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Tony Watson
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« Reply #30 on: 00:08:36, 23-03-2007 » |
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Broadening the theme a little and at the risk of rattling a few cages...
I think that Berlioz never quite lived up to the promise shown in SF. I wish he had channelled all the time and trouble he spent on opera elsewhere. Having said that, I've never been able to warm to Harold in Italy.
Another compose who burst upon the scene and then became an anticlimax is Mendelssohn.
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Ron Dough
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« Reply #31 on: 00:26:49, 23-03-2007 » |
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Broadening the theme a little and at the risk of rattling a few cages...
Another compose who burst upon the scene and then became an anticlimax is Mendelssohn.
At what point did he become an anti-climax, Tony? In the last five years of his short life (1809-1847) he penned, amongst other things, the Scottish Symphony (1842), the Violin Concerto (1844) and Elijah (1846). I'm going to need a bit of convincing that any of those could justify your description..... |
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Tony Watson
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« Reply #32 on: 00:35:22, 23-03-2007 » |
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Ron,
The works you mention are all very enjoyable and have rightly retained a place in the standard repertoire to this day. But a teenager who could write the Hebrides and the overture to a Midsummer Night's Dream gave indications of real genius which was not, in my humble opinion, fulfilled. What I'm saying is that worthy as those late works are, his early work promised even greater music than was written.
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harrumph
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« Reply #33 on: 11:25:53, 23-03-2007 » |
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What I meant was that I haven't listened to practically anything when I compare myself to the members of this board... When I have discovered with delight a new Mahler symphony, you are already juggling with 16 different recordings and 4 different versions, so to speak...  And when I apply myself to get to know the major works in the repertoire, I find that they grow so slowly on me... I need a lot time to appreciate a piece of music... that's why I'm a slow listener, can't do a new symphony every week... Well, look on the bright side - I only hear something new that I really like pretty rarely these days. You, on the other hand, have countless wonderful discoveries waiting to be made  |
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harrumph
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« Reply #34 on: 11:36:51, 23-03-2007 » |
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Hi harrumph - I'm not sure if you're after composers who "hit the bulls eye once" ie only wrote one decent piece - or composers who are only famous for one piece... Hallo, Autoharp. What I was getting at was the sense of disappointment which has long haunted me as far as Bloch is concerned. "Schelomo" was the first music of his that I heard, and I was (still am) quite bowled over by it. I assumed that I had found an important voice, entirely new to me; but every work I have heard since has failed to deliver on my high expectations of him (I do quite like the violin concerto and the fifth string quartet, but neither strikes me as anything like the equal of Schelomo). This is rather different to composers like Litolff - when a decidedly minor figure comes up with just one memorable piece, you have to be grateful for it. If a composer who seems at first to be of major importance turns out to be a one-trick pony, you're bound to feel a bit cheated... |
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autoharp
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« Reply #35 on: 20:06:32, 23-03-2007 » |
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Hi harrumph - I'm not sure if you're after composers who "hit the bulls eye once" ie only wrote one decent piece - or composers who are only famous for one piece... Hallo, Autoharp. What I was getting at was the sense of disappointment which has long haunted me as far as Bloch is concerned. "Schelomo" was the first music of his that I heard, and I was (still am) quite bowled over by it. I assumed that I had found an important voice, entirely new to me; but every work I have heard since has failed to deliver on my high expectations of him (I do quite like the violin concerto and the fifth string quartet, but neither strikes me as anything like the equal of Schelomo). Well put harrumph. I reckon I feel the same about Orff. |
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thompson1780
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« Reply #36 on: 22:14:30, 26-03-2007 » |
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I know he wasn't a one work composer, but in many people's eyes....? I give you Pachelbel.
So apart from the Canon (and indeed Gigue), what else of his is worth listening to?
Tommo
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Made by Thompson & son, at the Violin & c. the West end of St. Paul's Churchyard, LONDON
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roslynmuse
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« Reply #37 on: 01:50:19, 27-03-2007 » |
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First visit here and intrigued to find some of the composers I find most interesting listed , particularly Berlioz and Holst. Les Troyens for me is Berlioz' masterpiece, and for all their faults, the Requiem and Te Deum are marvellous pieces (there is a lot of wonderfully intimate music there - that's what people forget about HB). And Cleopatre, Les nuits d'ete, King Lear... mind you, I have never taken to Harold in Italy either... Holst - Egdon Heath, Hymn of Jesus - wonderful. He is admittedly more of a near-miss composer than a hitting the bulls-eye, but he often doesn't miss by much.
Warlock - I presume the person who mentioned him was thinking of Capriol; but The Curlew is a great piece, much better.
I agree with Tony about Mendelssohn; I can't get excited by much he wrote after about 1830 (Hebrides), although admittedly I don't know the last quartet which is supposed to be good.
Dukas - Barbe-bleu is well worth hearing, as is La peri, the Symphony and the Piano Sonata...
Can't stand Bloch, I'm afraid. It comes from working with too many viola players...
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increpatio
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« Reply #38 on: 04:27:00, 10-04-2007 » |
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I know he wasn't a one work composer, but in many people's eyes....? I give you Pachelbel.
So apart from the Canon (and indeed Gigue), what else of his is worth listening to?
Tommo
His rather hefty body of organ music does contain quite a few works of beauty. Say his set of 90 fugues on the magnificat (well, not all 90 of them...). Wait, I take that back for now; I'd have to think a bit before recommending any particular works. They were just the first that came to mind. (I only have the first four CDs of Joseph Payne's collection of recordings of his organ works; not sure if I'll ever get around to completing the set, though). If the criterion is that of popular recognition, I'd (rather sadly, I must admit) have to nominate Albeniz and that tango. |
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richard barrett
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« Reply #39 on: 07:49:30, 10-04-2007 » |
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Regarding Pachelbel, there's his organ music, true, but, and most interestingly, there's a considerable amount of chamber music including a set of partitas under the title "Musicalisch Ergötzung", in which the violins are tuned differently for each suite. It may be actually that Pachelbel is a "no-hit wonder", since the famous Canon (best-known as arranged for string orchestra from the original for three violins and continuo) isn't currently believed to be a work of his.
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Don Basilio
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« Reply #40 on: 22:45:11, 10-04-2007 » |
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Ponchielli La Gioconda?
This question tells you as much about contemporary taste/standards as about the composers. I suspect 100 years ago Bellini would have been a one work man (the wonderful Norma, still head and shoulders above his others, fond though I am of La Sonambula.) If you ignore the overtures, Rossini was for years in this country a one opera man (Il barbiere).
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To every thing there is a season, and a time to every purpose under heaven.
A time to weep, and a time to laugh: a time to mourn, and a time to dance
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oliver sudden
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« Reply #41 on: 23:01:05, 10-04-2007 » |
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It may be actually that Pachelbel is a "no-hit wonder", since the famous Canon (best-known as arranged for string orchestra from the original for three violins and continuo) isn't currently believed to be a work of his.
Er, are you quite sure about that, Richard? I wasn't aware of any serious doubts on the subject and I do love a good misattribution myself... Are you sure it's not Albinoni's Adagio, Allegri's Miserere or Bach's Toccata and Fugue you were thinking of?  |
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richard barrett
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« Reply #42 on: 00:09:51, 11-04-2007 » |
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I am quite sure about it, and my source is Reinhard Goebel, who wrote in the liner notes of his "Deutsche Kammermusik vor Bach" set (in which the piece occurs at the end of a selection of Pachelbel's chamber music) that the Canon in D displays none of the stylistic characteristics of Pachelbel's other instrumental music, particularly in being based on a ground bass, which none of his other pieces are, and being a strict canon, ditto, and indeed it sticks out like a sore thumb from the other pieces in the recording, and Goebel opines that the piece is more likely to be by Biber, who wrote lots of both canons and grounds. I would love to be able to give you chapter and verse on this, but the CD reissue omits all the liner notes and I don't have the LPs any more. When I'm reconnected to academia I shall hunt around in Early Music for more information, but that will have to do for now.
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