Music to test your endurance

[FRJames]

A modest but enjoyable list based item I came across while browsing the net:

https://www.wqxr.org/story/november-music-test-your-endurance/

I have recordings of 1 - 5 and of these the only piece that does test my endurance is the Feldman SQ2.

Personally, I would have included Dennis Johnson's 1959 work 'November' but it's exclusion is no surprise-
sometimes when you are forgotten you stay forgotten.

[RichardB]

The only item among those that I haven't heard is the Max Richter, and I don't think I'd like it much.

[Mandryka]

Interesting that these very long pieces of music seem to be a post war thing. I don’t know if there are any early music examples - church chants which last all night, that sort of thing.

[Master Jacques]

The only item among those that I haven't heard is the Max Richter, and I don't think I'd like it much.

I'm in the same boat. Except I don't count Max Richter as music.

[Serial_Apologist]

I'm in the same boat. Except I don't count Max Richter as music.

Not even his Richter scale?

[Jonathan]

Cage's "As slow as possible" although you'd need several lifetimes to hear it all

[ahinton]

Interesting that these very long pieces of music seem to be a post war thing. I don’t know if there are any early music examples - church chants which last all night, that sort of thing.

There are several examples from Sorabji that predate 1945; also Brian's Gothic Symphony, Mahler 3, Gurrelieder and various other instances...

[edashtav]

There are several examples from Sorabji that predate 1945; also Brian's Gothic Symphony, Mahler 3, Gurrelieder and various other instances...

Does Wagner’s 19th century “Ring’ cycle not count as a piece of music: it inspired others e.g. Buckinghamshire’s Rutland Boughton [5 part Arthurian cycle] and The Cauldron of Annwn, a three evening tale from the Croydon-born, irascible malcontent, sometime named Josef Holbrooke?

[Serial_Apologist]

Does Wagner’s 19th century “Ring’ cycle not count as a piece of music: it inspired others e.g. Buckinghamshire’s Rutland Boughton [5 part Arthurian cycle] and The Cauldron
of Annwn, a three evening tale from the Croydon-born, irascible malcontent, sometime named Josef Holbrooke?

Described as "the cockney Wagner" in an article I read.

[edashtav]

Described as "the cockney Wagner" in an article I read.

Yes, indeed: his father was a London Music Hall ‘artiste’.

here is an assessment of him from The Graphic (1921)

“Josef Holbrooke, an excitable, deaf, talkative, combative musician, who lives in a solitary house in North London surrounded by ordinary Villadom, and writes there music which no one can play. It is music Wagner-like in form and Strauss-like in its intricate orchestration, almost unrecognised, except in foreign Culturedom. And Holbrooke, who composes it, is the enemy of the critics, the terror of publishers, and the intolerant hater of all that is commonplace in music. 'Holbrooke's Sauce,' they call him."

[Opinionated Knowall]

Yes, indeed: his father was a London Music Hall ‘artiste’.

here is an assessment of him from The Graphic (1921)

“Josef Holbrooke, an excitable, deaf, talkative, combative musician, who lives in a solitary house in North London surrounded by ordinary Villadom, and writes there music which no one can play. It is music Wagner-like in form and Strauss-like in its intricate orchestration, almost unrecognised, except in foreign Culturedom. And Holbrooke, who composes it, is the enemy of the critics, the terror of publishers, and the intolerant hater of all that is commonplace in music. 'Holbrooke's Sauce,' they call him."

He was the father of the very distinguished bassoonist Gwydion Brooke, for many years principal bassoon with the Philharmonia Orchestra. I have heard that he dropped the 'Hol' from his name to distance himself from his father.