Best discovery for 2018

[adriano]

Hi Alan
I've just sent you a message, but consulting the message bin, it doesn't appear. It happened already last time - a few months ago. Is there something wrong with the system?

[Alan Howe]

I don't think there's a problem. I'll send you a test message.

[Tapiola]

Well, my best discovery for 2018 was the Flury's Symphony No. 1 in D minor. It's definitely a work that appealed to me in a high degree due to its unashamed late-romanticism, passionate passages, great thematic material and accurate orchestration. I felt it so aflame in places that I was blown away. Overall, this is the kind of stuff that I find so irresistible!

[eschiss1]

Deutscher Seele - also Sieghart (2007) on Arte Nova? Hollreiser (nla?) on Koch (though is that label perhaps coming back??) Jochum on Harmonia Mundi (1986 recording) which isn't the same as the Orfeo mentioned by hadrianus (the 1952 recording in the Orfeo d'or 2-CD set)?

(I'm a little surprised cpo seems not to have included it among all the other Pfitzner works they -have- recorded )

[Gazrob]

Hi I'm new here I'm not heavily into classical music but I like some opera and piano music. I love the music of Erik Satie for example. Anyway a couple of months ago I discovered the wonderful music of Claude Debussy. Of course I was already familiar with his piece Clair De Lune but hadn't really heard anything else by this composer. Anyway I heard Clair De Lune again on the television and I had to listen to some of his other works. After buying multiple works over the past couple of months I have to say that I've fallen in love with his work but I love his images in particular. I've heard multiple versions so far but my favourite is performed by Zoltan Kocsis. It's a little different to everybody else I've listened to. I really look forward to hearing other performances by this performer. Any recommendations would be great.

[adriano]

In the 1980's Kocsis recorded Bartok's complete piano works for Decca and Bartok's concertos for Philips. They are available on CD

[der79sebas]

However, Kocsis' Bartok ist more or less the worst (bloodless and cleansed) Bartok you can get...

[adriano]

I know, I also prefer Sandor and Foldes. How is actually Lowenthal?

[Alan Howe]

I think we're getting off-topic, gentlemen. And Bartok doesn't really fit here either - sorry.

[Master Jacques]

Happy New Year to all! For me 2018 has been the year of Spohr (at least so far as 19th century discoveries are concerned). He's a composer I've been meaning to devote some time to for quite a few years, and I am glad to have made the effort.

The Symphonies (NDR Radiophilharmonie, c. Howard Griffiths, cpo 5-CD box) are an extraordinary treasure trove, not least as a demonstration of the way symphonic music might have developed from Mozart onwards if it hadn't been for the Beethoven-Brahms alternative. Everything is clear, beautiful and balanced, intellectually watertight, with feeling kept securely in check. Nearly all these ten symphonies - perhaps especially the ones with literary or poetic programmes in the manner of Richard Strauss's larger tone poems - make fascinating listening, and no two are the same size or shape.

Many of them were hailed at the time as masterpieces, and his contemporaries had no doubt that Spohr was one of the greatest composers who had ever lived. Our aesthetics moved away from his harmonious balance in favour of conflict and contrast, but and his work fell totally out of favour; yet though it is impossible to put Spohr back on the pedestal he once occupied - we just don't think like he does any more - I can see why his contemporaries found this music engrossing as well as technically astonishing and lovely to listen to.

Same with the operas and big choral works: Faust and Jessonda inhabit a different world from Weber and Wagner, much closer to the enlightenment ethos of Mendelssohn's operas and Schumann's lovely (and highly rarified) Genoveva. They lack the 'common touch' of Wagner; but once again offer a beautiful alternative 'take' on romantic opera, one which I warm to considerably. Nobody would want to revive them today, as they are so far from our contemporary patterns of thought and theatre, but they are 'quality' works just the same.

One way and another, I am delighted to have finally got to know Herr Spohr a little better. His memoirs - free to download for Kindle - are a fascinating read, too, giving a vivid picture of his itinerant life as a virtuoso, his opposition to Beethovenian egotism (which he saw as artistically destructive), and the ethos of the musical world of his time. Highly recommended!

[Alan Howe]

He was a worthwhile discovery for me too - on the whole.

[Alan Howe]

I've now acquired - through the great kindness of one of our members - the Keilberth performance of Pfitzner's Von deutscher Seele. It is truly one of the great recordings: marvellous music, conducted with understanding, and beautifully sung by Agnes Giebel (sop.), Hertha Töpper (mezzo), Fritz Wunderlich (ten. - say no more!) and Otto Wiener (bass).

This set really ought to be re-released without delay.

[adriano]

This splendid, unsurpassable recording of "Von Deutscher Seele" has been coupled, on its DGG 2CD release, with Othmar Schoeck's vocal cycle with orchestra "Lebendig begraben", a great masterwork of Swiss music of the 20th century. I think we Swiss will never be able to bring out something alike again. It is thanks to Fischer Dieskau that this work had gained international renown, but already at the time of its creation (1926) it had made a great impression, even to audiences not used to "modern" music. Fritz Brun also loved it and used to perform it with the great Swiss bass Felix Loeffel - who can be heard in an 1940 interpretation conducted by Luc Balmer (a very rare historical CD of the Austrian label Uranus, issued in 1996 - which I still am looking for).
The fabulous interpretation by Fischer-Dieskau of 1962 (DGG LP) has also been re-issued in 1986 by Claves (Radio-Symphonieorchester Berlin, conducted by Fritz Rieger). It makes no real sense to compare it with other similar vocal cycles, but personally I consider "Lebendig begraben" a greater work than Mahler's "Lied von der Erde". Not to speak about Gottfried Keller's stirring, visionary poems which had inspired Schoeck to such tense (and often hair-raising) psychological music. You really experience the nightmare of a man, who is buried alive symbolically to learn to appreciate life again.
Bass Günter von Kannen re-recorded "Lebendig begraben" in 1986 with the Zürich Opera Orchestra, conducetd by Ralf Weikert; that was an LP by the Atlantis label. It's also an excellent interpretation, especially for no-Fischer-Dieskau fans.