Medtner: Piano concerto no 3

Day 363

Medtner: Piano concerto no 3 no 3 in E minor op 60

Nikolai Dimidenko

BBC Scottish Symphony Orchestra

Jerzy Makymiuk

I am not conscious of ever having heard any Medtner and after this piece I am not sure that I want to hear any more. I thought that it was very poor. The romantic piano concerto is not one of the forms that I am particularly interested in to start with but I couldn't get anywhere with this. The idiom is probably best described as watered-down Rachmaninov without the tunes!  It seems to spend a long time getting nowhere and had very little to say along the way. I am sure that had I been listening to this cold on the radio I would have switched off. The booklet which comes with the recording makes extraordinary high claims for the quality of this music, emphasising the composer's mastery of form. As far as I am concerned he must have been writing about a different piece because I heard none of that, even though I was concentrating hard and following the score.

It merits a late entry on the list of pieces which I certainly do not want to hear again!

Blacher: Clarinet concerto

Day 349

Boris Blacher: Clarinet concerto

Dimitri Ashkenazy

Deutsches Symphonie-Orchester Berlin

Vladimir Ashkenazy 

I came across Boris Blacher in youth orchestra when we played his variations on a theme of Paganini (yes it was that theme!). That piece had quite a vogue for a while (I recall it turning up on Desert Island Discs) but since then it has rather faded away. I did listen to some more Blacher after that early youth orchestra experience but I haven't heard any of his music for ages.

This clarinet concerto dates from 1971 but is it very much in the same idiom as those 1948 variations. It is very much a throwback to the idiom of the inter-war years, with a strong suggestion of Hindemith and Neo-classical Stravinsky with a touch of jazz-infused rhythms. I found it attractive without being memorable. Blacher had a huge output and although he was an influential figure in German music after the war (he was one of those whose music was condemned by the Nazis as degenerate) I doubt that he has much of a standing now, even in German. But I still do like those variations and they bring back happy memories of youth orchestra days and discovering new music. Something I am still doing more than 50 years later.

Birtwistle: Panic

Day 347

Harrison Birtwistle: Panic

John Harle

BBC Symphony Orchestra

Andrew Davis

This was the piece that cause a scandal at the 1995 Last Night of the Proms. Apparently it prompted a record number of complaints to the BBC. I’m sure that the organisers deliberately engineered this to get some publicity and also to shake up the rather staid image of the last night.

I’ve heard a few Birtwistle peices over the years. At University we were lucky enough to have a regular series of concerts of contemporary music and Birtwistle certainly featured several times. Panic is an uncompromisingly loud and agressive piece for a solo saxophone (playing almost continuously), a drum kit and a wind and percussion orchestra. There is some extraordinary writing for the solo instrument, which must push the performer to the limits of both technique and stamina, and plenty of hard hitting rhythmic energy in the wind orchestra. I’m not quite sure whether I enjoyed it or not - I don’t think that it is a piece to ‘enjoy’, but I certainly found it a rewarding experience to listen to. It is probably a little too long - those promenades at the first performance who hated the whole thing must have been praying that it was over soon so that they could get to Land of Hope and Glory.   

Birtwistle was a prolific composer and there is much to explore. Next year I do want to start to get to grips with his operas. 

Grime: Clarinet concerto

Day 334

Helen Grime: Clarinet concerto

Lyndsey Marsh

Hallé soloists

Jamie Phillips 

I was lucky enough to play Helen Grime’s Two Eardley Pictures a few years ago and was impressed by the sound world that she created. That was also my impression of this relatively brief clarinet concerto from 2009. The orchestra is only small but she uses it to achieve real clarity and some highly inventive textures. Indeed in many ways it the orchestra which draw the ear’s attention rather than the solo clarinet, which is occupied most of time in quite busy passage work which complements rather than dominates the texture. I imagine the effect is quite different in a live performance when you can see the soloist up front. So this another really good find.

This is the end of November and brings to an end this little group of works by female composers.Tomorrow is the start of the last month of this project and I will try as fill as many gaps as I can before the end of the year. There are still a few fairly important people who I have not round to yet.

Price: Violin concerto no 2

Day 327

Florence Price: Violin concerto no 2

Randall Goosby

Philadelphia Orchestra

Yaniick Nézet-Séguin

I played in a performance of Price’s first symphony a couple of years ago. I enjoyed it a lot though I didn’t regarded it as the masterpiece that some commentators have suggested it is - a touch of special pleading there I think. Since then I have heard the other symphonies and the first violin concerto but this second concerto was new to me.

It is a fairly short piece in one movement. Stylistically it is rather all over the place. Some of the more lyrical music could easily have passed for minor Brahms but the more extrovert music was in places quite close to the bandstand!  I think that Price struggled to find a consistent voice - the same thing can be said of the symphonies.  Having said that the music itself was attractive and lyrical and there were some interesting orchestral effects - I didn’t have a score but what sounded like a prominent part for celesta at the beginning added a certain piquancy to the texture.  So well worth listening to but much as I admire Price’s personal narrative and the struggle she had for recognition this is not much more than a curiosity. 

Schnittke: Concerto for two pianos

Day 326

Schnittke: Concerto for two pianos

Victoria Postnikova

Irina Schnittke

State Symphony Orchestra

Gennadi Rozhdestvensky

I don’t think that I have heard any of Schnittke’s music so I started this with an open mind. I thought it was rather a good piece. It is extrovert in character and although written in a modernist style it is not too challenging. It is difficult to describe quite how the music fits into the 20th century musical world. Some of the rhetorical devices are not a million miles away from Prokofiev of Shostakovich, but the sound world at times reminded me of Ives. Yet elsewhere it could have been by Britten. It was quite ‘splashy’ in places and I am sure would make an effective piece in a concert. There is plenty more Schnittke to explore  - I am not really sure where to start.

Richard Rodney Bennett: Saxophone concerto

Day 324

Richard Rodney Bennett: Saxophone concerto

John Harle

Opus 20 String Ensemble

I have a vague memory of hearing some by Richard Rodney Bennett as a student but whatever it was hasn’t stuck in the memory. Other than that I think that the only music of his I will have heard will be some of his film scores - famously of course Murder on the Orient Express.

This saxophone concerto was written for John Harle, who plays it in this performance. I enjoyed it a lot. The saxophone is not an instrument I am naturally attracted to - to me the rather oily sound can be off putting, but here the composer has been very skilful in the way that he has written for the instrument so we get to hear a more attractive side of the instrument. The work is not too long - some composers seem to have no idea that they have outstayed their welcome - and the soloists is given plenty of chance to shine but virtuosity never gets in the may of the musical invention. There is plenty of rhythmic energy in the outer movements - the first especially, balanced by some attractive melodic material. All in all a good piece and one which probably exceeded my expectations - I don’t think that I would ever otherwise have listened to a saxophone concerto if it wasn’t for this project.

Ireland: Piano concerto in E flat major

Day 322

John Ireland: Piano concerto in E flat major

Kathryn Stott

BBC Symphony Orchestra

Andrew Davis

John Ireland is another of those mid 20th century musicians whose name is familiar but whose music is unknown to me - I might have heard a film score of his at some time but nothing sticks in the memory.

This piano concerto was for a while an enormously popular piece and was a staple of Prom performances for many years - then it dropped out of fashion and is now only rarely performed. I can’t say that I was sorry that I had got so far in my musical life without hearing it. It seemed rather a routine piece with nothing particularly memorable either in melodic material or harmonic invention - there were, to be fair, a few moments of quite snappy rhythms which did break up some of the monotony, but otherwise I didn’t find much here to keep me interested. Partly is it that I am not a great fan of the concerto form - when I look back at this project it is surprising how few concerti I have listened to and even fewer than really made an impression. I’ve no idea whether this work is typical of Ireland’s work but I don’t feel inclined to spend much time finding out - there are plenty of other things to listen to first.

Feldman: Piano and Orchestra

Day 302

Morton Feldman: Piano and Orchestra

Alan Feinberg

New World Symphony

Michael Tilson Thomas

Morton Feldman is another of those rather scary American academic composers. In his case he has a reputation for writing impossibly long music - his string quartet lasts anything between five and six hours. So I approached this music with some trepidation. But I needn’t have worried. This was a rather hauntingly beautiful piece of quietly undulating orchestral textures.  All sorts of interesting colours were revealed during the 30 minutes or so that the piece lasted. The only jarring moments with the occasional very loud short phrases or single chord which distrusted the gentleness of the musical dialogue. I can see why he included these but I think that on balance the peice would have been better without them.  As I say it was otherwise quite haunting.  So another example of music which was nothing like what I expected. But that it one of the points of this project - to explore parts of the repertoire that I hadn’t previously ventured into.  I still don’t think however that I am ready for a six-hour string quartet.

Busoni: Piano concerto

Day 259

Busoni: Piano concerto

John Ogdon

John Aldis Choir

Royal Philharmonic Orchestra

Daniell Revenaugh

This concerto has two main claims to fame. First is it perhaps the longest piano concerto ever written (this performance lasts nearly 70 mins) and secondly because it includes a part for offstage male chorus in the last movement.  I'm not conscious of having heard any of Busoni's music before so I wasn't sure what to expect from this work. I imagined that it would be rather intense and mysterious with philosophical overtones but it was nothing like that. To be honest I found it a complete rag-bag of a piece with no overall coherence. The first movement was largely Brahmsian in style - with an absurdly long orchestral introduction before the solo piano came in for the first time - and else where there were traces of Liszt and of Russian music. There was even what I thought was a very heavy handed attempt to write in a light hearted elegant French style. That did not work at all - much better to leave that sort of thing to Saint- Säens!. As for the choral finale I had no idea what he was trying to achieve. For a long time he seemed to have forgotten that he was writing a piano concerto because the solo instrument was conspicuously silent. There was some quite effective music here on its own terms but it seems completely out of place. And the movement was spoilt by the end, which was almost embarrassingly gauche.

As will be clear from the above this is not a work I will be returning to - I thought it was awful. It has its admirers so perhaps it is just me, but I really can't see what all of the fuss is about. Reading about the composer I get the impression that his later music is in a more developed style - perhaps one day I will try again, but for the moment this goes down as one of the most disappointing pieces I have listened to in this series.

Tartini: Two concertos

Day 232

Tartini: Two concertos

Violin concerto in E minor

Chouchane Siranossian

Venice Baroque Orchestra

Andrea Marcon

Flute concerto in G major

Mario Folena

L’Arte del Arco

Giovanni Guglielmo

Another day -  more baroque concertos, this time by Tartini.  All I know of him is the so-called Devil's Trill sonata, which I did hear once, but otherwise I know nothing of his music.

I am afraid to say that this struck me, like most of the music in this part of the project, as little more than musical wallpaper. Quite pleasant and easy on the ear, but without anything much more to commend it. There were a couple of moments of interest harmony in the flute concerto but that was about it: otherwise is just passed the time without really engaging the brain.

So that marks the end of this little exploration of the baroque concerto repertory. If I continued I might hit the jackpot, but I fear it would just be more of the same. So onto something much more challenging tomorrow.

Graun: Two concertos

Day 230

Johann Gottlieb Graun: Two concertos 

Horn Concerto in D Lund16

Barry Tuckwell

Academy of St Martin in the Fields

Iona Brown

Viola de Gamba  Concerto in A major

Vittorio Ghielmi

Orchestra Wiener Akadamie

Martin Hasellböck

I was vaguely aware of Graun as an opera composer but I didn’t know that he had written concertos. Again I picked two at random. The horn concerto is a very slight work and interesting only to the extent that is shows off what baroque horn players were capable of. The viola de Gamba concerto is a rather more substantial work - not only in length but also in its musical language. Graun does take the music into unexpected areas from time to time and clearly enjoys exploring the sound and texture of the solo instrument. But as I have said with most of the concerti in this series the music doesn’t really create much an impression on me - it is well crafted and pleasant but it really is a case of in one ear and out of the other. Perhaps I ought to give Graun another go - though if I do it would certainly be to try out one of the operas.

Heinichen: Two concertos

Day 229

Johann David Heinichen: Two concertos

Concerto for Two oboes in E minor

Martin Stadler

Hariett Herrle

Concerto for Flute in D major

Laurence Dean

Fiori Musicali

Thomas Albert

I remember that the advertisers had some fun with the composer’s name when the first recordings of his music were issued - the resemblance to the well known drinks manufacturer was too good to ignore. 

I really enjoyed this music - it seemed to have more personality that the Vivaldi and Telemann that I have listened to so far in this sequence. There was an unpredictability about the music which I found refreshing after the musical wallpaper of the previous two days. Heinichen is not afraid of breaking up the momentum of the music or introducing unexpected elements. Most notable perhaps was the last movement of the flute concerto where there were some surprising rhythmic displacements and some charming pizzicato accompanying figures. This was delightful music.

I don’t know too much about Heinichen but I would certainly be up to listening to some more of his output - I don’t think that he was as prolific as some of his baroque contemporaries so perhaps that makes it less of a daunting prospect.

Telemann: Two concertos

Day 228

Telemann: Two Concertos

Viola Concerto in G TWV 51:G9

Antoine Tamestit

Akademie für Alte Musik Berlin

Bernhard Force

Concerto for Recorder and Bassoon TWW 52:FIII

Frans Brüggen

Otto Fleischmann

Concentus Music Wien

Nikolaus Harnoncourt

Telemann, like Vivaldi, has the reputation of being a composer who churned out music by the yard - indeed it is often thought that he used assistants to fill in the middle parts in the texture. I don’t recall ever having consciously listen to any of his music - though I must have heard some of it before.

I enjoyed these two concertos. The style is more Handelian than I expected: it is elegant and sophisticated with plenty of interesting twists and turns. The choice of instruments and combinations certainly helps - in particular the dark tone of the viola adds to the attraction of the first of the concertos here. Again, though I can’t imagine wanting to spend a huge amount of time with Telemann.

Vivaldi: Two violin concertos

Day 227

Vivaldi: Tw violin concertos

Violin Concerto in C RV181a

Holland Baroque Society

Rachel Podger

Violin Concerto in C RV187

Il Giardino Armonico

Victoria Mullova 

My knowledge of Vivaldi is largely confined to the Gloria (which we sang at school), the Four Seasons and a few of the bassoon concerto. Of course there is a lot more to go at. There is a famous saying that Vivaldi didn't write 400 concertos - he wrote one concerto 400 times. Sometimes this saying is attributed to Stravinsky but I have never seen it properly sources, and in different versions the number is 300 or 200 and sometimes it is only violin concertos that are included.

Whatever the source there is I think some truth in the anecdote.  I selected a couple of  concertos at random to sample. I have to say that I did find them rather like musical wallpaper. Not unpleasant but equally completely unmemorable. I certainly won't be trying to listen to the complete set anytime soon.

Incidentally what struck me in both performances (by different groups) is just how aggressive the performance of music of this era has become. The attack is worthy of Bartók or Stravinsky! Is this really how this music would have sounded at the time?

Gabriel Prokofiev: Concerto for turntables

Day 216

Gabriel Prokofiev: Concerto for turntables

Mr Switch

Ural Philharmonic Orchestra

Alexey Bogorad

This one was not for me!  Gabriel Prokofiev is Serge's grandson. He is classically trained but has an interest in electro-acoustic music and D J techniques. So this piece uses a symphony orchestra in combination with all sorts of weird and wonderful effects using turntables. I found it pretty hard going - the music itself was not unattractive although it didnt' do much more than just burble on in the background. The turntable effects just made me grit my teeth and pray for it all to be over.. ...

Franz Strauss: Horn concerto

Day 215

Franz Strauss: Horn concerto in C minor op 8

Samuel Seidenberg

Frankfurt Radio Symphony Orchestra

Sebastian Weigle

Franz Strauss, Richard’s father, was one of the foremost horn players of his time. He played in a number of important Wagner premiers, although he had no sympathy for Wagner’s music - and the composer had no sympathy for him as a person saying of him (according to Wikepedia)  "Strauss is a detestable fellow but when he blows his horn one cannot sulk with him.”

This horn concerto dates from 1865 and shows Franz Strauss conservative frame of reference- much of it could have been written by Schumann or even Mendelssohn. In purely musical terms is it a fairly slight work and at times is rather cliched, but it does give the horn plenty of opportunities to shine - which is I suppose the whole point of the piece. It is perhaps a little more than a mere curiosity, but I doubt that many people would have given it much attention had it not been for the fact that it fits nicely on a CD with Richard Strauss’s two horn concertos.

Domenico Puccini: Piano concerto

Day 213

Domenico Puccini: Piano concerto in B flat major

Eugene List

Austrian Tonkünstler Orchestra

Zlatko Topolinski

The Puccini was the 5th generation of composers in his family. Domenico, the composer of today’s piece, was his grandfather. He lived from 1772-1815 so was quite distant in time from the Puccini, who was not born until 1858. Musically they are many generations apart. This piano concerto is a typical work of the late Classical era. It has something of the spirit of Haydn and perhaps also of Mozart. But compared to their achievements this is very much the music of the local kappelmeister. Attractive and competently put together but without anything much to differentiate it from the hundreds of similar works which were being written by minor composers of the time.  There are attractive moments but also plenty of routine passages where the composer seems simply to be going through the motions. Like most of the pieces I have heard in this little exploration over the last few days one wonders if anybody would have gone to the trouble of performing and recording the piece had it not been for the family connections.

Franz Xavier Mozart: Piano concerto no 2

Day 212

Franz Xavier Mozart: Piano concerto no 2 in E flat op 25

Henri Sigfirdsson

Lemberg Symphony Orchestra

Gunhard Mattes

I didn’t realise until quite recently that Mozart’s youngest son was a composer in his own right. He never knew his father as he was born only a few months before his father died. He was reasonably well known in early-romantic musical circles, for example he knew Schumann and Schubert and he was one of the many composer chosen by Diabelli to write a variation on his waltz theme. Whether this fame was due to his own talent as a composer or his parentage is a matter of debate.

This, the second of the composer’s two piano concerti, was an interesting piece. If I had heard it cold I might have through that is was an early world of Beethoven, particularly in the outer movements. The slow movement was more forward looking, with suggestions of the sort of fioratura which is probably derived from Hummel and which ultimately was full developed by Chopin.

There was certainly some attractive music here but also some fairly dull patches where the composer seems to get stuck into passage work that didn’t go anywhere. The melodic inspiration was patchy - some really lovely moments in the slow movement but elsewhere promising starts to tunes rather petered out into trivia.

I’m glad to have heard this and it was a more accomplished piece that I feared it might be. F X Mozart clearly had a real musical ability - but the piece does show up the difference between talent and genius.

Leopold Mozart: Horn Concerto

Day 211

Leopold Mozart: Horn concerto in D

Michael Thompson

Philharmonia Orchestra

Christopher Warren-Green

Leopold Mozart would have his place in musical history even if he were not Mozart’s father. His treatise on violin playing was an important book at the time of its publication but has taken an even greater importance in recent years because of what it tells us about performance practice in the early classical era.

But of course it is as Mozart’s father that he is best known. Perhaps these days his role in promoting his son’s early genius is seen more as exploitation rather than support but there is no doubting that his endeavours were responsible for Mozart’s early fame.  As a composer he soon left his father behind.  

Leopold’s horn concerto is an extraordinary example of very high horn writing which brings to mind some of Haydn’s experiments. But in purely musical terms it seems unremakable. It is typical example of early classical style - assured but with no particular distinction.If it were not a horn concerto but, say, a violin concerto I doubt that it would have even the tenuous place that it has in the repertoire.