What compositions and performances are not on disc that you would like to be on disc?

[Barbirollians]

Zukerman and Du Pre playing the Brahms Double Concerto at the height of their powers . I read an article a few years back in which Barenboim lamented it had not been recorded .

I second the Ferrier Abraham and Isaac , though with Ferrier where would one stop - the missing two Ruckert Lieder , a Mahler 2 with Bruno Walter or Barbirolli , Mahler 3 with Barbirolli , a complete Messiah etc

[Richard Barrett]

While the work of many 20th/21st century composers has been recorded in its entirety (Stockhausen, Boulez, Messiaen, Barraqué, Ligeti) or almost (Nono, Feldman, Cage), there are others whose recorded oeuvre still has major gaps, like Kagel, Xenakis, Berio (Outis for example, or La Vera Storia), Ferneyhough (the orchestral pieces to name only these) or Henze (We come to the River and several other operas), and still others whose work is highly underrecorded - Bussotti, Globokar, Finnissy, Hespos... of course this kind of thing was never much of a commercial proposition, and these days it's even less of one, and it seems to me that the situation requires some serious rethinking of the rules around things like licensing of broadcast recordings, which is often more than small labels can afford (let alone individuals) and at the same time peanuts compared to the sums otherwise thrown around by broadcasting organisations. The BBC is sitting on thousands of studio recordings made for "Music in Our Time" back in the day, and Invitation Concerts at BH and Maida Vale, to name only London events, and the same goes for all the other major European broadcasters.

[Colonel Danby]

I'm still holding out for a complete cycle of the Beethoven String Quartets on period instruments, ideally the Salomon String Quartet on Hyperion, although I'm not sure that band still exists, given the loss of two of its members. Micaela Comberti was a marvellous performer, and will be continued to be missed by everybody in the musical community.

[ferneyhoughgeliebte]

I'm still holding out for a complete cycle of the Beethoven String Quartets on period instruments, ideally the Salomon String Quartet on Hyperion, although I'm not sure that band still exists, given the loss of two of its members. Micaela Comberti was a marvellous performer, and will be continued to be missed by everybody in the musical community.

Sadly, only Simon Standage is still alive - Jenny Ward-Clarke and Trevor Jones both died within weeks of each other in 2015. I, too, would have treasured a Beethoven cycle from them.

[vinteuil]

I'm still holding out for a complete cycle of the Beethoven String Quartets on period instruments...

... yes!

And I would love a really good Historically Informed / period instrument Ring.

And a complete cycle of Schumann piano works on pianos of the period - this might persuade me to appreciate Schumann more than I do at the moment...





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[Bryn]

Sadly, only Simon Standage is still alive - Jenny Ward-Clarke and Trevor Jones both died within weeks of each other in 2015. I, too, would have treasured a Beethoven cycle from them.

I very much hope the Eroica Quartet goes on to record the whole set. Then there are the London Haydn and Chiaroscuro Quartets, both fine period ensembles.

[teamsaint]

While the work of many 20th/21st century composers has been recorded in its entirety (Stockhausen, Boulez, Messiaen, Barraqué, Ligeti) or almost (Nono, Feldman, Cage), there are others whose recorded oeuvre still has major gaps, like Kagel, Xenakis, Berio (Outis for example, or La Vera Storia), Ferneyhough (the orchestral pieces to name only these) or Henze (We come to the River and several other operas), and still others whose work is highly underrecorded - Bussotti, Globokar, Finnissy, Hespos... of course this kind of thing was never much of a commercial proposition, and these days it's even less of one, and it seems to me that the situation requires some serious rethinking of the rules around things like licensing of broadcast recordings, which is often more than small labels can afford (let alone individuals) and at the same time peanuts compared to the sums otherwise thrown around by broadcasting organisations. The BBC is sitting on thousands of studio recordings made for "Music in Our Time" back in the day, and Invitation Concerts at BH and Maida Vale, to name only London events, and the same goes for all the other major European broadcasters.

I'd be interested ( from a tangental professional POV really, if that is a thing) to know what typical costs would be for performance rights on either unrecorded or recorded works, and the sort sums required by a major orchestra, for example, to release something on license. ( Sorry , probably got my terminology all wrong there !).

the reason I ask is that in our publishing business, although publishing new books is critical, over the longer term keeping our backlist in print, and actually expanding that list to get old titles available again, is critical to profitability. Also of course this is good news for authors and readers.
One of the benefits of modern technology is that there are more, and more flexible ways of doing this, (e-book, short run reprint if various types) many of which don't involve heavy cash outlay.

[Richard Barrett]

I'd be interested ( from a tangental professional POV really, if that is a thing) to know what typical costs would be for performance rights on either unrecorded or recorded works, and the sort sums required by a major orchestra, for example, to release something on license. ( Sorry , probably got my terminology all wrong there !).

I'm not really sure what you're asking there. I was talking about the sums charged by broadcasting organisations to license recordings they've made to CD labels for release. These will depend on how much cash the CD label can be expected to make out of releasing the material in question, but my point was that the sums are trivial compared to what that same corporation would charge to license for example a popular TV series for broadcast in another country, while being unaffordable for small labels, or for individuals who would like to give a recording more public longevity than one or two broadcasts.

[cloughie]

While the work of many 20th/21st century composers has been recorded in its entirety (Stockhausen, Boulez, Messiaen, Barraqué, Ligeti) or almost (Nono, Feldman, Cage), there are others whose recorded oeuvre still has major gaps, like Kagel, Xenakis, Berio (Outis for example, or La Vera Storia), Ferneyhough (the orchestral pieces to name only these) or Henze (We come to the River and several other operas), and still others whose work is highly underrecorded - Bussotti, Globokar, Finnissy, Hespos... of course this kind of thing was never much of a commercial proposition, and these days it's even less of one, and it seems to me that the situation requires some serious rethinking of the rules around things like licensing of broadcast recordings, which is often more than small labels can afford (let alone individuals) and at the same time peanuts compared to the sums otherwise thrown around by broadcasting organisations. The BBC is sitting on thousands of studio recordings made for "Music in Our Time" back in the day, and Invitation Concerts at BH and Maida Vale, to name only London events, and the same goes for all the other major European broadcasters.

Are they really sitting on them or have they been wiped. I do wonder about how many live recordings are not kept. In this commercial world we now live in I am sure that someone would have used them if they still exist - suspicious, moi?

[teamsaint]

I'm not really sure what you're asking there. I was talking about the sums charged by broadcasting organisations to license recordings they've made to CD labels for release. These will depend on how much cash the CD label can be expected to make out of releasing the material in question, but my point was that the sums are trivial compared to what that same corporation would charge to license for example a popular TV series for broadcast in another country, while being unaffordable for small labels, or for individuals who would like to give a recording more public longevity than one or two broadcasts.

Sorry my post got a bit garbled ,as I am doing some actual work at the same time !!

[Eine Alpensinfonie]

... yes!

And I would love a really good Historically Informed / period instrument Ring.

Do you remember the OAL/Rattle Das Rheingold at the Proms a few years ago?

[aeolium]

One corpus of music that I would like to hear explored more on disc is the symphonies of Anton Reicha. While not in the Premier League of composers his music is eminently listenable to. He was a close friend of Beethoven and is best known nowadays for his large number of Wind Quintets.

The situation with Reicha's symphonies is, quite simply, a mess. No one seems to know exactly how many he composed. Wikipedia lists 12 of them but there could be others. There is also no consistent numbering system for their easy identification. The best known on CD is the Symphony in E Flat Op.41 but only a handful of others have been recorded.

Reicha has not had the same advantage as several other composers of his era in having a Robbins Landon type figure to sort the whole problem out.

Thanks for bringing up Reicha's name. What I've heard of his chamber music, not just the wind quintets but also music for solo wind instruments and strings, suggests to me that more of his music deserves to be recorded and better known. As well as the problem you mention with the symphonies, there is I think still work to be done with his string quartets of which he wrote over 20. The American writer Ron Drummond who described how bad the situation was at the turn of the century - see this article - did a lot of work to locate, bring together and prepare Reicha quartet scores for performance and now there are a number of recordings.

Some of this was partly Reicha's fault - he just could not be bothered with the hassle of getting his work published and more widely known. He also suffered as other contemporaries like Méhul did from living in the giant shadow of Beethoven. Interestingly in his later life in Paris, both Berlioz and Franck studied with him.

[vinteuil]

Do you remember the OAL/Rattle Das Rheingold at the Proms a few years ago?

... I do indeed - I was there, and did enjoy it.

Such a shame that the Proms organizers weren't brave enough to use period forces for the rest of the tetralogy - a lost opportunity

[Serial_Apologist]

While the work of many 20th/21st century composers has been recorded in its entirety (Stockhausen, Boulez, Messiaen, Barraqué, Ligeti) or almost (Nono, Feldman, Cage), there are others whose recorded oeuvre still has major gaps, like Kagel, Xenakis, Berio (Outis for example, or La Vera Storia), Ferneyhough (the orchestral pieces to name only these) or Henze (We come to the River and several other operas), and still others whose work is highly underrecorded - Bussotti, Globokar, Finnissy, Hespos... of course this kind of thing was never much of a commercial proposition, and these days it's even less of one, and it seems to me that the situation requires some serious rethinking of the rules around things like licensing of broadcast recordings, which is often more than small labels can afford (let alone individuals) and at the same time peanuts compared to the sums otherwise thrown around by broadcasting organisations. The BBC is sitting on thousands of studio recordings made for "Music in Our Time" back in the day, and Invitation Concerts at BH and Maida Vale, to name only London events, and the same goes for all the other major European broadcasters.

This has affected quite a few jazz musicians where some of what I and others judge to have been among their best recorded work was on broadcasts which they (and I) might well have on tape (the Beeb would send performers a cassette in the old days), though some (no names) seem to have got around the problem somehow, and we have the CDs.

[Richard Barrett]

Thanks for bringing up Reicha's name.

A friend of mine recently did his PhD on Reicha's work so, knowing my tastes, he started me off with the 36 Fugues for piano, which contains some of the strangest as well as some of the most ingenious examples of that genre that I've ever come across. I guess he would suffer in comparison with Beethoven in areas like expressive immediacy, but that really misses the point of his intricate and introverted music. I would very much like to hear anything he wrote for orchestra or string quartet, since wind quintets in general don't do much for me and this seems to be the part of his work which is best served by recordings.

S_A, one way to get around that problem, I understand, is to make a parallel recording of your own* during the session or concert and release that.

*(or claim to have done)