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Messages - Klaatu

#1
Composers & Music / Re: Dorothy Howell
Friday 19 October 2012, 23:40
Yes, it's a lovely place. Sir Ted's grave 500 yards up the A449 and his former home, "Craeg Lea", about a quarter-mile in the opposite direction; views from my bedroom window out to the Vale of Evesham. Never tire of the view, changing weather makes it different every morning - especially when the autumn mist hangs low in the vale and all you can see are church spires poking through, and Bredon Hill looming like an island out of a sea of fog ......No wonder Elgar felt inspired!
#2
I'm a sucker for Elgarian "Nobilmente" - his own score-marking for music which expresses..... what? ..... yes, the nobility of the human condition, but suffused with spirituality, yearning and nostalgia. Almost as if the music were celebrating some vast, unimaginable potential of the human spirit whilst simultaneously grieving for its lack of attainment.

Anything that conjures up Elgar at his most purply yet vulnerably noble has a high "tingle factor" for me.

So .... any ideas for music in a similar vein by "unsungs"? (They don't necessarily have to be British.)

As far as English composers are concerned, I'm thinking of pieces like the Finale of Bliss's Things To Come; the opening of Rubbra's Fourth Symphony; the glorious "Poor Parson of a Town" from Dyson's Canterbury Pilgrims, and Brian's In Memoriam.

Suggestions welcome!
#3
Composers & Music / Re: Dorothy Howell
Friday 19 October 2012, 13:00
Only just become aware of Dorothy Howell via a "YouTube" video celebrating British composers......

I understand that Dorothy is buried at St Wulstans in Malvern - the same churchyard that houses the bones of Sir Edward Elgar.

And, as I only live about 500 yards away from the aforesaid churchyard, I really must make a another pilgrimage to see Sir Ted and try to find Dorothy while I'm at it!
#4
Composers & Music / Re: Musical storms
Sunday 08 July 2012, 20:06
A tremendous musical storm emerges from the transition from slow movement to finale of John Adams' Harmonium.

Although in its context it can be considered a depiction of a psychological storm rather than a meteorological one (the ensuing setting of Emily Dickinson's Wild Nights suggests that Adams' storm portrays sexual tension), it's thrilling nonetheless. (I consider the whole work to be a masterpiece.)

#5
Composers & Music / Re: Unsung Tone/Symphonic Poems?
Thursday 12 August 2010, 17:05
Although it's officially classified as a "prelude", John Ireland's The Forgotten Rite is in fact a little tone-poem - and a very good one, with a slightly sinister atmosphere.

I haven't yet heard his later, and bigger, tone poem Mai Dun, which some critics have suggested is his orchestral masterpiece.

I believe Ireland himself complained about the infrequent performance of these works - he said that The Forgotten Rite had been forgotten and that Mai Dun may not be done!
#6
Composers & Music / Re: Unsung Tone/Symphonic Poems?
Wednesday 11 August 2010, 23:18
Hello everyone - this is my first appearance here.

I'd have to vote for a tone poem by the bloke who - 40 years ago - started my interest in "unsungs". The bloke was dear old Havergal Brian, subject of the 1972 TV documentary "The Unknown Warrior" which I watched at age 16.

The tone poem is In Memoriam - surely the most approachable Brian work; its idiom a far cry from the composer's oddball, but captivating, later output. The main theme is Elgarian - one of those nobilmente ones - and the tone poem would form a great concert-opener for a performance of any of the 3 Elgar symphonies.