Dear all,
I'm wondering who of you has heard of the Polish composer Apolinary Szeluto? I hadn't heard of him until today, but reading on Wikipedia I saw he was born in 1884, a student of Godowski, and his catalogue of works comprises, among (a great many!) other things,
5 piano concertos
1 violin concerto
1 cello concerto
25 symphonies (!)
70 opera's (!!!)
Apparently he promoted modern music, but that doesn't have to say anything; I wonder if his compositional style is old-fashioned enough for me to like...
I feel slightly ashamed that a 19th/early 20th century composer of 25 symphonies and 70 opera's has remained unknown to me until today. Can someone shed light on his style?
I'm thinking of ordering a fairly new Dux-CD with his violin sonata, cello sonata, and a string quartet. Perhaps someone here has this CD already?
(apologies if he has already been discussed elsewhere on the forum)
Soundbites from that CD at jpc here (http://www.jpc.de/jpcng/classic/detail/-/art/Apolinary-Szeluto-Streichquartett-op-72/hnum/7944903).
(Any English-speaker who doesn't know Polish or German can find at least one brief article in English on Szeluto as a source for the German-language Wikipedia article- this one (http://www.usc.edu/dept/polish_music/composer/szeluto.html) . The considerable list of works, without op.nos., in the German-language Wikipedia article is taken from a Polish-language worklist with op.nos. here (http://www.culture.pl/pl/culture/artykuly/os_szeluto_apolinary).)
The Polish-language Eric is referring to is also avaliable in English (with a short but informative biography):
http://www.culture.pl/en/culture/artykuly/os_szeluto_apolinary (http://www.culture.pl/en/culture/artykuly/os_szeluto_apolinary)
Start recording someone!
Morten