The best symphonist beginning with 'O'?

[Alan Howe]

Not a hard pick you might say. Nevertheless, Georges Onslow (1784-1853) is a wonderful symphonist. I thought I would give his No.4 a spin and found I'd quite forgotten what a superb work it is - dynamic, superbly written for the orchestra and surprisingly weighty.

So, do other friends agree about Onslow? (And if you don't know him, do snap up the two cpo CDs of his symphonies - they'll have you wondering why they're not played these days.)

[eschiss1]

I like the symphonies I've heard by him, especially No.2 with its - well - Beethovenian-coherent (it seemed), forward-moving first movement (and not-at-all-bad rest.) Still, for comparison's sake, I know few if any(?) other "O" composers- whether Ostrcil, Ovchinnikov, ... whose symphonies I've actually _heard_ that come to mind offhand (I may be forgetting someone who will be obvious - to me - in 15 14 13 12 11 ...). So take that with the appropriate amount of salt.

[ken]

Otto Olsson - Symphony in G Minor - Gavleborg Symphony Orchestra - Mats Liljefors (Sterling)

[eschiss1]

Ooh, forgot about that one. Also really, really good... Thanks.

[jerfilm]

Or how 'bout Henrique Oswald's opus 43 Symphony??

Jerry

[Alan Howe]

Back to Onslow: anyone else like him?

[mikehopf]

What about Offenbach's Symphony of the Future?

[Alan Howe]

Anyone know Onslow...?

[thalbergmad]

Never heard any of the Onslow symphonies before, so I started this morning with the 1st.

Energetic and uplifting but perhaps lacking memorable material.

I expect they get better. Already the 2nd sounds more promising.

Thal

[thalbergmad]

The 2nd is a massive improvement over the 1st.

Perhaps a touch of the Egmont about it.

Thal

[Balapoel]

Within the new remit, there aren't a lot of options. Besides Onslow and Olsson, there's:

Per August Olander (symphony in Eb is all I know of his orchestral work)

Arne Oldberg (1874-1962) American - apparently 7 numbered symphonies (and three others), various concerti, symphonic poems, and variations. This is one I'd like to hear to judge.

Ole Olsen - I have only one of his symphonies (Op. 5)

Norman O'Neill - I like his chamber music, but I only have a few of his orchestral pieces.

Otakar Ostrcil - I find his music attractive, reminds me of Smetana

Of these, I would still go with Onslow, with Ostrcil a close second.

[Alan Howe]

Thanks, thal, for your thoughts on Onslow. I'm enormously impressed by the sheer dynamism of his symphonies and their wonderful use of the orchestra.

[eschiss1]

This is not meant as a put-down but rather a question of real curiosity- orchestrally how does the 3rd compare? As with Klughardt's 5th, we have there a work which originated as a chamber work (or in some cases with some composers, to be more general, more than one) (though here the original survives - the sextet of which Klughardt's 5th symphony is supposed to be more or less an orchestration wasn't published, I think, and has been lost) - (similar example is Pfitzner's symphony based on his string quartet in C-sharp minor, but...) -

anyway, of course there's some serious challenges posed to a composer who wants to try to do that; melodies, contrapuntal sections, all sorts of things have to be reimagined, recast, probably rewritten to come off well in their new venue. Some will do this better, some worse.

BTW the original quintet (no.10, op.32) can be seen @IMSLP here. I see from Wikipedia it was expanded, not simply orchestrated, into symphony no.3 of 1833/4 - that makes more sense.

(Symphony no.1 (premiered ca.1830) is here.)

[Alan Howe]

I didn't know this. I'll give No.3 a listen with that in mind.

[thalbergmad]

These symphonies really are impressive stuff. I was listening to them at work, but only got as far as the 3rd before I was told to "switch that crap off".

There is a get up and go feel to them and he gets more melodically interesting the further one gets.

I had previously dismissed Onslow's solo works as "average salon", so I might have to revisit those as well.

Thal