Messages

When I was growing up and taking piano lesions, I was curious even then about the unknown composers listed on the front or back cover of the score inside. Back then it would have taken a lot of effort (library visits and books) to find out who these composers were (Sydney Rosenbloom, Vladimir Padwa, Leslie Loth, Gladys Gilbert, to randomly name a few). Today, with the internet , the job is so much easier. Recently I started to rummage through some of these old manuscripts (hoarder your thinking) and looked up some of these composer's bios. Surprisingly I even found recordings of some of their music on youtube.
For example, how many of you have heard of Niccolo Van Westerhout (1857-1898). Niccolo was of Flemish origins, hence the last name, but otherwise was born and spent his whole life in Italy (mostly Naples), hence his first name. He was a pianist and composer who, like many Italian composers of the day, wrote a lot of operas. He has a reasonable biography on Wikipedia including pictures of a studious man of serious intent.
I found two of his orchestral compositions on youtube, his violin concerto in D minor, and symphony in D minor. As you might imagine he was clearly not a musical genius of Beethoven's status, nor for example of a contemporary like Xaver Scharwenka. If you have time and the inclination ---have a listen. I'd be interested in your erudite opinions. 

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Z44I05LASNA&t=272s
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JozUr6K2LM4

When I have time, I hope to explore the other unknown composers I have uncovered. I did briefly look up Sydney Rosenbloom, an English composer, and found that some of his piano music was also on youtube. What would we do without youtube?

Just an update on the Borowski piano Concerto. The pianist Dan Glover will be recording the piece along with Beryl Rubinstein's piano concerto and BLoch's Schezo in Lithuania next month. A commercial CD should be out on Reference Recordings sometime after that. Glover has a go-fund-me campaign to help defray expenses.

Very sorry to hear about his passing. He will be missed. I had a good time working with him and Sterling records on their Xaver Scharwenka symphony recording.

Here is Felix Borowski's Ecce Homo performed by the Phil Orch under Ormandy

https://www.dropbox.com/scl/fi/e0rq2ohb209b9aqsnxqdb/19-BOROWSKIECCEHOMO1.mp3?rlkey=ncjkfs9e6rxr79e86ptusyqpc&st=iug6ogn9&dl=0

https://www.dropbox.com/scl/fi/cvulb4wwynetma2xd3xr5/20-BOROWSKIECCEHOMO2.mp3?rlkey=k2bptxzir19qcdb0dz0vr821x&st=tny0c9n2&dl=0

Glad you liked the Borowski concerto. It took four years (the pandemic got in the way) to get it performed and recorded. I've been trying to contact Hyperion about recording it with this pianist but having trouble contacting an actual person there.I've heard a rumor that their piano concerto series might be in trouble.

Borowski's piano concerto was performed yesterday for the first time in 110 years. The performance was by the Saratoga Symphony Orchestra under the direction of Jason Klein with the pianist Dan Glover.
The audience, conductor, pianist and orchestra players all enjoyed the music greatly. A professional recording will be available in the not too distance future. A preliminary iphone recording can be had now via email.

To my knowledge the Borowski piano concerto has not been performed in 110 years so I'm curious about the knowledge of how it sounds. Perhaps from reading the score or hearing the two piano version.

But I wanted to let those interested know that it will be performed in October by the Saratoga Sym Orchestra with pianist Dan Glover.

A private recording will be made available in some form.

Thanks for this more recent version of Xaver Scharwenka's 4th piano concerto. While off-topic,  I'd like to point out that he also wrote some very fine chamber music with piano. While not necessarily one of these, he also wrote an unusual piece (quirky perhaps) for piano,trombone and drums entitled "Five Leaves from Polyhymnia's Sketchbook" Op 89 which can be heard on you tube also.

Thanks Gareth:

I did see a reference to the concerto lirico being at Novello but couldn't find it on their website. They had a couple of other Easdale pieces. Also there is some confusion about a rather famous arrangement he made of Britten's piano concerto for two pianos.

 A couple of years ago, before the pandemic, I started looking and had some information that the family was squabbling over the rights to his music. It made me wonder whether they had the manuscripts.

Thanks for looking into it I didn't know about Zinfonia--good to know.

Fingers are crossed.

I hope everyone here has watched the beautiful movie "The Red Shoes" and heard the score by the British composer Brian Easdale.
I am trying to find the score and parts for his Concerto Lirico for piano and orchestra, which was performed at the Cheltenham Festival in 1955 and not since. In anticipation of setting up a future performance and recording I have googled myself silly with no luck so far.

I have even tried searching for his grandchildren to see if they had the music but have not been successful either.
Any help you folks (particularly those in England) can provide would be greatly appreciated.

BTW his great niece, the author Celia Robertson wrote about the life of Brian's sister in a fascinating book called "Who's Sophie". I have not had much success yet in getting in contact with her to see if she can help find this music.

How sad! He was one of the first pianists to record rare repertoire. I have many of his excellent recordings.

I have just acquired  copy of the Moszkowski symphony from the BNF if anyone is still interested.

I have a recording of Chasins second piano concerto if anyone would like a copy. Also Beryl Rubinstein as far as I know only wrote one piano concerto which was just performed for the first time since 1936 in California. A recording of that concert will be available in a few weeks.

To Rob H: I have a recording of the Chasins PC2 if you're still interested.

It  looks like a performance of the Beryl Rubinstein piano concerto together with a performance recording will be forthcoming by autumn next year.