I just don't like the noise it makes.... (those 'blind spot' pieces)

[Roehre]

Having got to know much of the music that Bruckner wrote for the finale via the 1985 Chandos recording (an ex-review copy of the cassette version of which I got from Steve's Sounds in that year), a more comprehensive completion is something I have hoped for for many a year. I thought the earlier Samale et al completins used by Wildner (New Philharmonic Orchestra of Westphalia, on Naxos - a very fine performance and recording) and Harding (Swedish RSO, broadcast Radio 3) were each a great improvement on having just the three movements 'completed' (would they have remained in the form they were left in had Bruckner lives a year or so longer?). With the extra material discovered shortly after Harding's performance, his former teacher was able to trump his student. I recall that Rob Cowan was most impressed with Carragan's 2010 revision of his completion, and a performance with that following the completed three is, to me, also preferable to leaving the work hanging at the end of the third movement. There is so much good music Bruckner composed for the finale, and the Samale/Mazzuca/Phillips/Cohrs team have done a great service to the composer's final compositional thoughts in putting it together so convincingly.

From the Bruckner 9 with Finale thread:

since the first two recordings (almost simultaneously, 1985) of the Carraghan (first) completion (the Chandos also including the full score in Bruckner's hand, THAT shows how far AB had prepared a score of the finale already) , I don't like the unfinished 3-mvt work. It is interesting however to see how Carraghan as well as Samale/etc have developed their views on completing the piece.

I don't like the blabla regarding the heavenly sound of the end of the adagio as being AB's farewell to earth and his acceptance of ascending to heaven either. It's simply an incorrect assumption. At the day of his death AB was still working on the finale. The work was conceived as a 4-mvt-structure, so let it be performed as such, either in a completion, or in the incomplete form as AB left it, stopping mid-air where that Parsifal trumpet melody starts. THAT would do justice to the work and the composer.

That it disappoints some people in their expectations: then the expectations were obviously too high I'm afraid.

[Belgrove]

Agree wholeheartedly with Jayne, I regard the 10th up there with best of all symphonies, let alone those of Mahler. It is ultimately so affirmative for all its valedictory tone. By contrast my blind spot is Mahler 2. I just do not get it and despite hearing many versions (as enthusiastically recommended on these boards), it does not move me at all.

[Hornspieler]

Agree wholeheartedly with Jayne, I regard the 10th up there with best of all symphonies, let alone those of Mahler. It is ultimately so affirmative for all its valedictory tone. By contrast my blind spot is Mahler 2. I just do not get it and despite hearing many versions (as enthusiastically recommended on these boards), it does not move me at all.

My own interest in Mahler's symphonies ends with Nº 7. The 8th, 9th and "Song of the Earth" have no appeal for me.

With Bruckner, I have the complete range of symphonies from 0 to 9 on CD. Some are tediously repetitve in the scherzo movements, but a little discreet editing circumvents that particular annoyance.

If you enjoy Deryck Cooke's interpretation of Mahler's intentions for a 10th symphony, why not enjoy it and don't worry about who actually wrote it?

HS

[Lento]

Well I'll be John McEnroed! You posted this a day late surely.

Re: Elgar/Payne Symphony No 3: "it's great, isn't it?"

See previous comments by Kea and Roehre: if echt Elgar is not someone's "cup of tea", why not try something a bit different? OK, I didn't mean "great" in the "Beethoven 5/Bruckner 7" sense, but I am glad we have the piece and don't feel that it is the basket case that comments by you and others seem to imply. The "best elgarian moments" referred to this symphony, not his entire oeuvre!

[Serial_Apologist]

Still off topic, nobody in other areas of music seems to have the slightest artistic issue with re using, adapting, finishing, re recording, sampling , finishing, embellishing or otherwise changing other people's music. In Jazz its pretty much staple stuff I would guess.
The end Justifying the means .

IMO, somebody could make a fortune adapting Schubert Lieder for a Radio 2/2.5 audience .(not that this would necessarily be a good thing. or bad. Depends.....)

(tin hat on....)

Since the term is in frequent use here, jazz has a different "performance tradition" from classical music. Or most other musics, for that matter. In jazz - well, the straight-ahead stuff most familiar to most people - it's less the materials than what you do with them that matters - improvisation (for the sake of this context) being analogous with the "development section" of a classical sonata form movement, perhaps...

Er... can I borrow that tin hat, TS?

[edashtav]

Composer has a Blind Spot for All Music

COMPOSER WHO DISLIKES MUSIC

From the Evening Telegraph 17.05.1928

ONLY KNOWS ONE NOTE

A Liverpool man who has not the slightest technical knowledge has composed a waltz which has been accepted by a firm of music publishers in London.

This uncommon genius is Mr Thomas Morgan. He has had no musical education, he cannot play the piano except to pick out with one finger a melody, he is not descended from music-loving parents, and he does not like music at all!

The only note he knows, he told a reporter, is middle C, and as for time, his knowledge is limited to counting “three” for waltz time and “four for common time.”

“I get a melody running through my head,” he said in an interview, “and until I put that tune on paper, I get no peace, for it rings in my ears incessantly.

“The great difficulty, of course, is to put the notes on paper when I don’t know where to put them, so I merely start anywhere on the stave and calculate my notes from middle C.

“For instance, if the tune goes two notes above C, then I place my first note on the first line of the stave, and my next note would go on the next line, with a space between.”

It sounded somewhat complicated, but whatever his method, Mr Morgan has certainly created some original melodies, and is at present busy on several more dance tunes which are eagerly awaited by his publishers.

[teamsaint]

Since the term is is frequent use here, jazz has a different "performance tradition" from classical music. Or most other musics, for that matter. In jazz - well, the straight-ahead stuff most familiar to most people - it's less the materials than what you do with them that matters - improvisation (for the sake of this context) being analogous with the "development section" of a classical sonata form movement, perhaps...

Er... can I borrow that tin hat, TS?

With pleasure.....It's full of holes......and not the only thing round here in that state .

I just knew I shouldn't mention Jazz.....

[cloughie]

Re: Elgar/Payne Symphony No 3: "it's great, isn't it?"

See previous comments by Kea and Roehre: if echt Elgar is not someone's "cup of tea", why not try something a bit different? OK, I didn't mean "great" in the "Beethoven 5/Bruckner 7" sense, but I am glad we have the piece and don't feel that it is the basket case that comments by you and others seem to imply. The "best elgarian moments" referred to this symphony, not his entire oeuvre!

Probably not a bad work in itself but I think it no where near the equal to Syms 1 and 2. I do feel it rambles on a bit! Maybe I think it should have been called Payne's Symphony on ideas by Elgar, rather than Elgar Sym 3.

[cloughie]

With pleasure.....It's full of holes......and not the only thing round here in that state .

I just knew I shouldn't mention Jazz.....

Yes ts there are inherent dangers in rattling the jazz cognoscenti's cage - nearly as dangerous as mentioning Macca to GG! Whatever you do don't mention improvisation and noodling in the same phrase! Oh and there are all those things you'll never understand about jass!

[verismissimo]

...

IMO, somebody could make a fortune adapting Schubert Lieder for a Radio 2/2.5 audience .(not that this would necessarily be a good thing. or bad. Depends.....)

(tin hat on....)

That would be Das Dreimaederlhaus, ts, a singspiel made from Schubert by Heinrich Berte, premiered in Vienna in 1916 and then re-adapted for London by the Aussie GH Clutsam as Lilac Time in 1922. Very successful in its day!

Blossom Time movie of 1934 with Richard Tauber.

[Roehre]

That would be Das Dreimaederlhaus, ts, a singspiel made from Schubert by Heinrich Berte, premiered in Vienna in 1916 and then re-adapted for London by the Aussie GH Clutsam as Lilac Time in 1922. Very successful in its day!

Blossom Time movie of 1934 with Richard Tauber.

A pity that it hasn't been revived the last thirty years or so. Not even a recentish recording readily available.
It's great music with a nice sugary story attached to it, and it is enjoyable throughout. Not for purists, I'm afraid, but based on the same principles as we've got Rossini and Handel operas , and who does complain about the Matinées musicales or the Soirées musicales by one Benjamin Britten?

[Suffolkcoastal]

A few blind spots:

Mahler: The Song of the Earth, Symphonies 2, 3, 5, 7 & 8
Britten: The Golden Vanity, Childrens Crusade, Owen Wingrave, The Prodigal Son
Elgar: The Dream of Gerontius
Stravinsky: Persephone, Abraham and Isaac
Most Bellini
W A Mozart: Cosi Fan Tutte
Handel Operas
Bizet: Carmen
Faure: Requiem
Berlioz: Requiem
Shapero: Symphony for Classical Orchestra
most Birtwistle, Turnage and Colin Matthews

[Barbirollians]

A few blind spots:

Mahler: The Song of the Earth, Symphonies 2, 3, 5, 7 & 8
Britten: The Golden Vanity, Childrens Crusade, Owen Wingrave, The Prodigal Son
Elgar: The Dream of Gerontius
Stravinsky: Persephone, Abraham and Isaac
Most Bellini
W A Mozart: Cosi Fan Tutte
Handel Operas
Bizet: Carmen
Faure: Requiem
Berlioz: Requiem
Shapero: Symphony for Classical Orchestra
most Birtwistle, Turnage and Colin Matthews

I agree with Handel operas and Birtwhistle , the four Britten pieces and those two Stravinsky works ( no idea about Shapero !)-

[Lento]

Probably not a bad work in itself but I think it no where near the equal to Syms 1 and 2. I do feel it rambles on a bit!

Re: Elgar/Payne Symphony no 3

I would have to agree that is does feel a little over-extended in places. Whether this is due to a shortage of material from the sketches I wouldn't know. My personal favourite is Elgar 1, the return of the opening theme at the end of the finale being worth the price of admission alone - pity the poor violins!

[Hornspieler]

Re: Elgar/Payne Symphony no 3

I would have to agree that is does feel a little over-extended in places. Whether this is due to a shortage of material from the sketches I wouldn't know. My personal favourite is Elgar 1, the return of the opening theme at the end of the finale being worth the price of admission alone - pity the poor violins!

HS