Most rewarding performance of an unsung composer's piece

[Ilja]

Hi all,


Today I re-watched the Alfredo Casella 2nd Symphony on Youtube, played by the HR-Sinfonieorchester (Frankfurt RSO) under Gianandrea Noseda (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KDslVGf7OTQ). I was present at that concert, and (to use a very over-used term) remember being truly blown away at the time - a deeply emotional experience. Here we had a top-notch orchestra led by one of the most promising young(er) conductors of today, giving their all in a work that was unknown to most of the people in the theatre, and being amply rewarded by the audience's reaction (something we're often told is a hopeless cause).

Therefore, my question: what was the most best concert experience you ever had of an unsung composer's work? What I'm aiming at is not so much the best work you heard in concert, but the most rewarding evening in terms of performer and audience commitment, and the greatest concert result.

[MartinH]

My most memorable experience was one that I participated in. The was 20 years ago, the Mesa Symphony (no longer in operation) conducted by Gordon Johnson. He put together an interesting program of all marches: Marche Slav, Pomp & Circumstance, Procession of Nobles...and others. I pleaded, successfully, to include the march from Raff's 5th, Lenore. I was playing triangle.

Needless to say the orchestra was unfamiliar with it and so was the audience. But I still clearly remember the ending - as the orchestration got quieter and just vanished, there was a gasp of delight from the audience. The applause was enthusiastic and generous. Orchestra members commented positively on the effect Raff created. You have no idea how frustrating it was to have the entire score and set of parts sitting there, but alas, we only played one movement.

[Alan Howe]

Brian's Gothic at the Royal Albert Hall on July 22nd 2011 - no contest. It blew me away, knocked me sideways.
Montemezzo's L'amore dei tre re at Opera Holland Park last summer was by far the most gut-wrenching unsung operatic experience I've ever had; Wolf-Ferrari's I gioielli della Madonna the most extraordinary opera I'd never known previously - the absolutely peak of verismo, and still not commercially recorded!

[Ilja]

Alan, sure you know, but I gioielli della Madonna is on YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uFCl5lAl80c

[Alan Howe]

I now have that performance on CD, Ilja, but you'll know that it's not a proper commercial recording. It's a pirated copy of a BBC broadcast. Perfectly adequate, but you can tell it's a cheap production - they can't even spell the name of the opera correctly!

[sdtom]

If Glazunov is unsung I once attended a concert that a symphony, violin concerto, and one of his overtures. Quite unusual I would say.
Tom

[FBerwald]

Which symphony by Glazunov?

[sdtom]

The fourth which I really like

[FBerwald]

I like it too! It's the 1st symphony where Glazunov finds a more personal language. Pity this gorgeous piece is not played more often.

[sdtom]

Considering his age this is an incredible work!

[alberto]

In the symphonic field I would choose, as rewarding  listening experiences, the following (certainly unsung in relation to the place where I attended the performance):
- Sibelius Four legends from the Kalevala (Philharmonia Orch.  cond. Esa Pekka Salonen, Torino, around 2010)
-Elgar Second Symphony (City of Birmingham, cond,.A,.Nelsons, Luzern 2014)
-Suk Asrael Symphony (Orchestra Sinfonica Nazionale Rai, cond. P.Schneider, Torino, around 1996).
In the operatic field I would put first Dukas Ariane et Barbe-Bleu (Teatro Regio , Torino, cond. E.Villaume, around 2010)
I wiish to rember as it is a very fresh memory (I attended to on the last 30th January) Alfredo Catalani La Wally (Monte Carlo Opèra, 2016, cond. M.Benini, protagonist Eva-Maria Westbroeck).     

[eschiss1]

Fortunately too difficult to choose one. 

*Alkan's symphony being performed by Hamelin a few years ago here in Ithaca (an impassioned performance, the occasional clunkers, but increased my opinion both of the work and of the pianist, I can say, though I don't think I ever accepted the usual line about the latter.)
*Several of the Jupiter Symphony Chamber Players concerts I've been to in New York City, with some very memorable music (some good, some quite good, some Classical (Kramar, e.g.), some Romantic, some more recent e.g. Schulhoff (Ervin) or Shostakovich); I hope to attend many more of these concerts.
(I also think I did hear, by chance, part of a premiere of a fine late string quartet* by a composer we used to consider appropriate for this group, Robert Simpson, when I was visiting London for a week with family in 1993 and I was tuning into BBC Radio, but that wouldn't have counted a few years ago and doesn't count now- so it goes...)
*(probably a quintet or something, since I see his 14th quartet was premiered in 1991 and his 15th in 1992. Hrm. Erm. Interesting. ... Assuming it was the premiere and that I'm remembering. Never mind. I'm the only one interested in this detail. I shut up now.)

[jerfilm]

Alberto's post reminded me of an Elgar Second heard in Minneapolis years ago, I think under Neville Marriner that was so lovely it brought me to tears.  An occurrence that happens from time to time.  Other than introducing Bruckner and Mahler into the Twin Cities many years ago, I can't think of a single unsung composer (aside from 20th century noise) that the Minnesota ever played.  Maybe SDTom has a better memory......

In March, the Polish Baltic Frederic Chopin Philharmonic is playing the Wieniawski 2nd Violin Concerto with Agata Szymczewska, violin here in Palm Desert.  That's about as close to unsung as I've ever been........



sx
Jerry

[pcc]

Two:

1) William Henry Fry's MACBETH overture by the Rochester Philharmonic under Arild Remmereit, the orchestra's unjustly dismissed former conductor (the board had it in for him and the orchestra was deeply divided over his rehearsal style - they played well for him, though, in interesting stuff, including a first-class performance of Amy Beach's "Gaelic" Symphony).

2) Victor Herbert's NATOMA in an unstaged "reading" in New York with full orchestra, chorus, and very committed soloists who made the drama work (incredibly). Really magnificent experience, at times overwhelmingly powerful -- an opera that really needs to be heard rather than just studied.  The performance was marred only by their suddenly pulling up twelve bars short of the end (I and a friend were following with the Schirmer vocal score) because the blasted union rep called "time"!! The conductor explained the end of the work to the audience and in that time the musicians were leisurely putting up their instruments and chatting among themselves; he finished and they were STILL bumbling about. Infuriating, that. Otherwise, wonderful and unique.

[Gareth Vaughan]

The performance was marred only by their suddenly pulling up twelve bars short of the end (I and a friend were following with the Schirmer vocal score) because the blasted union rep called "time"!!

How frightful! I can't imagine that happening in the UK, thank God! What utter lack of respect for both music and audience. Do these so called "musicians" actually LIKE music?