Hans Gal's Symphonies from Avie

[M. Henriksen]

Hans Gal's music is discussed on this forum under the topic "A plea for Hans Gal". Now, some of the recording projects mentioned there are starting to emerge. His first 3 symphonies have been recorded by Avie, and coupled with Symphonies by Schubert and Schumann.I don't know exact release dates, but I would guess that these records will be in our hands during spring/summer 2011.

http://www.hansgal.com/recordings/Zehetmair1.html

http://www.hansgal.com/recordings/Zehetmair2.html

http://www.hansgal.com/recordings/Gal3&Schumann.html


Morten

[M. Henriksen]

OK, a bit more information. Amazon and jpc have the recording of Gal's 1st Symphony available from the 18th of April, while the second Symphony will be available on amazon from the 10th of May.


Morten

[eschiss1]

thanks!

[Alan Howe]

Good news, Morten. Many thanks! Three more for the list...

[petershott@btinternet.com]

Morten - once more you bring wonderful news. Much gratitude to you.

Gal is fortunately becoming a far less unsung composer (but that is, however, no reason not to write of him here!). We're also getting to know him in a slightly unusual way. The usual pattern with an unsung is that someone like CPO or Chandos (or whoever) treat us to a major work, typically a symphony. If that's successful it has a snowball effect, and folk like us then start making a clamour about wanting to hear recorded performances of other works.

Not that it is of any real significance, but with Gal we've got to know him in a different way. For some time we've had that mightily impressive set of the piano music from Leon McCawley. We've also had the Edinburgh Quartet recordings of the string quartets - treasurable things in my view. An utterly stunning disc (a bit hard to get hold of) from Camerata of music for piano trio. A Cybele CD dating from 2002 of the Op. 17 Violin Sonata c/w the Op. 89 Cello Sonata. A Membran CD of the Concertino for Organ & Strings. A Gramola CD in 2010 entitled 'The Right Tempo' with hitherto unrecorded chamber works such as the Op. 96 Sonata for Two Violins & Piano (a gem). But pride of place goes to the two Annette-Barbara Vogel CDs from Avie of the Violin Sonatas and concertante works. A real Gal renaissance, and bringing this composer the prominence he so richly deserves. Much has happened since I initiated that 'A Plea for Hans Gal' in March last year.

And, whacko, at long last the symphonies. Can't wait to get to know them! Maybe I haven't quite got the full picture, but I think it is a slight case for regret that they're being released individually on CDs coupled with other works. OK, Gal wrote a groundbreaking book on Schubert - but why now make a Gal symphony only available with Schubert 6 and 9? And again with Schumann 3? These are such 'indispensable' works that I fear they will already be so well provided for in most people's collections that this could be a reason not to explore Gal. Surely a 2/3 CD set of all 4 symphonies, which also threw in a number of unrecorded orchestral works (the Cello Concerto for example), would be a far more welcome and enticing package? (Heck, folk such as us can never be wholly satisfied, eh?)

[eschiss1]

btw if you're in the US (copyright restrictions forbid for now otherwise because of his deathdate) you can look at scores and/or parts of Gál's opp.1 and 10 at IMSLP. (Ah. I see the website was mentioned in the first post in the thread, even.)

[jerfilm]

I have a cassette tape of his Symphony #4 - Sinfonia Concertante - if someone will remind me next month to see if it could be uploaded.

Jerry

[mbhaub]

Nice prospect, but why, oh why, couple these symphonies with other stuff? Just to sell disks? Who do they think will buy these? I would think it's the serious collectors who don't need any more Schubert/Schumann. Maybe I'll just wait until Naxos gets around to them. I've played the 3rd and it would be nice to have a recording of it.

[Gareth Vaughan]

Not wishing to sound a discordant note here, but had anyone thought the couplings might have been chosen for sound MUSICAL reasons?

[petershott@btinternet.com]

Yes, Gareth. I'm actually sympathetic to your point - and in some ways much dislike my response! But we do, regretfully, have to live in the 'real' world. A world in which other CDs compete for attention and in which there are limits to the pocket. The gist of my first posting was that I very much hope the Gal and Schubert CD sells in quantities that satisfies the record company and encourages them to produce more recordings of Gal. For he is a wonderful if sometimes demanding composer, and I think the musical lives of people would be amply rewarded if they got to know Gal. However many potential purchasers, when confronted by the CD, will think 'Hm, already 'got' Schubert 6, and for the same amount of cash I could buy that other CD'.

I dislike this consumer world where record companies and buyers think in terms of 'minutes of new music' balanced against 'cost'. Yes, I'm sure there are very sound musical reasons for putting these two composers together (a CD combining, for example, Hans Gal and Havergal Brian would seem quite bizarre in comparison). But those reasons could be explained in the booklet inviting the listener to explore for themselves. And the vacancy left by the omission of Schubert 6 on the CD could then be filled by Gal's second symphony. Wouldn't a CD of Gal 1 and 2 be more attractive to people than one of Schubert 6 and Gal 1?

[jerfilm]

It seems to me that those of us who are steady buyers of unsung composer CDs are something of a niche market.  I have friends who love "classical" music but wouldn't dream of buying a disc of music by someone named Hans Gal.  (Never heard of HIM....)  By the same token, I can't imagine them buying a disc of Schubert and Gal.  They won't even buy Raff or Ries.  So what's the point of coupling such stuff? 

I'm not, I guess, as sophisticated a student of music as some.  I would love for someone like Gareth to point out to me what the sound musical reasons might be for the coupling?  Would they be obvious enough to the more casual record buyer so that he might think "Wow, that was a great idea"? 

It would seem to me that some of the CD producers might do well to do some market research to see exactly who is buying the discs that stray from the workhorse byways.

And I would agree with whoever said it above, that programming for a symphony concert and programming for a CD are and should be quite different animals.

Jerry

[Gareth Vaughan]

Yes, Gareth. I'm actually sympathetic to your point - and in some ways much dislike my response! But we do, regretfully, have to live in the 'real' world.

But I think the CD producers are living in the real world - they are if they stay in business. To read what you write, Peter, one would think that half the record companies don't know what they're doing - yet they manage to survive in a difficult market. Oughtn't they to know the market better than we? We on this forum are a tiny, tiny group of people interested in unsung composers. The vast majority of classical music lovers (who themselves are a tiny fraction of the record buying public) haven't even heard of most of the composers whose music we discuss.

It would seem to me that some of the CD producers might do well to do some market research to see exactly who is buying the discs that stray from the workhorse byways.

What makes you think they don't? I expect they do, though perhaps not as much as we might wish because we, the lovers of unsung music, are a really tiny part of their total sales income. I'm constantly surprised at how adventurous some, indeed many, labels have become in the last decade. We should be very thankful for that - as, indeed, I'm sure we all are.

I would love for someone like Gareth to point out to me what the sound musical reasons might be for the coupling?

May I suggest that the following quote from the press release for the recording goes some way towards explaining the thinking behind this disk:
"This is paired with Symphony No. 6 by Franz Schubert, appropriately enough as Gál was an acknowledged scholar of his 19th -century forbear (cf. his book Franz Schubert and the Essence of Melody) and the two composers can legitimately be considered – as the subtitle of the CD indicates – "Kindred Spirits".

Gál's Symphony No.1 was not in fact his first - an earlier symphony had won the Austrian State prize in 1915, but it was later discarded, as was another. Gál finally considered this work, which won a Columbia Schubert Centenary Prize in 1928, to be his symphonic debut."

I don't actually own a recording of Schubert's 6th Symphony, so that's an added incentive (if one were needed) for me to buy this CD. As I've got only one recording of Schubert's 9th, I won't think twice about buying the 2nd Gal Symphony in this series either - and No. 3 is to be coupled with Schumann's 3rd, yet another mainstream work I do not have on my shelves. Altogether, the record  company has got me hooked.

[JimL]

Ditto, Gareth.  See above, I think.  No, wait a minute that's the Dubois thread.  In any event, getting Gal would be a much better prospect for me, since I own neither the Schubert Little nor Great C Major Symphonies, nor, for that matter the Schumann Rhenish.  As I said, that is the particular reason I eschew simply stockpiling warhorses - so's I can pick up unsung couplings.

[petershott@btinternet.com]

Many thanks, Gareth, for your considered and thoughtful reply to my earlier rant. However I'm not wholly convinced. A couple of points:

First, that record companies survive doesn't imply they always plan their marketing strategies (I did in my youth teach logic!). True, there is considerable evidence of careful thought and planning on the part of people like Hyperion - in their early days they battled against the then dominant major labels precisely by such planning. At the other end of the spectrum there are those lumbering majors whose output seems to me to be largely determined by what conductors or soloists on their lucrative contracts want to record, which is often not the same as what the market needs. Hence endless packages of Beethoven or Brahms or Bruckner...and even yet another complete Ring cycle in the offing. The good thing I suppose is that if companies are faced with even more severe economic difficulty then they will be forced to plan releases with the utmost care, or just fizzle out. On second thoughts, maybe not: borrowing a Darwinian idea, they will survive by diversifying. And that will doubtless mean, and I groan, much larking about with more sophisticated technology and trying to grab the interest of the gullible and those too afraid of listening to music fully. (Lots of prejudice here, for which I make no apology!)

Next, the 'sound musical reasons'. Yes, Gal and Schubert are certainly kindred spirits. But that is surely no reason to put them side by side on the same CD, when (to repeat my earlier point) the 'space' taken up by Schubert could have been used to give us the second of the Gal symphonies. I'm sure that one disc containing Gal 1 and 2 (and then presumably a second later CD giving us 3 and 4) would get Gal a wider audience than would be the case by scattering his symphonies amongst those of Schubert, Schumann or other kindred spirits. Bach and Reger are distant kindred spirits - but maybe it would be poor marketing strategy to squeeze both on the same CD (though of course a judicious selection of material might be musically interesting).

Finally you can't seek a justification of Avie's decision to offer joint Gal and Schubert discs by pointing out that you don't happen to have a recording of Schubert 6 and 9, and that this will be a useful way of acquiring them. First, I suspect you're in a pretty small minority in being, as it were, Schubertless. I would guess most people contemplating buying a CD of Gal would already have Schubert on their shelves, and that might well incline them not to buy the CDs. And second, if you want (as you should!!) to add Schubert then, with all respect to the Northern Sinfonia and Thomas Zehetmair, there are probably easier (and less expensive) ways of doing so.

So maybe, in friendly fashion, we should agree to disagree! And let us instead turn the ear to music, for that is an infinitely more pleasant activity than squabbling over marketing strategies!

[Alan Howe]

FWIW I'd buy the CDs whatever the couplings!