advanced classical music : neoclassics

Poulenc is one of my favourite modern composers!

His chamber music has always pleased me, and I have no recordings, so I shall add this to my list of things that I want to have for Christmas, and then buy them for myself in the New Year Sales! Such is life! Only kidding!!

ATB from George

quote:

Originally posted by GFFJ:
Poulenc is one of my favourite modern composers!

His chamber music has always pleased me, and I have no recordings, so I shall add this to my list of things that I want to have for Christmas, and then buy them for myself in the New Year Sales! Such is life! Only kidding!!

ATB from George

talk to me, sent message.

George,
There is a decent set of Poulenc's complete chamber and piano music (4 CDs) on Brilliant Classics. Some fine performances at the lowest price.
Regards,
Ken

Thanks Ken and Mike,

It seems exactly the right time to investigate the music of Poulenc for me.

Like that of Haydn, I have yet to find a piece of his that did not engage me, which is unusual for a Twentieth Century composer!

The right push [psychologically] at exactly the right moment.

ATB from George

PS: Be sure that as time goes on, that I'll be looking for recommendations in time! So your work is not over!

Wow. Great thread..

GFFJ,


Have you heard Poulenc's splendid Concerto for organ strings and timpani ? An interesting work and it belies Poulence's reputation as a composer of music for small forces. I agree 100% about Poulenc. Good points !


DMC

Never actually heard it in performance, but rehearsed it for a concert that was eventually altered because the organ went wrong.

We did Rachmaninov's Third Piano Concerto instead, which as an orchestral bass player, was a considerable disapointent!

Strange that I have never heard it from the audience side!

ATB from George

quote:

Originally posted by DMC:
Wow. Great thread..

GFFJ,


Have you heard Poulenc's splendid Concerto for organ strings and timpani ? An interesting work and it belies Poulence's reputation as a composer of music for small forces. I agree 100% about Poulenc. Good points !


DMC

DMC - do you have a recording you can recommend?

Hi Mike,

I guess the only ones I can think of off hand are the Previn on EMI and I think Robert Shaw has one on Telarc. I remember The Shaw as being good. Sorry, don't know about availability.

Gffj

Sorry to hear about the substitution. Rachmaninoff in an acquired taste isn't he ? The Symphonic Dances are pretty amazing. Oddly enough, there is another Previn association because his recording is the one that stands out. He's still alive, you know. Previn, I mean.


ATB

DMC

Dear DMC,

Rachmaninov's Symphonic Dances is again a piece I have played in [if only three times in one concert series] and I loved it, though it certainly is a challenge. The rhythms in the bass at first don't seem to make sense, and for me, who is so much more attuned to the ever rolling-on bass-lines of Bach, this was a huge shock.

An admission after the fact is that though the notes are not hard to play, the rhythms were incredib1ly complex, and I learned them off by heart! I can admit that now as I am no longer playing, either for a fee or in the amateur setting. It took hours of slow practice, which eventually imprinted the rhythms, and I became rock solid with them at a normal tempo ...

I have never owned a proper recording of them [only a private one] and have only heard them on the radio from time to time.

I also played in the Second Symphony on two occasions in different [amateur] orcheatras, though the second time was a very interesting concert as it was a charity do and there were some superb players in the band, playing for Breast Cancer cure research, and I remember the conductor disappeared to check the balance in the slow movement where the clarinet has his lovely solo section against plucked and [some bowed] playing in the bass.

We had a problem when the conductor was there as we were essentially following him, and getting the pizzicato exactly together was a real strain. The leader [of the basses] altered our ordering so that the first desk [him and me after the adjustment] could easily keep the [pizz] together where the rest then played the bowed part, and so in the absense of the conductor and two players only [and who could keep the rhthms together] we got real ensemble.

When the conductor got back he simply said that he would not try to conduct this part but rely on everyone listening and keeping the tempo from slowing. Though this conductor was not technically much help, and he was essentially an enthusiastic amateur, he soon realised his own limitation, and the results were very very good. If only all conductors would realise their occasional lapses of technical ability, then the music would frequently benfit ...

I never owned a recording of this either.

Rachmaninov's music generally [Symphonic Dances aside] is not my favourite. Of the Russians, I prefer Prokofiev ...

ATB from George

quote:

Originally posted by GFFJ:
Of the Russians, I prefer Prokofiev ...

ATB from George

loved the story george. the prokofiev fifth is my favorite ...

George,

The Organ Concerto is a spectacular work. I have several versions but my favourite is a recent disc from Linn Records. Gillian Weir plays it with great gusto.

I can also heartily recommend:
Choral Works, 2-CD set on Virgin, Harry Christophers with the 16,
Orchestral Works, 2-CD set on EMI, conducted by Georges Pretre,
Orchestral Works on Decca, with the French National Orchestra conducted by Charles Dutoit,
Piano Works, Pascal Roge,

Regards,
Ken

quote:

Originally posted by KenM:
George,

The Organ Concerto is a spectacular work. I have several versions but my favourite is a recent disc from Linn Records. Gillian Weir plays it with great gusto.

I can also heartily recommend:
Choral Works, 2-CD set on Virgin, Harry Christophers with the 16,
Orchestral Works, 2-CD set on EMI, conducted by Georges Pretre,
Orchestral Works on Decca, with the French National Orchestra conducted by Charles Dutoit,
Piano Works, Pascal Roge,

Regards,
Ken

thanks !

quote:

Originally posted by mikeeschman:
...Some major neoclassic composers are Stravinsky, Hindemith, Honneger, and Poulenc.

The more you think about neoclassicism, the more it slips and slides around as a concept. There's plenty of music by Stravinsky, Honegger and Poulenc that isn't neoclassical; I would say that, some times they wrote in a neoclassical style.

On the one hand, if one defines neoclassicism as some sort of return to pre-Romantic models, then surely Schoenberg would strongly count as a neoclassical composer. Think of his later works, the piano suite and wind quintet, even the serenade, which were the long term result of his rejection of his own Romantic excesses.

On the other, Stravinsky's Pulcinella, widely cited as the first of Stravinsky's neoclassical works is, of course, entirely based on baroque - and hence not classical - music (that of Pergolesi).

Prokofiev first symphony (the Classical) is certainly in the fold, even if its nickname should presumably really be 'the Neoclassical'.

Two warm recommendations - definitely not neoclassical:

(1) Poulenc Stabat mater - more satisfying than the more wellknown Gloria, it is extraordinarily strong melodically and emotionally. The late lamented Richard Hickox on Virgin does it well.

(2) Honegger Jeanne d'Arc au bucher [Joan of Arc at the stake] - a melodrama, not in the corrupted sense of a little stage shocker, but a mixture of music (melo-) and acting (drama). Requiring a large cast (7 speaking actors, 7 singing soloists, most of whom take multiple roles, choir, children's choir and orchestra) it tells the story in a series of tableaux in turns touching and comic. The end, when Jeanne dies, is ecstatic and spinetingling.
I prefer the Czech performance conducted by Serge Baudo on Supraphon - the choir's French is a bit awry at times, but the soloists are all French, and it has a very idiomatic feel.
When I sang this with Crouch End Festival Chorus, we were let down by the ondes martinot player at the last minute. With an amazing 36 hours to go, we managed to get hold of no less than Yvonne Loriod as a last minute replacement. So, she played our three performances in a cold big church in Hampstead. And to the extent she let me play with her ondes, I can write 'studied ondes martinot with Yvonne Loriod' on my cv.