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Messages - Oliver Fraenzke

#1
Composers & Music / Re: Felix Draeseke
Thursday 05 November 2020, 06:40
Draeseke is surely one of the most important composers of the 19th century. The main problem why he is misunderstood so often is the fact, that his music is not easy to catch: You need a good sense of counterpoint, awareness of harmonic situations of tension and solution as well as a fine taste of melodic lines. The big names of the 19th and early 20th century mostly do have this and this is why they were able to transport the music. Today only a few musicians can get along with this and the listeners often neighter.

By the way, take a look at his most important student: Paul Büttner. 4. great symphonies and other large scale works mostly never played.
#2
Composers & Music / Re: Incomplete and unsung
Wednesday 12 February 2020, 07:14
TerraEpon: You can find the full list of works that Grieg never finished in the PhD of Klaus Henning Oelmann "Edvard Grieg. Versuch einer Orientierung". A full chapter is dedicated to his unfinished pieces.
#3
Composers & Music / Re: Incomplete and unsung
Monday 10 February 2020, 08:56
There are lots of unfinished works I really would love to hear completed. But I often wonder myself, if completions of other composers would fit the original piece ...

There are dozens of works by Grieg that I would like to hear: Amongst all the Second Piano Concerto (well, there is a reconstruction by Helge Evju, that is really strong, but I doubt that it get's Griegs intention), the F major string quartet - and of course the pieces, that never got aboth the planing phase like a violin- and a cello-concerto, then the lost first string quartet etc.

Also I would love to hear some destroyed works like the Third Symphony of Sinding, the complete Janacek piano sonata, the last symphony of Sibelius.
#4
Composers & Music / Re: Vasyl Barvinsky (1888-1963)
Monday 10 February 2020, 08:48
Christopher, it would be too much to say, I worked with her, but we shared some scores and recordings, especially for the interest of getting the Ukrainian composers more known. She recorded a lot of them.

But Skorulskyi? I never heared about him?
#5
Composers & Music / Re: Richard Wetz (1875-1935)
Monday 03 February 2020, 23:36
Here there is a movement of the first string quartet:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MvrR9bnyLvQ

The IMSLP-quality of the score is quite bad unfortunatelly, but it's hard to find a good score. I'm on it to search  8)
#6
Composers & Music / Re: Vasyl Barvinsky (1888-1963)
Monday 03 February 2020, 23:33
It is a pity, that composers like Barvinsky got lost due to political circumstances. How cruel to burn his scores in front of the university he taught for many decades, while he was prisoned.
Violina Petrychenko is one of the few, rediscovering the Ukrianian composers: She made some CDs with music by Barvinsky, Kosenko, Shamo and so on.

For those reading German, here you can find an interview and a review of her Barvinsky-CD:
http://www.the-new-listener.de/index.php/2017/12/08/stalin-sah-es-nicht-gerne-dass-es-in-der-ukraine-eine-eigene-kultur-gibt/
http://www.the-new-listener.de/index.php/2017/12/06/ein-komponist-ohne-noten/

Petrychenko really is an outstanding pianist, who fights for the music she loves. I was lucky to cooperate with her to prepare reprints of Kosenkos piano music. One could literally see the flame burning inside her while thinking about this music!

#7
Composers & Music / Re: Viktor Kosenko (1896-1938)
Monday 03 February 2020, 23:22
It should be this website (but like I said, it might be wrong, because I can't read anything):
https://filarmony.te.ua/
#8
Composers & Music / Re: Viktor Kosenko (1896-1938)
Sunday 02 February 2020, 14:15
I know only some facts: The piano concerto will be played by the Ternopil philharmonic orchestra with Violina Petrychenko as soloist. But therefore I can't read the cyrillic letters, I can't check time and date on the website ...
#9
Composers & Music / Re: Alexander Zemlinsky
Sunday 02 February 2020, 14:06
If Zemlinsky is known, he is for his operas. And factually he was a master of the human voice: Some of the arias in "Traumgörge" are so incredibly beautiful and you can really imagine the dreaming.
Last year, I listened to a performance of  in Innsbruck (Orchester der Akademie St. Blasius, Karlheinz Siessl: one of the best orchestras to discover new music!), a partly Mahler-like piece, but then he catches up with something, that will inspire Schönberg later in his early orchestral pieces. Zemlinsky surprises the listener more than once in this piece.

Not to be forgotten: Zemlinsky wrote some really nice chamber music works. I like the early String Quintet and the Trio with clarinet. The Trio was done for a competition, that was led by Brahms: Zemlinsky did the third price. The other two prices went to composers, who are even more unknown than Zemlinsky! Joseph Miroslav Weber did the second price and the winner was Walter Rabl, who published less then 10 works, before he stopped composing (there is a marvellouse symphony and some songs).
#10
Composers & Music / Richard Wetz (1875-1935)
Sunday 02 February 2020, 09:18
Falsely compared with Anton Bruckner, Richard Wetz (1875-1935) got into the pigeon-hole of epigoni.
But this is totally wrong, because Wetz developed more than most other composers a completely unique style. He studied with Jadassohn and Reinecke, later with Thuille. Being friends with Felix Weingartner, who got him an engagement as conductor, Wetz came into contact with Richard Strauss, who among Liszt and Bruckner got his rolemodels for his first years. More and more, Wetz began working of a free and unique style: this can be seen first of all in his songs. In his first years, Wetz composed mainly songs for voice and piano and kept holding on this genre his whole life - there must be more than 150 songs. (I collected up to now 10 opusnumbers, this may be around the half.) Later, Wetz made himself a name as teacher, composed isolated and didn't care too much about performances.

We can be lucky, that at least the orchestral works have been recorded. Exciting are his symphonies, here the third one:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=buSMfk6YbnA

Most known maybe the Christmas Oratory (even if the symphonies may be even stronger):
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RCt4mmROMFc

On the other side, the chamber music is forgotten completely. I found the scores of the two string quartets op. 43 and 49 as well as the sonata for violin solo op. 33. Those are extremely fine pieces in an exciting personal language, worth to discover! And Wetz should be a "must" for all singers, even though I don't know one single recording of one of his songs.
#11
Composers & Music / Re: Viktor Kosenko (1896-1938)
Sunday 02 February 2020, 08:45
I got into the music of Viktor Kosenko by two recordings of the Ukrainian pianist Violina Petrychenko: On one of her CDs she compared Kosenko to Sciabin and they really match in some pieces, especially the sonatas opp. 13-15. But there are as well Polish influences, namely in his Mazurkas (of course) - maybe this came from his teacher Michałowski, whom Kosenko held in high regards.

Up to now, I got special interest in the solo piano music by Kosenko. There is a complete recording by Shkoda, which I can recommend; there also is a big essay about his piano music by Osinchuk. Stil unclear for me is the case of the First Piano Sonata: there are two versions, the first print and a much larger second print some years later - I checked the two and found interesting new transitions and some passages, that get more comfortable to play. And then suddenly Kosenko inserted about 8-9 pages completely new. I already asked Juliana Osinchuk, but she wasn't able to help me with details about the reworking process.

Here the Children's Pieces by Shkoda:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZM9t-DYjwBg

And here the middle movement of the piano concerto arranged for piano solo:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=M4KsiRJ3znE

I discovered some old scores of the piano music from the 1970s, that are as far as I know not available anymore (maybe in Ukraine, but not in the rest of the world). For me, the music of Kosenko has to be regarded higher than now, so I decided to restore and reprint some of the old scores: among those 2 Concert Valses (https://repertoire-explorer.musikmph.de/de/produkt/kosenko-viktor-5) and the Children's Pieces (https://repertoire-explorer.musikmph.de/de/produkt/kosenko-viktor-4), but as well early works and the Etudes. I hope to continue with the songs and some of the chamber music.

The piano concerto is to be performed soon (in the completion), but I don't know anything about performances of his solo or chamber music - hopefully this changes soon!