Piano, Choir and Orchestra

[ewk]

Hi all,

I think everyone here knows Beethoven's Choral Fantasy. I wondered if there were more works with this exeptional instrumentation, and I found:

IMSLP lists three more works:
http://imslp.org/index.php?title=Category:For_mixed_chorus%2C_piano%2C_orchestra&transclude=Template:Catintro

Gesänge und Lieder einheimischer Dichter (Hanke, Karl)

Piano Concerto No.6, Op.192 (Herz, Henri)

Die Tageszeiten, Op.209 (Raff, Joachim)

But Herz's piano concerto is more like a piano concerto plus some choir in the last movement like in Busoni's PC, not with an equally important choir part. Raff's Tageszeiten are as far as I could find out (no recording on youtube...) more like a mixture of symphony, oratorio and piano concerto, so the choir part is more important (which makes it more interesting to perform for amateur choirs)

Wikipedia says that Debussy's »Printemps« is scored for Orchestra, Choir and Piano, but all I fond on youtube was either orchestra and piano four-hands or orchestra and wordless mixed choir.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_compositions_for_piano_and_orchestra

Any further ideas?

Sebastian

[Mark Thomas]

Raff's Die Tageszeiten is pretty much as you surmised: a forty minute long, four movement combination of choral symphony and piano concerto. Each of the three elements have roughly equal prominence throughout the work.

[petershott@btinternet.com]

Rather than mess around with such things as Youtube, Sebastian, I'd go out and purchase the Sterling recording of this Raff work. That would enable you to find out what it sounds like - and would introduce you to a most superb work. Easy!

[TerraEpon]

Re: Printemps

Debussy originally envisioned it for wordless chorus and orchestra. Only a vocal score was published  -- though IIRC it's an odd vocal score in that the choral cues are within the piano parts, so it can be played on two pianos with no musical loss. Henri Busser too THAT score and made the orchestral version with two pianos that's most commonly known.
The 'original' version (wordless chorus and orchestra) that's been recorded once or twice is a reconstruction by Emil de Cou.

tldr version: No, it's not in this category.

[alberto]

Maybe Prometheus by Scriabin (op.60, 1910) qualifies, as the piano part is very prominent (and virtuosic). Here the wordless choir is optional.

[ewk]

Rather than mess around with such things as Youtube, Sebastian, I'd go out and purchase the Sterling recording of this Raff work. That would enable you to find out what it sounds like - and would introduce you to a most superb work. Easy!

Hi Peter,

I normally tend to »try« a work before I buy the CD, but in this case it might be worth to give the CD a try direclty, your opinion about this work confirms what I've read about it somewhere else.

Prometheus seems a good idea as well, I'll have to re-listen to it.

Sebastian

[eschiss1]

in the case of die Tageszeiten one may, not sure, be able to hear at least a substantial amount of it online, in poor streaming sound via a Dutch radio station. Only makes sense to buy some of the music one's heard that way afterwards if one can and when one can, of course.

[Ilja]

If Promethée counts, so should Rued Langgaard's Third Symphony, 'The Flush of Youth - La Melodia' (whatever that may mean), BVN 96. Wonderful work, with a wordless choir at the end and, again a very virtuoso piano part.

[eschiss1]

according to Allan Ho's list, two of Langgaard's symphonies (3 & qualify, though both, or maybe just no.8, may be too late for this forum (likewise the Absil work he mentions, etc. Still, while Röntgen's Aus Goethe's Faust (for soloists, choir, piano, organ and orchestra) is from 1930 - and recorded, I think, though I haven't heard it - I would hope an exception can be made for it - this is Röntgen after all...   (and perhaps for a similarly-scored work by Ropartz from 1905, Le Miracle de Saint Nicolas, well before 1915 at least.)

[britishcomposer]

Niels W. Gade's Frühlings-Phantasie op. 23 (1852) may perhaps qualify, though it is intended to be performed with solo voices instead of a choir.
http://www.arkivmusic.com/classical/album.jsp?album_id=46909

Ralph Vaughan Williams's Fantasia on the Old 104th Psalm (1949). Though written late in his life - later than the UC remit allows - it is largely written in the modal vein established with the Tallis Fantasia. A powerful work which strangely is available in one recording only:
http://www.arkivmusic.com/classical/album.jsp?album_id=190788

[pianobaba]

The Raff sounds really interesting, sadly Sterling records seem like a complete pain to get here (in Canada), I guess I could get it shipped from the UK. Oh, and I think Beethoven's Choral Fantasy is absolute genius, a fantastic, wonderful piece of music. Sadly underrated because mainstream classical doesn't like pieces which don't fit into conventional genres ("symphony", "quartet", "concerto" etc) and the nearness of the main theme to that of the 9th has actually turned some people against it. I've won some new admirers to it after explaining it was composed nearly 15 years before the 9th and really served as a template.

[Gareth Vaughan]

The British Library has a microfilm of the Full Score (at least it is described as "Partitur") of this work by Schulz-Beuthen: Befreiungs-Gesang der Verbannten Israels. : Nach Worten des 126sten Psalms für gemischten oder Männer-Chor, Soli, Orchester und Clavier componirt.  Worth investigating perhaps.

[Mark Thomas]

Very interesting, Gareth. It pre-dates Raff's Die Tageszeiten by four years. It's such an unusual combination, I don't suppose that und clavier might mean oder klavier? Only one way to find out, I guess...

[Alan Howe]

This link suggests "or" rather than "and":
http://www.recmusic.org/lieder/get_text.html?TextId=83095
However, every other reference, e.g...
http://www.rism-ch.org/manuscripts/53967?peek=1&wheel=mnskrpt_ql
...clearly says "and".
My money's on the latter.

[eschiss1]

HMB agrees (e.g. transcription.)