Music you've known about but never heard until recently

[Roehre]

I was thinking more of the orchestral colouring and textures of Schoenberg c. Pelleas and the Zemlinsky of Sinfonietta, to which I maintain it bears more than a passing resemblance.

However, I will seek out the Concert Overture if only to see whether your own statement contains a degree of hyperbole.

No, ahinton's description is IMO accurate.
Re Szymanowski's 2nd symphony: it dates from 1910, the version with Fitelberg's proposed revision of the instrumentation is slightly later, and therefore predates Zemlinsky's mature Sinfonietta by nearly a quarter of a century (1934).
Szymanowski might have known Schönberg's Pelléas, which was premiered in 1903 iirc.

[scottycelt]

I always wonder why people condemn composers' early works as not having found their true voice, when they are often splendid works in their own right.

Exactly!

Szymanowski's 1st Violin Concerto is one of my very favourite works ... what major composer worth his musical salt wasn't influenced by other musical geniuses?

Bruckner's rarely-heard 1st and 2nd symphonies are very much influenced by Beethoven, Schubert and Mendelssohn (according to my admittedly very amateurish ears) but the Linz composer's early individual stamp is still glaringly obvious and they are an absolute delight!

[cloughie]

Exactly!

Szymanowski's 1st Violin Concerto is one of my very favourite works ... what major composer worth his musical salt wasn't influenced by other musical geniuses?

Bruckner's rarely-heard 1st and 2nd symphonies are very much influenced by Beethoven, Schubert and Mendelssohn (according to my admittedly very amateurish ears) but the Linz composer's early individual stamp is still glaringly obvious and they are an absolute delight!

...and there's not much wrong with Shostakovich Sym 1

[scottycelt]

...and there's not much wrong with Shostakovich Sym 1

It's wonderful!

[pmartel]

On the Radio 3 site 'Listen again' is a beautiful performance of the rarely heard FULL version of Glinka's Ruslan and Ludmilla.

Based on what I've heard so far, this is Russian Bel Canto.

It's a pity more of this is NOT heard as the full opera is just gorgeous and nice to hear something OTHER than the overture

[Bryn]

On the Radio 3 site 'Listen again' is a beautiful performance of the rarely heard FULL version of Glinka's Ruslan and Ludmilla.

Based on what I've heard so far, this is Russian Bel Canto.

It's a pity more of this is NOT heard as the full opera is just gorgeous and nice to hear something OTHER than the overture

Oh dear, you posted that while I was typing:

http://www.for3.org/forums/showthread.php?4454-Looks-like-POETS-has-hit-Ruslan-and-Lyudmila

Oops! I mistook the end of the extra item from the Glinka Choir for the opening of Act 4. All of which seem actually to be in tact.

[pmartel]

Thanks Bryn, I want to hear the conclusion as I thought it was odd that the intro was joined' in progress' from Act 4

Funny we'd both be typing this at the same time

[jayne lee wilson]

I don't know how old you are PJ, but Bizet's Symphony once enjoyed rather greater currency! Always a popular choice among concert programmers some years ago, not to mention conductors and producers in the early classical stereo catalogue; I think both performers and listeners probably felt it needed a rest! Lovely piece though - very Schubertian, but very Bizet too.

Zemlinsky's early Symphony is scarcely his best or most convincing work, whereas the Sinfonietta is a precocious masterpiece - he was still only 63 when he wrote it!

Some composers are simply more audibly themselves at an earlier age - you'd never mistake a bar of Schubert's 5th for anyone else would you, nor early Britten or DSCH, despite their Mahlerian inheritance.

I'll take another listen to Szymanowski 2, but its Regerian and Straussian models hardly need signposting, or stop it from being attractive music, indeed more engaging than Zemlinsky's B Flat effort. It's ironic that you mention Schoenberg's Pelleas, about the one piece of his I struggle to get to the end of. It's all that fin-de-siecle Maeterlinckian dreaminess - under the influence, wasn't really his true self...

I always wonder why people condemn composers' early works as not having found their true voice, when they are often splendid works in their own right. After all, early and middle period Beethoven give very little indication of that composer's late period! I always feel that if Bizet's Symphony in C were attributed to Schubert it would enjoy far greater currency; it is at least as fine a piece as that composer's much better known 5th symphony.

While I would agree that it would be hard, on a blind hearing, to recognise the later Szymanowski in his second symphony, the earlier composition is still a fabulous piece of music. If the name Schoenberg or Zemlinksy were appennded to the title page we would all be raving about what a masterpiece it was, and how fully representative of that composer it was.

[Roehre]

Zemlinsky's early Symphony is scarcely his best or most convincing work, whereas the Sinfonietta is a precocious masterpiece - he was still only 63 when he wrote it!

This is Zemlinsky's 2nd symphony (B-flat), the one which won the Beethoven-Prize in 1897, a combination of Dvorak, Brahms and Beethoven, nevertheless a lovely, cyclical work. The fact it won this prize shows that the work was highly regarded in those days (only to be put into a drawer until the 1970s).
It is only since some ten years that we can listen to his 1st symphony (d-minor) in its entirety, as approximately half of the autograph score of the finale had disappeared, and re-emerged in the late 1990s.
Some of the recordings of this youthful work still lack these closing pages... (And Die Seejungfrau was performed completely for the first time since its premiere in 1983 [Chailly/RIAS-Berlin], after two of its movements had diappeared for more than seventy-five years)

[jayne lee wilson]

Well, I'm suitably chastened - I'd scarcely noticed the existence of the D-minor piece before... or if I had I'd put it in my "worth ignoring" category, as with Schoenberg's earliest string quartet - the one before the one before, as it were... Doubtless my loss, but listening time is short these days...

Seejungfrau is a lovely piece, Gerard Schwarz did it live with the RLPO a few years ago to stunning effect.

This is Zemlinsky's 2nd symphony (B-flat), the one which won the Beethoven-Prize in 1897, a combination of Dvorak, Brahms and Beethoven, nevertheless a lovely, cyclical work. The fact it won this prize shows that the work was highly regarded in those days (only to be put into a drawer until the 1970s).
It is only since some ten years that we can listen to his 1st symphony (d-minor) in its entirety, as approximately half of the autograph score of the finale had disappeared, and re-emerged in the late 1990s.
Some of the recordings of this youthful work still lack these closing pages... (And Die Seejungfrau was performed completely for the first time since its premiere in 1983 [Chailly/RIAS-Berlin], after two of its movements had diappeared for more than seventy-five years)

[jayne lee wilson]

My great discovery of the last 10 years is certainly Roussel.
I'd tried and failed once or twice before following up Rob Cowan's Replay recommendation of Cluytens in the 3rd and 4th Symphonies - suddenly, stunned and then hooked, I bought just everything I could find, including several Complete Symphony cycles. My only regret now is that there isn't more Roussel to discover! Nearly all of it is top-notch, including the gorgeous, rarely played Poem of the Forest 1st Symphony - a classic case of repeated hearings delivering rewards. Is there a more touching moment in ballet than the death of the butterfly in Le Festin? So aptly brief and delicate a moment.

Amazingly varied oeuvre - at the opposite extreme, The War Song of the Franks, (Le Bardit des Francs, 1926), a very short piece for male chorus, brass and percussion - with an impact entirely disproportionate to its length! The only piece I can think of as a distant relative might be Stravinsky's Roi des Etoiles (1911-12). ( Though I'm QUITE sure Roehre will know of a few others...)

[Panjandrum]

I'll take another listen to Szymanowski 2, but its Regerian and Straussian models hardly need signposting, or stop it from being attractive music, indeed more engaging than Zemlinsky's B Flat effort...

Ah the perils of internet forum communication! JLW, when I said that Syzmanowski 2 reminded me of Zemlinsky I was actually thinking of the sound world of the Seejungfrau rather than either of the two symphonies; which are rather formulaic and dull, IMO. Apologies for not making myself clear on that point!

Some composers are simply more audibly themselves at an earlier age - you'd never mistake a bar of Schubert's 5th for anyone else would you, nor early Britten or DSCH, despite their Mahlerian inheritance. It's ironic that you mention Schoenberg's Pelleas, about the one piece of his I struggle to get to the end of. It's all that fin-de-siecle Maeterlinckian dreaminess - under the influence, wasn't really his true self.

Following that reasoning, would you say, therefore, that "Firebird" or "Le Sacre" were immature Stravinsky? Surely not, yet they are very different from the quasi serial works of his latter years. Why say then that Szymanowski or Schoenberg in their later works showed them more "audibly themselves"? I agree that Szymanowski or Schoenberg (or Webern for that matter) changed styles, but this does not mean their early works weren't representative of themselves, at that particular point of their career.

[cloughie]

My great discovery of the last 10 years is certainly Roussel.
I'd tried and failed once or twice before following up Rob Cowan's Replay recommendation of Cluytens in the 3rd and 4th Symphonies - suddenly, stunned and then hooked, I bought just everything I could find, including several Complete Symphony cycles. My only regret now is that there isn't more Roussel to discover! Nearly all of it is top-notch, including the gorgeous, rarely played Poem of the Forest 1st Symphony - a classic case of repeated hearings delivering rewards. Is there a more touching moment in ballet than the death of the butterfly in Le Festin? So aptly brief and delicate a moment.

Amazingly varied oeuvre - at the opposite extreme, The War Song of the Franks, (Le Bardit des Francs, 1926), a very short piece for male chorus, brass and percussion - with an impact entirely disproportionate to its length! The only piece I can think of as a distant relative might be Stravinsky's Roi des Etoiles (1911-12). ( Though I'm QUITE sure Roehre will know of a few others...)

Jayne, I agree Roussel is not easy to love at first hearing but worth persevering with. The Deneve Naxos recs are an economical way in:

http://hmv.com/hmvweb/displayProductDetails.do?ctx=280;1;-1;-1;-1&sku=225699

http://hmv.com/hmvweb/displayProductDetails.do?ctx=280;1;-1;-1;-1&sku=481906

[ahinton]

Jayne, I agree Roussel is not easy to love at first hearing but worth persevering with.

I disagree entirely! The second piece of music that I ever heard was his Third Symphony and I was absolutely knocked out by it! (I was nealy 12 years of age at the time).

[amateur51]

My great discovery of the last 10 years is certainly Roussel.
I'd tried and failed once or twice before following up Rob Cowan's Replay recommendation of Cluytens in the 3rd and 4th Symphonies - suddenly, stunned and then hooked, I bought just everything I could find, including several Complete Symphony cycles. My only regret now is that there isn't more Roussel to discover! Nearly all of it is top-notch,

I've been discovering Roussel's symphonies via Spotify recently and I've also been 'having a go' a Honegger too which has proved to be very rewarding too. It's a phase I'm going through, doctor