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28 Jan 2024: The Münchner Rundfunkorchester (the second orchestra the Bavarian Radio has next to the better-known Symphonieorchester des Bayrischen Rundfunks, BRSO) is going to play two early operas by Rachmaninoff – of course not completely unsung, but I think they can both be considered a rarity for a live performance:

Francesca da Rimini
Aleko

(7 pm, Prinzregententheater Munich)

I'm not surprised their reprint wasn't available before, it's their reprint. The 1898-published original is at some libraries though (at least at the French National Library), see Worldcat.

Well, of course their reprint was not available before as it is their own ;-)
However, my bad, I had only searched for "Titus et Bérénice" at worldcat and did not find it therefore, as it is listed as "sonate dramatique pour piano et violoncelle". Thanks for the hint! I had already wondered where all the recordings got the score from.

Elles Women Composers have just published a short portrait of Rita Strohl in their Compositrices Dessinées series, here.

How interesting, they mention a recording of some orchestral music, too, and excerpts are played. Let's hope they are going to be included in the next volume.

BTW, for anyone wanting to play Rita Strohl's most famous work him- or herself – publisher B-Note has just published Strohl's gorgeous Cello Sonata "Titus et Bérénice" in cleaned-up reprint which was not publicly available before (at least through the sources I was able to search).

How very welcome. After hearing the gorgeous Cello Sonata "Titus et Bérénice", I am very eager to explore more of her output. I read she also wrote some rather large orchestral music – would be fascinating to listen to that, too.

Hi all,
Warsaw Philharmonic Orchestra under the baton of Andrzej Boreyko released a video of their live broadcast of the Karłowicz  violin concerto played by Julia Fischer:

I only knew this piece from its Naxos recording. As far as I can tell until now – I'm midway through the 1st movement only – Fischer's playing is superb and does the piece great justice.
Although I do not consider this piece a top rank concerto, I appreciate that it gets such a high-class outing here.

Best wishes! ewk

Hi all,

I am looking for a birthday gift for my father who is an amateur violinist having played a vast amount of string quartet/quintet repertoire. Now we are looking for a substantial unsung quartet/quintet meeting the following requirements:
- inside our remit
- interesting to play, not only beautiful to listen to (Raff's beautiful No. 1 was a disappointment at some point in the past for this reason).
- not a "concerto for 1st violin", i.e. meaningful parts for all of the instruments
-not necessarily hyper-unsung, but that would be ok, too. Outside standard repertoire would be also acceptable.
-playable for ambitious amateurs (if you can tell -- e.g. hyper-chromatic works like Kormgold 1st quarter tend to be frustrating for amateurs - although their group tackled the Reger Sextet last summer).

Please give reasons why you like or recommend a work, otherwise this kind of threads often degrade to mere lists.

Thank you all very much, I am very much looking forward to your recommendations!

Best wishes,
Ewk

The renowned Gewandhaus orchestra (Leipzig, Germany) has some interesting pieces in its 2023/24 season (please excuse also noting the 2024 concerts in this thread):
Mainly quite some Reinecke, celebrating his 200th birthday:
- 5 Nov.: Reinecke 3rd Symphony (seems that the Music university orchestra takes over for this concert)
- 2 March 2024: piano (duo) music (opp. 24, 86, 193, 275, 125)
- 9 March 2024: "Musical fairytales by Reinecke" (a family concert)
- 17 March 2024 Wind Sextet op 271
- 7 April Fantasiestücke op. 22 (Vl and piano), Drei Fantasiestücke Vla and piano op. 43, Trio Piano Clarinet Viola op. 264
- 2+3 May 2024: Flute concerto (Susanna Mälkki, Katalin Stefula)
- 25/26 May 2024: "Die Wilden Schwäne", scenic production
- 28/29 May 2024: a children's concert with Reinecke works for String quartet
- 2 June: String quartets Nos. 2&4
- 15 June: "Sommertagsbilder" Choir+orchestra op. 161; Oratorio "Belsazar" op. 73

Apart from this, there is:
- 8/10 Sep 2023: Berwald Symphony No. 2 (Singulière); Tone poem "Remembering the Norwegian Alps" (Blomstedt conducts)
- 5/6 Oct: Chausson Symphony (a well-recorded, but relatively seldomly performed work I believe)
4/5 Apr 2024: Berwald "Elfenspiel" (Elf play) (Blomstedt)
- 13/14 June: 2d Symphony "Hakon Jarl"

Those who understand German can read the manuscript of the today evening's radio programme including some background information about the work and the composer:

https://www.swr.de/swr2/musik-klassik/charles-tournemire-la-legende-de-tristan-swr2-oper-2023-02-05-104.pdf

Best wishes, ewk

Today, Youtube has prompted me to a 7-year old video of Tenor Ben Bliss, to my amateur ears an absolutely wonderful rendition of the famous aria "Magische Töne" from this opera.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ie697C-zj0g

Would be interested in what those with greater knowledge about singing say about this, but to my ears it's purely "Magische Töne" (magical sounds) – these high notes!

Best wishes, ewk

Another very positive review, from one of Germany's leading newspapers (Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung):

https://m.faz.net/aktuell/feuilleton/buehne-und-konzert/urauffuehrung-in-weimar-joachim-raffs-oper-samson-18316425.html

(in German)

Mr. Pitkänen could not tell more than this, either – but he will notify me as soon as he knows anything about the publishing.

Yesterday, I got to know that Finnish conductor Joonas Pitkänen stepped in last-minute for Die Eifersüchtigen (don't know what happened to the original conductor, though). Funny how small the world of classical music is – Pitkänen is, among others, the conductor of an orchestra I played in until recently.

What might be of more interest to you – he reported that the music of ,,Die Eifersüchtigen" is very good, only the libretto "could use some retouching". Well, it's a comic opera after all, they seldomly have reasonable plots.

A shame that I can't make it to the performances. However, I read that there will be a recording and it sounded as it might be not only for private purposes (though I can't find the citation anymore – I might ask the conductor).

Coming back to the original topic of this thread – I just noticed that renowned violinist Julia Fischer (is she considered world-elite outside Germany? My feeling is that here in Germany, she is considered top-notch, maybe in the second row behind the unchallengeable Hillary Hahn, together with maybe Janine Jansen) is going to perform the

Mieczysław Karłowicz Violin Concerto

in Warsaw on 27&28 Jan 2023 together with the Warsaw Philharmonic / Andrey Boreyko.

Very nice to see this piece performed by such a renowned artist. I have no idea how much it is performed in Poland, but you would never see it performed in Germany, i fear. Let's hope Mrs. Fischer is going to export it from Poland some day.

Has anyone ever come across this curiosity by Tenerife-born composer Teobaldo Power (1848-1884)?>>
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ML9zsR3JuI8

What a delight. Nothing of great depth, but writing something nonetheless delightful and not superficial – not an easy task and well done IMO.

Thanks Alan for linking the preexisting thread, admitteldly I had not searched before posting...
For others who also did not know of the existence of said thread, most of the other sketch realisations are linked there!