Wondering why some cycles remain unfinished?

[Barbirollians]

Cost self-evidently in some cases or more sadly death or illness . The failure to complete many a Haydn symphony cycle mist obvious .

Others are rather more baffling . I am thinking of Howard Shelley's early 1990s Mozart Piano Concertos with the London Mozart Players that I have been collecting over the last year since seeing him play K453 so beautifully in Sheffield with the same orchestra .

They appear to have been well reviewed but stopped after six CDs .
Maybe at the time they were overshadowed in sales terms by the 1980s Perahia set - but it is a shame . I think they are excellent especially K271 which can be difficult to bring off and listening today to K449 it puts the VPO and Emanuel Ax's performance at the Proms very much in the shade - it has all the vim and sparkle missing from that dreary account.

What is also interesting is that despite the cycle being abandoned the six discs are still available from Chandos according to Presto and as CDs not just downloads .

Any unfinished cycles you wish had been completed ?

[Pulcinella]

Any unfinished cycles you wish had been completed ?

There are some that some folk on here would like to see started, let alone completed.

[Petrushka]

Most puzzling incompletion must be Karajan's Sibelius cycle for EMI. Whether initially conceived as a cycle or not, Karajan never did record the Third.

I was dismayed that Philips pulled the plug on the Haitink/BPO Mahler cycle leaving 8 & 9 unrecorded.

[Stanfordian]

Most puzzling incompletion must be Karajan's Sibelius cycle for EMI. Whether initially conceived as a cycle or not, Karajan never did record the Third.

I was dismayed that Philips pulled the plug on the Haitink/BPO Mahler cycle leaving 8 & 9 unrecorded.

Hiya Petrushka,

During reviewing of the Rattle Sibelius cycle with the Berliner Philharmoniker released in 2015 I looked into if and why the Berliner Philharmoniker had never performed the Sibelius Symphony No. 3 which seemed a quite remarkable fact. Karajan must not have rated it, I guess. My checks revealed that according to the John Hunt catalogue, Karajan, so prolific in the studio, had never recorded the symphony with the orchestra but it was hard to believe that the Berliner Philharmoniker had never even played the work in its history. Yet this was confirmed in the copious notes that accompanied Rattle's own label 2015 release stating "that the complete cycle of the Sibelius symphonies was being performed for the first time in 2010 for those live performances by the Berliner Philharmoniker with the Symphony No. 3 never having been played before by the orchestra."

Perhaps another fairly similar example is the case of the early Schubert symphonies that the Berliner Philharmoniker didn't perfrom in concert although they recorded them on cycles in the studio with complete sets of the 8 symphonies under Herbert von Karajan, Karl Böhm and Daniel Barenboim. It was Nikolaus Harnoncourt, who greatly admired Schubert, who began to champion the early symphonies recording a complete cycle live with the Berliner Philharmoniker in 2003-06 as part of his 'Schubert Edition' released in 2015.

I agree that it's crying shame that Haitink never recorded Mahler 8 & 9 with the Berliner Philharmoniker.

[vinteuil]

.

... for me one of the saddest is Emilia Fadini's critical edition of the scores of Scarlatti for Ricordi. We have nine volumes of a projected twelve, I think. The story is that for the last vol in progress the manuscripts were 'lost' by Ricordi, and the project aborted. I would love to hear better news, but I suspect we will never have a complete set. Such a shame; the volumes were very handsome, - and cheaper than the Kenneth Gilbert edn for Heugel...

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[seabright]

It's very odd about the Sibelius 3rd. The discography in John Ardoin's 1999 book about the Philadelphia Orchestra reveals that Ormandy recorded all the symphonies except for that one at least twice each, for CBS/Sony and again for RCA/BMG. Similarly, although Stokowski didn't record a complete cycle he did record Nos 1, 2, 4 (its first recording) and 7, and he gave the US Premieres of Nos 5, 6 and 7 in the 1920s. Again, no sign of No. 3 ever having entered his repertoire. I wonder why these two plus Karajan avoided it?

[Conchis]

Can we be sure that complete cycles were planned in these cases?

The most obvious case of abandonment I can think of is the Dohnanyi Ring cycle on Decca during the 90s. The first two parts were recorded and released but the rest of the cycle foundered on hesitant sales and difficult casting (I think it's a mixed blessing the cycle was not completed, as there was no reliable Siegfried available in that timeframe and the Brunhilde passed her sell by date very quickly).

Klemperer didn't record a complete Mahler cycle for the simple reason that he was out of sympathy with certain of the works (namely the 1st, the 3rd, the 5th and the 8th), plus he lived (just) before the age of 'complete cycle tyranny' which Haitink so abhorred.

[Barbirollians]

Bruno Walter of course also shied away from Mahler 6 .

I suppose I am thinking more of cycles that started with the intention of completion rather than where a cycle was never intended e.g Martha Argerich has , if she ever did, not played Beethoven 4 and 5 since the 1960s unlike 1-3 well 3 is a rarity but 1 and 2 are two of her favourite concertos .

[pastoralguy]

I'm not sure if Neemi Jarvi's DSCH symphony cycle was completed. What was strange was that the later symphonies were recorded with his Gothenburg Orchestra instead of the (R)SNO. Obviously, there would be some behind the scenes jiggery pokery.

Also, Hilary Hahn's debut disc was of unaccompanied Bach only consisted of three of the six works. I did ask her once if she intended to complete her cycle but she replied 'I prefer to have Bach in front of me than behind'. Maybe one day...

[Barbirollians]

I'm not sure if Neemi Jarvi's DSCH symphony cycle was completed. What was strange was that the later symphonies were recorded with his Gothenburg Orchestra instead of the (R)SNO. Obviously, there would be some behind the scenes jiggery pokery.

Also, Hilary Hahn's debut disc was of unaccompanied Bach only consisted of three of the six works. I did ask her once if she intended to complete her cycle but she replied 'I prefer to have Bach in front of me than behind'. Maybe one day...

Didn't Jarvi sign an exclusive contract with DG so that was the end of his time with Chandos and hence the Shostakovich symphony cycle ? Shame as his later Shostakovich recordings did not seem to come close to those with the SNO . 1 , 6, 9 and 10 all strike me as outstanding.

[HighlandDougie]

Klemperer didn't record a complete Mahler cycle for the simple reason that he was out of sympathy with certain of the works (namely the 1st, the 3rd, the 5th and the 8th), plus he lived (just) before the age of 'complete cycle tyranny' which Haitink so abhorred.

We've been here before quite recently. Certainly true in respect of the 3rd and the 5th but not, I think, the 8th. Although it would be easy to assume that the lack of a Klemperer/8th performance history was due to a lack of sympathy for the work on Klemperer's part, the reason, according to OK's biographer, Peter Heyworth, was, simply lack of opportunity. Mahler was assisted by Klemperer (and Oskar Fried) in his preparations for the first performance and that, alas, may have been the nearest OK every got to conducting it. Horenstein's 1959 performance was a major musical event - it was a rare performance at the time. As Heyworth puts it (and I paraphrase), by the time an opportunity might have arisen (in the 1960s Mahler boom), Klemperer was, sadly, too old.

[cloughie]

I'm not sure if Neemi Jarvi's DSCH symphony cycle was completed. What was strange was that the later symphonies were recorded with his Gothenburg Orchestra instead of the (R)SNO. Obviously, there would be some behind the scenes jiggery pokery.

Also, Hilary Hahn's debut disc was of unaccompanied Bach only consisted of three of the six works. I did ask her once if she intended to complete her cycle but she replied 'I prefer to have Bach in front of me than behind'. Maybe one day...

Jarvi started the Shost Syms with the (R)SNO on Chandos but he was also recording Sibelius with GSO on BIS. He also did a load of Grieg on DG with GSO then another Sibelius cycle on DG. Meanwhile he was recording other stuff on Chandos with the DetSO. Maybe then the Shost part cycle having been abandoned with Chandos, and a gap in his DG/GSO timetable led to completion with DG. But then Chandos did some Shostakovich Syms with Polyansky - but not finishing off where Jarvi left off and with a Russian Orchestra.

[Conchis]

We've been here before quite recently. Certainly true in respect of the 3rd and the 5th but not, I think, the 8th. Although it would be easy to assume that the lack of a Klemperer/8th performance history was due to a lack of sympathy for the work on Klemperer's part, the reason, according to OK's biographer, Peter Heyworth, was, simply lack of opportunity. Mahler was assisted by Klemperer (and Oskar Fried) in his preparations for the first performance and that, alas, may have been the nearest OK every got to conducting it. Horenstein's 1959 performance was a major musical event - it was a rare performance at the time. As Heyworth puts it (and I paraphrase), by the time an opportunity might have arisen (in the 1960s Mahler boom), Klemperer was, sadly, too old.

Thanks for that info. I've not read the Heyworth biography (it goes for silly money these days and is long oop) but I'm afraid I'd lazily assumed that Klemperer shared the popular antipathy of many conductors (notably Haitink) to Mahler 8.

[pastoralguy]

I live in hope for a George Lloyd cycle with a first class conductor and orchestra...

[Richard Barrett]

Hilary Hahn's debut disc was of unaccompanied Bach only consisted of three of the six works. I did ask her once if she intended to complete her cycle but she replied 'I prefer to have Bach in front of me than behind'. Maybe one day...

But in fact she did complete the recorded cycle, quite recently if I'm not mistaken.

Others with incomplete Mahler cycles are Kondrashin and Sinopoli. I guess the latter would have finished his if he had lived, and that Kondrashin wasn't in a position to do the big choral ones, which is a shame because the symphonies he did record are quite jaw-dropping.