Musical Discoveries

[Guest]

Inspired by something in another thread, here's an idea: Lets all name at least one composer each that we hadnt discovered until we heard their music on R3.

(I realise the more pretentious among us may try to intimate they knew it all already, and R3 has taught them nothing, but lets see if we can avoid that particular trap. Likewise, if we hadnt heard of more well known composers like, say, Stravinsky or Brian Eno, let us not be afraid to admit to it)


I'll start off with Peter Warlock.

[Norfolk Born]

Peter Sculthorpe ('Port Essington')
John Surman ('The Road to St Ives')

[Roehre]

for me Through the Night is the programme with the biggest "Chance" to discover either until now to me unknown composers or unknown works by popular ones.

To mention from the last 2 years (the vast majority of composers stems from eastern Europe, the Baltic and Scandinavia for some reason):
Kaipainen, Vladigerov, Karetnikov, Dobrzynski, Wars, Mirecki, Mielck, Kaski, Parac, Suolahti, Sasnauskas, Zarzycki, Zarebski, Pejacevic, Stojowski, Kyurkchiyski, Virtaperko, Moyzes, Irgens-Jensen, Nemeth-Samorinsky, Bobescu;
Swayne (American?); Veremans, Brusselmans, van der Stucken (Belgian/Flemish); Schwertsik, Hasenöhrl (Austrian); Moeschinger (Swiss).
These are real discoveries IMO

There is a lot to discover on TtN, IMO almost the last bastion of the "old" third programme in that respect.

[doversoul1]

for me Through the Night is the programme with the biggest "Chance" to discover either until now to me unknown composers or unknown works by popular ones.

There is a lot to discover on TtN, IMO almost the last bastion of the "old" third programme in that respect.

The Early Music Show is that for me. True, I don’t remember all the composers I hear but what I hear becomes part of my musical world.

It was probably on the EMS where I first learned about Bach’s sons and his uncles and great-uncles.

[Roslynmuse]

Roehre, is the Swayne you refer to Giles Swayne? In which case he's British.

[mercia]

not quite answering your question, I've just discovered Chausson's rather gorgeous Viviane opus 5 on Radio 3 Breakfast, lovely.

[Tevot]

I agree with # 3 and Roehre's highlighting the importance of Through the Night as a platform for music both familiar and new. Indeed there should be programmes like it on R3 through the day too

I first came across Othmar Schoeck via R3 ( excerpts from his Notturno) and my first encounter with the great Witold Lutoslawski was thanks to the Proms no less - and the UK premiere of the
3rd Symphony under Solti and the CSO IIRC back in 1983. More recently the Proms introduced me to Detlev Glanert - whose rendering of the Brahms serious songs struck me as being excellent.

Best Wishes,

Tevot

[Roehre]

Roehre, is the Swayne you refer to Giles Swayne? In which case he's British.

thanks Roslynmuse, it's him

[Pianorak]

. . . There is a lot to discover on TtN . . .

I totally agree, but trying to follow up on some of those discoveries can be a bit of a problem. Neither Grove nor Google lists eg Hasenöhrl (couldn't be anything but Austrian ), to name but one. Recordings of most (all?) of the pieces played on TtN are not usually freely available.

[Serial_Apologist]

The whole lot, from about age 13 - with the exceptions of:

Bach (JS)
Bartok
Beethoven
Borodin
Brahms
Chopin
Dvorak
Handel
Mendelssohn
Rachmaninov
Rimsky-Korsakov
Holst
Kodaly
Puccini
Schubert
Schumann
Sibelius
Smetana
Strauss (R)
Tchaikovsky
Vaughan Williams
Wagner

All of whom were already either in my father's record collection or played on the piano by my mother.

I am now aged 65. To back up what many have said on another thread, most if not all my musical education has come courtesy Radio 3 or its Third programme predecessor, or through books.

S-A

[Roehre]

I totally agree, but trying to follow up on some of those discoveries can be a bit of a problem. Neither Grove nor Google lists eg Hasenöhrl (couldn't be anything but Austrian ), to name but one. Recordings of most (all?) of the pieces played on TtN are not usually freely available.

My guess is that approximately half of the music broadcast in TtN is available commercially one way or another.

A lot of recycling is going on there -like Hasenöhrl's one piece parodying RStrauss' Till Eulenspiegel, recently being broadcast for the 5th time or so-, so keeping an eye on Andrew Slater's invaluble lists often means you are offered a second chance to listen to a piece.
But quite a lot of the rather exotic names I listed below so far only appeared with one or two works and not much else (though exceptions confirm the rule: Mielck and Moyzes two of them e.g.).

[Dave2002]

thanks Roslynmuse, it's him

http://www.gilesswayne.com/biog.php

He wrote a guitar concerto which was performed and recorded at Maida Vale a few years ago. Actually may not be called a concerto, but Mancanza.

[makropulos]

Inspired by something in another thread, here's an idea: Lets all name at least one composer each that we hadnt discovered until we heard their music on R3.

(I realise the more pretentious among us may try to intimate they knew it all already, and R3 has taught them nothing, but lets see if we can avoid that particular trap. Likewise, if we hadnt heard of more well known composers like, say, Stravinsky or Brian Eno, let us not be afraid to admit to it)


I'll start off with Peter Warlock.

I think you've hit on a very nice topic here. I hardly know where to begin answering though, since I've been listening to R3 since I was about 12 and consequently a lot of my musical discoveries were initially through R3. Among things that stood out in my teenage years (back in the 1960s and early 1970s) was a huge amount of opera that I could never have seen in the theatre or have afforded to buy recordings - everything from the annual broadcasts of Wagner's "Ring" to long-running series like "The French Opera" that introduced me to music ranging from Lully to Milhaud ("Christopher Columbus") and Poulenc ("Dialogues des Carmélites"). Individual composers ranged from those that are not often encountered in concerts (Boris Blacher, Nils Viggo Bentzon, Lili Boulanger, Eugen Suchon) to pieces that knocked my socks off (Stravinsky's Symphony in Three Movements, Janacek's Glagolitic Mass, Vaughan Williams's Dona Nobis Pacem, Verdi's Four Sacred Pieces). And all this was 30-40 years ago - and led to so much more discovery of my own through Proms season tickets, records and so on and on...

[barber olly]

It's many years ago now but I heard for the first time the wonderful Florent Schmitt Tragedie de Salome. I was in the car, so it must have been on the 8.00 to 9.00 bit of Morning Concert or whatever it was called in those days, probably 1976 or thenabouts. Too long a work to beperformed complete on Breakfast.

[old khayyam]

I dont believe i'd ever heard The Lark Ascending until it was appropriately played on a long, hot summer afternoon...