The 2020 Survey of Classical Music on Radio 3

[Bryn]

Thanks - that would explain why I haven’t heard that many . A ten minute ‘symphony’ - perfect for a magazine programme but does it contravene the trade descriptions act?

I only know a few of John White's 25 Symphonies. Of those I am familiar with, none is over 10 minutes long. Earlier symphonies of similar duration are to be found among those of G B Sammartini.

[Bryn]

#64 - Still, W G - the highest ranked composer I’d never heard of.

Well done Mr Still: William Grant Still Jr., 11/5/1895 – 3/12/1978. 5 symphonies, 9 operas, nearly 200 works in all. A remarkable story.

Composer of the Week during 2019 and again a few months ago: https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/m0002cbc

Not to be confused with the Eton Still, Robert: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Robert_Still

[Serial_Apologist]

I only know a few of John White's 25 Symphonies. Of those I am familiar with, none is over 10 minutes long. Earlier symphonies of similar duration are to be found among those of G B Sammartini.

Or, as Webern might have said, it is surprising how much one can say symphonically in ten minutes.

[Serial_Apologist]

Composer of the Week during 2019 and again a few months ago: https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/m0002cbc

Not to be confused with the Eton Still, Robert: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Robert_Still

I have only ever heard one of the symphonies by the Eton distillery, and that was back in 1967, on a Radio 3 broadcast taped by me dad. A fine work, rather Rawsthornean in character.

[french frank]

Curious the number of composers who only managed one single broadcast. I'd have thought if they deserved airtime at all, they deserved more than one outing in 10 years. I see even old smittims' favourite, Bernard van Dieren, only had a single outing. And Rawsthorne only one?

[Suffolkcoastal]

Rawsthorne is certainly one composer who has largely been ignored in recent years by R3. A total of 31 pieces/chunks in the last 12 years, and a majority of these being film scores.

[french frank]

Rawsthorne is certainly one composer who has largely been ignored in recent years by R3. A total of 31 pieces/chunks in the last 12 years, and a majority of these being film scores.

Well, not for the first time, let this forum step in to remedy Radio 3's shortcomings:

No 1

No 2 A Pastoral Symphony

No 3

[Bryn]

Well, not for the first time, let this forum step in to remedy Radio 3's shortcomings:

No 1

No 2 A Pastoral Symphony

No 3

Not forgetting his Symphonic Studies:

[Serial_Apologist]

Rawsthorne was one of that post-Vaughan Williams generation who fell to some extent under the influence of Hindemith - Arnold Cooke, Franz Reisenstein, Walton and, yes, even Tippett were, likewise. For English composers (especially) unwilling to go the whole hog down the Second Viennese School route to 12-tonery Hindemith represented one way of re-establishing a leading principle for tonality as a kind of safety net. As such the music of these part-heirs was as modernistically "safe" as a 1930s semi in Liverpool, Birmingham or Romford to an apologist for Voysey, not in the least ways entertaining of the "excitement" elicited by the postwar arts as represented by Hepworth or, dare I say, Britten (when Lutyens (composer, not architect!) or Searle (composer, not cartoonist!) would have provided a better comparator to Hemel Hempstead or Harlow New Town. These are some of the reasons why the likes of Rawsthorne and, before him, Hindemith were and remain relatively ignored. And not, by the way, due to Rawsthorne's Communist sympathies: how would you recognise those amid the upright "Britishness" of "Street Corner", which represented his most public face? For some he would have been to respectable, too old-fashioned, a compromiser; for others too modern. All considerations condemned to the sweeper in the 1960s.

[french frank]

Good résumé, S_A. Ta

(And Bryn. Wasn't sure whether to include the SSs.)

[Leinster Lass]

I have 7 CDs devoted solely to music by Rawsthorne and others on which he features. I think the Cello Concerto is a particularly fine work. I wonder how many people know that there's more than one Pastoral Symphony?

[Serial_Apologist]

I have 7 CDs devoted solely to music by Rawsthorne and others on which he features. I think the Cello Concerto is a particularly fine work. I wonder how many people know that there's more than one Pastoral Symphony?

Yes... Beethoven... Vaughan Williams...

[jayne lee wilson]

I have 7 CDs devoted solely to music by Rawsthorne and others on which he features. I think the Cello Concerto is a particularly fine work. I wonder how many people know that there's more than one Pastoral Symphony?

Not to mention Glazunov's 7th, part of Handel's Messiah, and those that weren't actually named "Pastoral" e.g. Bruckner 2, Brahms 2, Dvorak 6, Nielsen 3, Magnard 2.....

[silvestrione]

Rawsthorne was one of that post-Vaughan Williams generation who fell to some extent under the influence of Hindemith - Arnold Cooke, Franz Reisenstein, Walton and, yes, even Tippett were, likewise. For English composers (especially) unwilling to go the whole hog down the Second Viennese School route to 12-tonery Hindemith represented one way of re-establishing a leading principle for tonality as a kind of safety net. As such the music of these part-heirs was as modernistically "safe" as a 1930s semi in Liverpool, Birmingham or Romford to an apologist for Voysey, not in the least ways entertaining of the "excitement" elicited by the postwar arts as represented by Hepworth or, dare I say, Britten (when Lutyens (composer, not architect!) or Searle (composer, not cartoonist!) would have provided a better comparator to Hemel Hempstead or Harlow New Town. These are some of the reasons why the likes of Rawsthorne and, before him, Hindemith were and remain relatively ignored. And not, by the way, due to Rawsthorne's Communist sympathies: how would you recognise those amid the upright "Britishness" of "Street Corner", which represented his most public face? For some he would have been to respectable, too old-fashioned, a compromiser; for others too modern. All considerations condemned to the sweeper in the 1960s.

Communist sympathies? Rawsthorne as well? You're not thinking of Alan Bush are you...

[Edgy 2]

I have 7 CDs devoted solely to music by Rawsthorne and others on which he features. I think the Cello Concerto is a particularly fine work. I wonder how many people know that there's more than one Pastoral Symphony?

Well in a previous life on here I got slated for expressimg my opinion that Rawsthorne wrote the 2nd best Pastoral Symphony of all time (with RVW in 1st place)