Coming on Dux label in July a 4-CD set : 4 symphonies plus orchestral works by Maliszewski.
Sorry: 3 CD set.
That's terrific news. Thanks.
The artists involved are the Opole Philharmonic Orch, c.Pyrzemysław Neumann:
https://www.amazon.de/s?i=popular&rh=p_32%3AMaliszewski+%2F+Opole+Philharmonic+Orch+%2F+Neumann&language=en&ref=dp_byline_sr_music_1
Here's Symphony No.4 performed by the same team:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=M4bTBLVUWNs
Unfortunately, I can't find any information online anywhere that details the contents of this set. I would like to know what works other than the 4 symphonies are included. Has anyone fared better in their searches than I?
Nope! Me neither.
4 Symphonies plus:
Joyful Overture Op 11
Scherzo & Overture Honouring Schubert
Fairy Tale Op 30
Legend Op 31
Thank you very much. Where did you find that info.?
https://play.qobuz.com/album/h1n6nhzz93lcc
Thank you.
We already have the 4th symphony played by that orchestra & conductor here in our Downloads - http://www.unsungcomposers.com/forum/index.php/topic,7794.msg81537.html#msg81537 (http://www.unsungcomposers.com/forum/index.php/topic,7794.msg81537.html#msg81537)
Symphony No.4 in D major Odrodzonej i odnalezionej Ojczyznie (Reborn & Recovered Homeland) Op.21 (1925)
It was a live concert recording on 11 November 2018, from Polish radio I believe.
Either a pretty awful piece or a pretty awful performance - or both, IMHO IIRC! Unmemorable and lifeless.
Quote from: Alan Howe on Friday 21 May 2021, 09:40
The artists involved are the Opole Philharmonic Orch, c.Pyrzemysław Neumann:
https://www.amazon.de/s?i=popular&rh=p_32%3AMaliszewski+%2F+Opole+Philharmonic+Orch+%2F+Neumann&language=en&ref=dp_byline_sr_music_1
FYI here's the UK amazon page - https://www.amazon.co.uk/Symphonic-Works-Maliszewski-Philharmonic-Neumann/dp/B0955HN5RF/ref=sr_1_2?dchild=1&keywords=Symphonic+Works+maliszewski&qid=1621866794&sr=8-2 (https://www.amazon.co.uk/Symphonic-Works-Maliszewski-Philharmonic-Neumann/dp/B0955HN5RF/ref=sr_1_2?dchild=1&keywords=Symphonic+Works+maliszewski&qid=1621866794&sr=8-2)
(https://images-eu.ssl-images-amazon.com/images/I/71YRyCWpCGS.__AC_SX300_SY300_QL70_ML2_.jpg)
I must confess I found No.4 dreary too. Utterly awful.
DUX seem to go in for these box releases whereby you have to buy loads of what you don't want in order to get anything at all. I already have his Symphonies 1,3 and 4 and the Joyful (or "Festive") Overture - do I really want to buy them again to get the other pieces...?
I'll be giving this a miss.
I would like to obtain a recording of his First. Apart from the DUX boxed set,which label is it currently on?
none I know of, just an aircheck.
Quote from: terry martyn on Monday 24 May 2021, 18:23
I would like to obtain a recording of his First. Apart from the DUX boxed set,which label is it currently on?
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=o4hoWoREtPg (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=o4hoWoREtPg) - if that helps...
Wikipedia lists 5 symphonies by Maliszewski. Does anyone know anything about the 5th Symphony? - not that I shall be rushing to look at it if it is anything like the 4th. I would like to hear No. 2 though - and No. 1 is an attractive work.
I knew about the YouTube rendition of the First, but wasn´t sure if it was pirated from an ancient vinyl recording or was a radio performance
Performers in that recording are Łukasz Borowicz and the Polish Radio Symphony, and I'm guessing it's a radio recording (the source given @ Euroclassic Notturno is PLPR, but sometimes that's consistent with a commercial recording being broadcast by a radio station so it's not determinative. Don't know. Yes, the only recent orchestral CD before this is sym.3 & piano concerto on Dutton...)
Audio extracts from the new Dux box set available here (https://www.prestomusic.com/classical/products/8919968--maliszewski-symphonic-works).
All works can be heard in full on Spotify
I changed my mind and ordered the set some weeks ago. Today it turned up - and so far, so good. Symphony No.1 (1902) is a riot of a piece, its style clearly Tchaikovsky/Rimsky-Korsakov/Glazunov plus. By the way, recording and playing are absolutely superb - and there are excellent booklet notes.
By coincidence I was listening to his Symphony No.2 in the car this afternoon and enjoyed the first two movements very much - a very strong Glazunov influence I thought. Some of the shorter orchestral works in the set are empty, uninspired fare though, and one mustn't forget that dismal Symphony No.4.
Yes, no.2 is a fine piece - more confident, I think, than no.1 - but it has an identity problem. This fine music could be by anyone - a bit of Tchaikovsky here, a bit of Glazunov there - but, once one has accepted this, it matters little because the enjoyment factor is so high.
As long as one doesn't expect to remember it afterwards...
The stylistic development evident in Symphony No.3 is significant. In has come a major dollop of chromatic writing, giving the piece in its climactic moments a new wildness and power. So, how did this come about? Whose music had Maliszewski encountered between 1905 and 1907? Scriabin? Miaskovsky? Szymanowski? Other composers of the Young Poland school such as Grzegorz Fitelberg, Ludomir Różycki, Mieczysław Karłowicz and Apolinary Szeluto?
At all events, this is much more exciting stuff.
No.4 certainly has its magnificent moments in the Dux set, but it does seem to get bogged down in chromaticism too often for its own good. However, since the advocacy here is so stupendous, with such superb playing and recording, I'll certainly be revisiting this...
I'm not sure what music by Myaskovsky Maliszewski could have encountered - in performance anyway - before 1907, just offhand.
You're right, Eric. His orchestral music dates from after that period.
I think some of it may be from earlier and even maybe performed earlier but to very restricted audiences (university?) - I'm not sure, would have to check. OTOH the influences on Mya's earlier music, eg Scriabin and Tchaikovsky, were probably more often performed.
The major 'leap' in Maliszewski's sylistic development is between Symphonies 2 and 3 - as I said, between 1905 and 1907 - so the issue is how he turns from a Glazunov soundalike into someone more radical...
Does it sound anything at all like his teacher Rimsky's works of those last few years (of Rimsky's life), ooc?... ... or alternately, like Szymanowski's works of the period, which maybe Maliszewski might have heard (including the unpublished but performed, iirc, first symphony, and the concert overture)?
No.3 is way beyond Rimsky in terms of chromaticism. Szymanowski would be nearer - or even Strauss.
No.4 is an odd mix of styles. I don't think the juxtaposition of faux naïvety and sophisticated dissonance really works, although it's so well done in this performance that I was persuaded to stick with it. And its ending is of the 'let's throw in the kitchen sink' variety, which is genuinely exciting.
To sum up: Nos. 1 and 2 are fun pieces along traditional lines; No.3 is a big step forward and merits further investigation; but No.4 doesn't really add anything of great interest.
As someone who was really taken by surprise by Paul Juon´s early pre-Berlin Symphony, I had hopes of enjoying Maliszewski´s First,and,maybe,his Second. This expensive box set contains a lot of music that I am sure I won´t like, and I dislike paying for so much I won´t want. I don´t adapt well to most of Debussy and Delius,the vast majority of Richard Strauss,and all of Medtner and Reger, so I think my tastes are more conservative than a lot of my peers. Glazunov (at least until his well ran dry) I am fond of,but if I ask the question: would someone I respect such as Reinecke have stomached any of Maliszewski, I think I know the answer.
This is one of those times I'm glad I'm paying for a monthly streaming subscription as of late last year, since the Maliszewski , unlike some things, is available there...
By the way, does anybody know anything about Maliszewski's Fifth Symphony? It is mentioned in the wikipedia article on Maliszewski but seems nonexistent elsewhere.
Quite. Unfinished, I suspect.
For someone who enjoys Glazunov and no further, as it were, the first two symphonies here will go down a treat. It just depends on whether it's thought worthwhile to acquire a lot of other music.
I have also thought about the Fifth Symphony – some sources mention "five symphonies" but I have never came across anything concrete.
One possibility is actually that by mistake (more or less), Maliszewski's contribution to the 1928 Schubert symphony competition might have been counted as "Symphony No. 5". Indeed, he wrote two movements for this (well-known, of course) competition, a Scherzo partially based on Schubert's sketches and a finale, i.e. he was one the composers who really tried a (sort of) completion of the Unfinished. They were finally labeled 'Scherzo and Overture in Honour of Schubert' and they are also included in this disc set (in particular the finale is an oddity which I find mildly amusing). It does not sound completely unreasonable to me that this is the work which is meant when some sources mention a Fifth Symphony but of course this is just a guess.
For me, as a lover of Glazunov's music, the first two symphonies were enjoyable if undemanding listens, and the Third showed Maliszewski gaining his own voice and showing more individuality while still pretty much within the same overall aesthetic, but if the Fourth shows his individuality in full bloom then I'm afraid that I didn't find it much to my liking, as I found it overblown, cloyingly chromatic and melodically undistinguished. Most of the shorter works in the set seem rather unmemorable too, I'm sorry to say. I did buy the box, but should really have sampled it more thoroughly on Spotify before I did so.
I think the 3rd Symphony and the Piano Concerto are Maliszewski's best orchestral works - and Dutton has given us those on one disk, so I am not tempted to buy this set.
I'm pleased I bought the set, mainly because the performances and recording are so fine - in fact, they're a pleasure in themselves.
I know the radio broadcast of Symphony no. 1 for several years. Now I listened to Symphony no. 2 via spotify and wondered about the scherzo: I have heard this before! After comparing the scores it became obvious that spotify - and probably other streaming services as well - have swapped the scherzo mouvements of no. 1 and no. 2.
I noticed the same error when trying the samples at presto. So be warned if you stream or buy the digital release!