Eduard Tubin - Getting started on a new composer

[Chris Newman]

Several members (Waldhorn and Roehre included) have asked me to begin a thread on Eduard Tubin. I have deliberately put it on the Composer of the Week forum to gently prod Donald Macleod to make up for the missing programmes. To the best of my knowledge Eduard Tubin has never featured on Composer of the Week and his music rarely gets played in Britain. Until yesterday I had never heard any of his music. Then listening to a Paarvo Jaarvi Nielsen 5 on Arte Live I heard a bit of Tubin's First Symphony and fell in love. Now I am listening thanks to YouTube to Violin Concerto No. 1 (1941-42) played by Mark Lubotsky, violin and the Gothenburg Symphony Orchestra conducted by Neeme Järvi. I chose this as it is one of his few complete works on YouTube.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oNKhuyAXGTk&feature=related

It is very beautiful. Opens like Brahms First Symphony and Beethoven VC with the timps and becomes rhapsodic like RVW and Tippett. Please tell me what to listen to next and tell me anything useful about this composer.

[mercia]

http://www.tubinsociety.com/index.php?id=36

[Bryn]

It is quite wrong to suggest that Radio 3 totally ignores Tubin. Why, as recently as the 28th January 2007 the broadcast his Sonata in the Phrygian Mode on TtN.

[Chris Newman]

It is quite wrong to suggest that Radio 3 totally ignores Tubin. Why, as recently as the 28th January 2007 the broadcast his Sonata in the Phrygian Mode on TtN.

I do not think I suggested that R3 totally ignores Tubin, Bryn. I merely mentioned the shortage of performances of his works in Britain. Anyway, I very rarely hear TtN as I am tucked up warm and asleep trying to recover my youthfulness.

[Bryn]

I do not think I suggested that R3 totally ignores Tubin, Bryn. I merely mentioned the shortage of performances of his works in Britain. Anyway, I very rarely hear TtN as I am tucked up warm and asleep trying to recover my youthfulness.

I fear you may have failed to pick up on the allusion to irony indicated by the "". I entered the one word "Tubin" into the search facility on the Radio 3 home page. The 2007 TtN broadcast was the sole result.

May I commend to you the BIS survey of Tubin's symphonies. On amazon.co.uk it had dropped somewhat in price since I bought it last year.

Looking more closely, I was being unfair. It appears that his Ave Maria and Ballade for violin & orchestra were broadcast on Radio 3 in earlier years.

[Roehre]

Nevertheless Tubin's 3rd symphony "Heroic" featured on a BBC MM CD, "Baltic Voyage: Heroic Symphonies from Estonia" (Vol.10 no.2, BBC MM210, 2001, coupled with Villem Kapp's 2nd symphony and Pärt's Cantus in Memoriam Benjamin Britten).
So, he is not completely ignored .

[PatrickOD]

Good idea Chris.
Some years ago it was Pianopeter, I think, who started a very enthusiastic thread on Eduard Tubin. So much so that I bought the 5-disc set referred to by Bryn. The reviews on the MB were mixed, short of the enthusiasm generated, but not by any means dismissive, IIRC. I for one would very much welcome a CotW. I found the Symphonies impressive, but I'm afraid I have not listened to them lately. I have on Symphony No 1 now - lots of brass and timps - yes, impressive!

[Chris Newman]

I fear you may have failed to pick up on the allusion to irony indicated by the "".

I did, sorry.

May I commend to you the BIS survey of Tubin's symphonies. On amazon.co.uk it had dropped somewhat in price since I bought it last year.

You may.Thanks, Bryn. It looks like they will give me a good start. Yet more debt, though.

[Chris Newman]

I have just ordered a second hand Neeme Jaarvi/Tubin Symphonies set from a supplier I use regularly through the River People. With my £10 saving I was able to include Hilary Hahn's Schonberg/Sibelius concerti disc and Jean-Guihen Queyras playing the Dvorak Cello Concerto with Jiri B, all for £19.99. I am very happy. all around.

[Tony Halstead]

"Jean-Guihen Queyras playing the Dvorak Cello Concerto with Jiri B, "

Well-done, Chris, that is a wonderful performance and a superb bonus to the Hahn Schoenberg.

[french frank]

It is quite wrong to suggest that Radio 3 totally ignores Tubin. Why, as recently as the 28th January 2007 the broadcast his Sonata in the Phrygian Mode on TtN.

Your googling skills OTOH failed you here, Bryn. Suzy Klein began a Sunday Morning with Tubin's Prélude solennel (1940), Gothenberg Symphony Orchestra, Neeme Järvi BIS CD 286 on Feb 20th 2011 (and ended it with Charles Trenet ...).

In Tune had Three Preludes (1928, Prelude No. 1) played live by Bengt Forsberg on Sept 23rd 2010

TtN also played the Sonata for violin and piano in the Phrygian Mode on 3rd June 2010 and 7th November 2010 (among several other dates, no doubt).

Oh, dear, so many broadcasts of Tubin ...

[Bryn]

'twas not Googling, Frenchie. As I mentioned, it was the BBC site's own (rather poor) search facility.

[Suffolkcoastal]

Pianopeter and I were both keen advocates of Tubin on the old R3 mb thread. It was R3 that actually introduced me to Tubin 20 years ago when they played his 4th symphony, still one of my very favourite symphonies. Tubin's style isn't quite like anyone elses, you think for a moment that it reminds you of another composer, then when you listen more closely you discover how individual he really is. The symphonies are wonderful and as I mentioned on the Nielsen thread the 1st Violin Concerto and Double Bass Concertos are very fine and there is also a Balalaika Concerto and the curious Requiem for Fallen Soldiers. The Tubin Society website is useful too and he also has a Facebook page. I think there have been 2 or 3 bits of Tubin broadcast so far this year on R3 (I'll check tomorrow), but little more than that is now broadcast yearly by R3. He suffers along with Holmboe and many other very fine 20th century composers in being largely sidelined by the current R3 regime. Yes the Sonata in the Phrygian Mode's appearances on TtN makes up the majority of his broadcast works in recent years.

Have just checked and there were 5 pieces in 2009, 6 last year and just 2 so far this year!

[Curalach]

As Suffolkcoastal says, Tubin has a distinctive style and voice of his own, which he certainly put to good use in his canon of Symphonies. I too discussed this composer with Pianopeter on the old boards. I first got to know his work in the mid 80s when I became friendly with Neeme Järvi. It would have been impossible to resist Neeme's enthusiasm. Having said that, although I have all the Järvi family discs, I am not sure that I have ever heard a live performance. In this respect R3 is no worse than the UKs concert promoters.

[french frank]

'twas not Googling, Frenchie. As I mentioned, it was the BBC site's own (rather poor) search facility.

It is poor, Bryn, which is why I usually prefer to google == BBC "Radio 3" Subject == . Even that's inferior to Suffolkcoastal's spreadsheet

Hope I get a reply from the programme about the CotW request ...