It's pre-Christmas boxed set release time in Germany - they do love their boxes! cpo have put together their three Draeseke symphonies CDs into one box, which will be available from the middle of November. Details (scant at present) here (http://www.jpc.de/jpcng/classic/detail/-/art/Felix-Draeseke-1835-1913-S%E4mtliche-Symphonien/hnum/1389802). Looks like good vale at €19.99.
better than one of tears!
Yummy, yummy! But then I'd hope every single friend on this Forum would already have (and cherish) the constituent discs making up the box.
Certainly don't want to begrudge CPO, but, ahhh, if only they would direct attention to the very considerable number of Draeseke works that haven't been recorded (or which once were but are now unavailable).
No matter: I hope that a Draeseke box in a Christmas stocking might awaken further interest in this immensely rewarding composer and might in turn lead to more recordings (especially of the remaining chamber and instrumental music).
Golly, what a fantasy: imagine you had never heard of Draeseke and then found this box in your Christmas stocking. I reckon you would quite forget the Christmas pudding!
This is a real bargain, containing as it does some of the most original symphonic writing of the 19th (and early 20th) century. If you don't have these CDs, snap them up now!
*blink* Now there's a statement to touch off a thread... I'm still marveling at the instrumentation and counterpoint in the Liszt symphonic poems, for instance...
Draeseke is one of the most individual-sounding unsung composers. His music doesn't really sound like anyone else's at all. Try from page 29 onwards of Alan Krueck's ground-breaking study of the symphonies available here (second bullet-point down):
http://www.draeseke.org/essays/index.htm (http://www.draeseke.org/essays/index.htm)
Draeseke was how I happened upon this wonderful site. I happen to have all the CPO symphony releases. The boxed set I would LOVE to see would be a collection of the chamber music discs Dr. Krueck so magnanimously published during the 1990s. For example, if Brilliant Classics entered into an arrangement with Dr. Krueck's estate...
Seconded, those chamber music discs were real finds...
Hear! Hear!
Quote from: Alan Howe on Friday 12 October 2012, 16:27
Draeseke is one of the most individual-sounding unsung composers. His music doesn't really sound like anyone else's at all. Try from page 29 onwards of Alan Krueck's ground-breaking study of the symphonies available here (second bullet-point down):
http://www.draeseke.org/essays/index.htm (http://www.draeseke.org/essays/index.htm)
Thanks for the link. I wouldn't have expected such materials to be available on the Web!
There are good sound samples (also, sound recordings: an entire sonata and symphony, and the violin/piano version of the violin concerto) at that site- see Mp3clips (http://draeseke.org/mp3clips.htm). And all that information and those essays. A good generous site, I can only agree (Alan Krueck is much missed.)
Well, the postman has been this morning and I now have the rest of my weekend to investigate Draeseke's complete symphonies! :) I've been meaning to get them for some time and splashed out finally.
Where is the best place to start, if that doesn't sound too silly? Should I work through them chronalogically or is there one that cries out to be heard first?
My advice would be to go through them chronologically. And do tell us what you think...
Thanks Alan.I have taken your advice.
So far I have just listened, yesterday, to symphonies 1 & 2 and initial feelings are very positive. But I think this is music that is going to take me many listens to fathom completely. But on first impressions, most definitely Draeseke is an original voice even where his music seems on the surface to follow convention (i.e. the outline of the 19thC symphony) and a great melodist. Stand out movements for me are the "slow movements", the beautiful one of the first and the imaginative one of the second, which stuck in my head even after the first hearing!
I suspect I'm going to be even more impressed by the latter two mature symphonies.
No.3 is the really great one; No.4 is an ironic oddity composed in his old age. Glad to hear you are enjoying them - they definitely reward repeated listenings..
Huh. I just listened to them in the order they were on the CDs (which happens to be 1-4-2-3). But then again I don't tend of over-analyze what I listen to (most of the time anyway, I have been known to do it...) either, so....
No.4 is really a pendant to the the other three. It's best heard last. However, I don't think it really matters one way or the other.
QuoteHuh. I just listened to them in the order they were on the CDs (which happens to be 1-4-2-3). But then again I don't tend of over-analyze what I listen to (most of the time anyway, I have been known to do it...) either, so....
"Huh"??
Well, if I need to explain then the reason I asked, it was because sometimes an early work might be atypical or weaker than the rest so an expert on the composer like Alan, whose judgment I would respect, might say, "Don't start with no. 1 - go to no. 3 first, it is echt-Draeseke and leave no.1 until you have heard the best of him." Seemed like a sensible question to me and nothing to do with being "over-analytical".
What I will say (and the reason why I am posting) is that no. 3 has become a regular fixture in my listening, up there with the Brahms symphonies that I return to equally often. It's definitely a masterpiece of the romantic era and should be in the concert halls and recording studios as often as they are.
No. 2 I return to fairly often too. The 1st and 4th not so much.
Not sure if it's okay to resurrect an old thread but if people reading get interested in trying Draeseke's music that cant be a bad thing! ::)
You have it spot-on, I'd say. No.3 is his outright symphonic masterpiece, and No.2 isn't far behind. No.1 is a fine work with a great slow movement but otherwise shows Draeseke's symphonic project as a work in progress. No.4 is a quirky late work which shows how far his idiom had developed.