then it doesn't count and is simply rubbish.
I fear Eric and Alan are right: such published views do matter and they affect what Mr Public considers good and worthwhile - and that in turn affects what is scheduled for public performance, or broadcast, or recorded.
FBerwald, whose views generally strike me as good ones, I'm afraid is far too optimistic. Yes, folk like us are (hopefully!) discerning - but we're in a pretty small majority.
Oops, the brain has gone befuddled. I meant, of course, 'minority' in the last post!!
IIRC, a review of Mr. Hurwitz's some years back in Fanfare put me back on Haydn's piano trios when everyone else seemed to want to put me _off_ them, for instance, for which I am most grateful.
As to Georg Schumann's F minor symphony (op.42, not op.41 as I may have written), I think the full score is at IMSLP. And - well - minority of a minority is an even more salient point, in my honest but subjective opinion.
(Has the B minor symphony been published yet, even if recently, or was it performed from a typeset form of the manuscript not yet available for more general inspection? ... performed from manuscript I don't find credible so I don't leave that in the list of options, unless Georg Schumann was extraordinarily clean in his manuscripts :D )
(Oh- hrm. Worldcat gives Schumann: Preis Symphonie.
"Berlin, Bukarest Planegg bei München Smaranda Music"
Orchestration: 2(Picc).2.2.2.-4.2.3.0.,Pk, Str
but no publication date.
Ah, here.
Georg Schumann Gesellschaft (http://www.georgschumanngesellschaft.de/de_neu.html) - first published 2009.
Quote from: petershott@btinternet.com on Wednesday 10 October 2012, 13:44
Not to the point, but this mirthful wag can't help but make mention of the enthusiastic customer on Amazon.co.uk who has submitted reviews of the CPO discs of Gilse symphonies. Try the review of Gilse 4 for starters.
"No conflict what so ever, only pleasant sounds. Some bird chants, some cows mowing and some cheese making."
This is quite hilarious - I've no idea what cheese making sounds like when depicted in music. Can we expect an undiscovered "Edam" Symphony by Gilse? And as for mowing cows - the mind boggles.....
Seriously, though - I do applaud those, including the present reviewer, who take the trouble to write reviews in other than their native tongue. As someone else in this thread suggested, most of us would make a pretty poor fist of a review in Dutch.....