Completions, reconstructions,' reimaginings' and the like

[vinteuil]

'Officium' from Jan Garbarek and the Hilliard Ensemble.

... "Get that bloody saxophone out of here, now!"





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[oliver sudden]

Berio/Boccherini

Berio’s ‘Rendering’ is also worth a mention: an unfinished Schubert symphonic movement, ‘completed’ with music that makes no attempt to sound like Schubert.

[oliver sudden]

I’m very partial to these…

https://youtu.be/riCaTB-9dDM?feature=shared

(The Pavan-as-foxtrot at 7:15 especially—as Max more or less said, one obsolete dance form interpreted as another.)

[cloughie]

Perhaps I'm trying to discover why some such 'revisions' work very well in some cases and not in others.
The score to Berwald's 2nd Symphony was lost, and a reconstruction was subsequently worked over to produce an 'urtext'.
The Berio/Boccherini and Schoenberg/Strauss have long been favourites of mine, as has 'Officium' from Jan Garbarek and the Hilliard Ensemble.
Dare I mention Julian Llloyd Webber's Paganini Variations?

Actually Andrew wrote it on losing a bet with Julian. I don’t like all o& ALW’s output but Variations is excellent and the recording employs a number of excellent prog/pop/jazz musicians alongside Julian on Cello. On the others mentioned Payne’s Symphony is rambling and unforgettable, I agree with all those conductors who decided to stick with one movement Mahler 10 and 3 mvt Bruckner 9. Oh and Schubert 8 is a two movement masterpiece. To counter all this Bach’s transcriptions for orchestra are mainly good and standvup to the treatments as do many of the orchestrations of Debussy’s piano music.

[Hitch]

The Mahler/Schnittke piano quartet is definitely worth a listen.

[Roger Webb]

Some of my favourite French chamber works are those by Ernest Chausson....Piano Trio.....Concert (piano sextet)..... Piano Quartet (his masterpiece in the genre) and the last of them, the String Qt, on which he was working on the last day of his life - he left the manuscript on his desk to cycle with his daughter to the railway station to meet his wife off the Paris train...he got no further than the end of his drive where he crashed into the gatepost, killing him instantly. The incomplete score was given to his friend Vincent d'Indy to finish.

[smittims]

Cloughie might be interested to hear that Ken Russell expressed intense dislike of the Payne Third in a conversation with Micael Kennedy, who seemed a little taken aback. I think it's an enjoyable work if one remembers that it isn't Elgar, but I'm still not sure it ought to have been done.

Two re-imaginings that have survived are Grutzmacher's 'Boccherini Cello Concerto in B flat' and Giazzotto's 'Albinoni Adagio' .One no longer hears Mozart's 'Adelaide' concerto, which was exposed as a fake, though Yehudi Menuhin liked it enough to re--record it.

Sir Thomas Beecham's Handel suites have served their purpose . I think he'd be pleased that the originals are now accepted and performed so often that his arrangements are no longer needed. I still enjoy listening to them repeatedly, for their own sake. I've never heard Max Richter's 'Seasons' and from what I've heard I'm not sure I'd want to.

[AuntDaisy]

... "Get that bloody saxophone out of here, now!"

"Officium" was in our local charity shop for £1... Tempted for a short while.

[gradus]

Some arrangements, completions etc I like, some I hate. Can't stand the wretched Loussier mucking up Bach but enjoy Derek Cooke's version of Mahler 10. I recall a particularly horrible string orchestra arrangement of Schumann's op 17 that seems, thankfully, to have disappeared.

[Roger Webb]

"Officium" was in our local charity shop for £1... Tempted for a short while.

When I ran my CD shop there were just one or two recordings that were banned from being played, ECM's 'Officium' was one such.

In spite of my being a big fan of the label - in fact I'm playing Mats Eilertsen right now - and the fact that its sales (along with Jackie Du Pré's Elgar) made a big contribution to paying off my mortgage! I just couldn't stand to hear it....and still can't.

ECMs at the time were the most expensive label I carried....when most CDs sold for £12.99, ECMs sold for £16.99 (more in other shops in town, £18.99 in Virgin), so £1 represents good value for money, from that point of view......but oh, that sax, why?!

[LMcD]

The Elgar family authorized Anthony Payne to produce a 'Third Symphony' in the hope of fending off something of which they might not approve. To his credit, I don't think Payne ever described it as such and discouraged others from doing so.

[Pulcinella]

I'm certainly no fan of reimaginings such as Anna Lapwood's Four Sea Interludes on the organ (Why? There's so much organ music that doesn't get a decent airing!) but I know others of this parish thought highly of that particular one.

[Roger Webb]

I'm certainly no fan of reimaginings such as Anna Lapwood's Four Sea Interludes on the organ (Why? There's so much organ music that doesn't get a decent airing!) but I know others of this parish thought highly of that particular one.

Re-imaginings of works for one or more squeeze-boxes is my particular bête noire lately, Rite of Spring comes to mind.

[Pulcinella]

That said, this new release looks interesting:

https://www.prestomusic.com/classical/products/9623024--brahms-reimagined-orchestrations

[cloughie]

I'm certainly no fan of reimaginings such as Anna Lapwood's Four Sea Interludes on the organ (Why? There's so much organ music that doesn't get a decent airing!) but I know others of this parish thought highly of that particular one.

I really like Anna’s Sea Interludes - I think they adapt to Organ very well.

I really hate the term reimagining, along with the way curating is used these days it seems to me the English language is being sadly abused.