Martin, Frank (1890 - 1974)

[Roehre]

..... But Frank Martin; I have one solitary CD of his work;

Concerto for 7 wind instruments, Percussion and Harp
Studies for String Orchestra
Erasmi monumentum

LPO, Mathias Bamert....

Bamert made another 3 or 4 CDs with Martin's music for Chandos, i.a. one with the Symphony, one with all the Ballades, and CDs with the Tryptichon and fragments from Der Sturm.
The 1945 peace cantata In Terra Pax, with the violin concerto, the concerto for 7 winds, the Passacaglia (string-version) and the symphonie concertante are on a Decca budget double-CD.

[HighlandDougie]

If one likes to define his output, then I'd say Swiss/Dutch protestant economy with French clarity and Germanic profoundness.

As others have said but I'll say it again, a perfect encapsulation of this at times elusive but deeply rewarding composer. Reading a description of him as, "beige" almost had me demanding pistols at dawn. No, not in any sense "beige". As with the music of Michael Tippett, I've loved Frank Martin's music since I was a teenager, having bought the Westminster Desarzens recording of "Le Vin Herbé" in a long-gone second-hand record shop in Glasgow for, I think, 12/6d without knowing anything at all about it. Since then, I have collected a good number of his works on record and on CD. To the lists of SC and Roehre, I would add the "Six Monologues from Jedermann" (Fischer-Dieskau and others, notably for me Martin Egel) and also his Violin Concerto, of which there is a fine modern recording by Michael Erxleben as an adjunct to the Wolfgang Schneiderhan/Ernest Ansermet recording from 1955 (now happily available again in the Universal Ansermet French Music box). I don't suppose that his music will ever enjoy wide popular appeal but it is well worth exploring. As with Tippett - and with apologies for sounding gushy - it speaks to me in a very personal way.

[makropulos]

I'm very fond of Frank Martin's music and have quite a lot of it. There's a certain sobriety, but also a wonderful ear for delicate or unusual colours.
One piece that I'd say is hugely worth exploring is his opera based on Shakespeare's Tempest ("Der Sturm"). There's a complete recording on Hyperion (previously Martin himself recorded the overture and a couple of songs with DF-D - an LP I picked up as an undergraduate that really excited me about FM's music.) I'm less enamoured of "Le vin herbé" - which is just too sombre for my liking, though that certainly has its admirers too.

[Roslynmuse]

I had an enthusiastic phase some years back but haven't revisited many pieces since. The Jedermann monologues were probably my favourites, as well as an orchestral sequence entitled Les quatre éléments. On a much smaller scale, there are Trois chants de Noël for soprano, flute and piano which are lovely. The flute ballade is a deeply disturbing piece - in a good performance it can be terrifying - so much is just slightly out of kilter - tonality, phrase lengths, rhythm - there is always a sense of something nasty lurking in the shadows - quite remarkable in a short (7 - 8 minute) piece for flute and piano (which is the version I know; there is another version for flute, piano and strings).

[Serial_Apologist]

I had an enthusiastic phase some years back but haven't revisited many pieces since. The Jedermann monologues were probably my favourites, as well as an orchestral sequence entitled Les quatre éléments. On a much smaller scale, there are Trois chants de Noël for soprano, flute and piano which are lovely. The flute ballade is a deeply disturbing piece - in a good performance it can be terrifying - so much is just slightly out of kilter - tonality, phrase lengths, rhythm - there is always a sense of something nasty lurking in the shadows - quite remarkable in a short (7 - 8 minute) piece for flute and piano (which is the version I know; there is another version for flute, piano and strings).

The first piece of Frank Martin I ever heard was the organ Passacaglia, performed in a church. Today I might well hear it differently; back then at the age of 13, it was the harshest, most dissonant music I had to date heard - much more dissonant even that some of Messiaen's later organ works, in which the chordal density suggests at times the organist sitting on top of several of the manuals at once!

It is actually quite hard to make an organ sound really dissonant, unlike, say, a brass section.

(It still sounded beige to me, though. Dark beige )

[french frank]

If anyone's interested, Martin's opera Der Sturm (3 CDs) is currently in Hyperion's 'Please, someone, buy me ...' list - £13.00 (Caliban, perchance? )

[amateur51]

If anyone's interested, Martin's opera Der Sturm (3 CDs) is currently in Hyperion's 'Please, someone, buy me ...' list - £13.00 (Caliban, perchance? )

Caliban? Opera?? It might have wobbly women in it!

[french frank]

Caliban? Opera?? It might have wobbly women in it!

I've only just noticed makropulos's comment at Msg 18: "One piece that I'd say is hugely worth exploring is his opera based on Shakespeare's Tempest ("Der Sturm"). There's a complete recording on Hyperion (previously Martin himself recorded the overture and a couple of songs with DF-D - an LP I picked up as an undergraduate that really excited me about FM's music.) " Gotta be a snip at £13!

(NB Caliban participates in this one!)

[ardcarp]

The 2010 Penguin Guide recommends Westminster Cathedral Choir, cond. O'Donnell, on Hyperion CDA 67017, which won Gramophone Record of the Year award in 1998.

This could indeed be described as the definitive recording; coupled with the less-known Pizzetti Requiem.

Written in the early 1920s, Martin's Mass apparently sat in a drawer for 40 years and was only published in 1963. It didn't become widely performed in England, to my recollection, until the 1980s or 90s.

It has similarities (in effect rather than style) with the VW Mass in G minor which was written around the same time. The composers must have been totally unaware of each others masses...so there must have been something in the air.