If people on this forum acquired the Handley version of The Perfect Fool from the British and Irish music catalogue of Albion, then you have a gentleman somewhere, I think, in the south of England to thank.

Due to posting on another forum, in November 2006, about a French radio broadcast of Marseilles Opera's production of Menotti's Maria Golovin I had acquired in CD format, I ended up in correspondence with an American gentleman and exchanging recordings of rare Menotti operas.  In early 2007 this gentleman introduced me to a wonderful forum where one could download radio broadcast recordings of Operas.  It also included radio broadcasts of some non-operatic music. I had not encountered anything like this.  One day I was indulging myself in fantasising about acquiring recordings of all the Pizzetti operas I would like to hear, the next day after being introduced to the forum, I had recordings of all Pizzetti's operas (10 in total) ever recorded! It was a wonderful forum :) :D ;D

On one occasion when searching through the forum I discovered that a broadcast of a recording of The Perfect Fool had been uploaded but, unfortunately, it was no longer available.  I wrote a private message to the uploader and the gentleman very kindly re-uploaded the recording for me.

Years later, 2011 or 2012 I think, on the UC forum I saw that Albion had a list of wanted recordings including The Perfect Fool. I wrote a private message to Albion informing him I had a recording of the opera and asking him for information on how to upload it. This was the Handley recording now on Albion's wonderful British and Irish music catalogue.

Unfortunately, the forum I was part of required members to upload recordings at regular intervals.  I failed to do so and was removed without notice in 2011  >:( :( ::) :'(.  I think my last benefits were acquiring a superb German radio broadcast of a centenary performance of Mascagni's Isabeau from Braunschweig in 2011 and different British and Australian radio broadcasts of Arthur Benjamin's Violin Concerto which I had long hoped to hear (prior to the Dutton CD).

 
Another point worth making on the Quartet release, is it contains a suite, called Fantasy on the CD, which was prepared by English film music expert, Christopher Palmer, presumably with Rózsa's approval or instructions. Rózsa conducts the The Royal Philharmonic Orchestra in this suite.  The suite, apart from being a riviting take on the score, in the slow movement of the Violin Concerto accentuates the woodwind in a way that it is not accentuated in any recording I have heard, and, I think, I have heard all available recordings of the Violin Concerto .  The accentuation is absolutely gorgeous but, to my mind, has the unfortunate effect of diminishing the slow movement in all other recordings, insofar as they relate to the passages accentuated.  I do not believe there was any change to the score, I presume it must be down to the acoustics in the recording studio. As Rózsa conducts the suite, he must have approved the accentuation.

Only the first and second movements of the Violin Concerto appear in the Fantasy and the first movement contains the violin part, which is not the case when the first movement appears in the film.

Polydor released 3 LPs called Rózsa conducts Rózsa in the 1970s with excellent suites of music from many of his film scores over his long career.  The Sherlock Holmes Fantasy appeared on Volume 1.  The release of these on CD has long been asked for by those who love or admire Rózsa's music.  I happily was given an excellent private rip from immaculate sounding LPs.  However, if they were ever released on CD I would buy them in an instant.

The Fantasy has been available for more than a decade on YouTube.  The accentuation I am talking about begins at 4:04 but will be meaningless unless one knows the slow movement from other recordings.

See:  https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5G2eEdznS2I

Thank you, patmos.beje, for the heads-up. We can all think of examples of film music being repurposed as concert music but is this a unique example of a composer expanding and re-using a concert work for use as film music? Rózsa is a fine composer and the Violin Concerto is a rollicking good piece. Is it worth shelling out the extra cash for this, though? Do I get that much more for my money (other than re-mixes of chunks of the concerto)?


Apologies for not responding to this question until now.

I would include the Sherlock Holmes score in my top 10 favourite Rózsa film scores.  It is generally regarded as one of his best scores which, from a composer who wrote many top quality film scores, is a high recommendation.  If one is not interested in Rózsa or film scores there is no reason to purchase this, or the better sounding Tadlow re-recording.  However, the score contains several attractive themes, including an Elgarian sounding one, to represent London and Scotland, where Queen Victoria appears near Loch Ness!  (Rózsa also includes Elgarian sounding themes in his scores for his war movies  Five Graves to Cairo and, in my opinion, Sahara).  The themes of the Violin Concerto appear as they are in the film score, not modified in any material way.  However, the opening themes of the first and third movements are for the orchestra alone but most times the gorgeous slow movement appears, it appears as it does in the Violin Concerto (i.e. with violin).  The film score is an interesting way to hear the Concerto in a different and larger context. Whether one gets much more for your money than the Concerto alone is a subjective judgement.  For me, I get my money’s worth!

This superb score, based on his 1953 Violin Concerto, has been rereleased in a 2CD deluxe remastered sound version.  Although I have the sold out 2013 version, the Tadlow re-recording and, indeed, everything on the CDs bar one repaired track, it has been ordered.  :) :D ;D

The original Heifetz recording of the Violin Concerto is included in remastered sound.

Sound samples can be heard under ‘Tracklist’.

https://quartetrecords.com/product/the-private-life-of-sherlock-holmes-2-cd/

See also:

https://www.filmscoremonthly.com/board/posts.cfm?threadID=143632&forumID=1&archive=0

https://www.tapatalk.com/groups/miklosrozsa/holmes-is-back-and-better-than-ever-t2000.html

Although I haven’t listened to it for years, it should be available on the B&IM archive, I am considering buying this.

Has anyone seen this Iranian sculptor’s webpage in ArtStation?

I discovered him last year when I found a reference to his attempt to construct a 3D image of Chopin based, among other things, on the 2 known daguerreotypes of him and his death mask.  He has since attempted a further construction of Chopin.

There are 3 daguerreotypes of Schumann which he used to construct a 3D image of him.

There are 2 constructions of Beethoven, at different times of his life, together with Bach, Mozart, Schubert and Mendelssohn.  These are in addition to Clara Schumann, Liszt and Brahms, of which there are several daguerreotypes and photographs.

See:

Chopin 1

https://www.artstation.com/artwork/Z5LYXm


Chopin 2

https://www.artstation.com/artwork/8eDxaO

Schumann

https://www.artstation.com/artwork/nYJQG1

Mendelsshon

https://www.artstation.com/artwork/28y5qK

All his musical 3D images can be seen at:

https://www.artstation.com/hadikarimi

I wonder what might come next. Handel and Haydn?

I admire the music of Chisholm and find his modernistic style rather intriguing (the Second Piano Concerto and Violin Concerto being influenced by Indian ragas and part of a triptych, along with a Concerto for Orchestra, only performed, quite recently, in a version for 2 pianos). I couldn’t say that I love his music or that it affects me emotionally.  It certainly was not, for me, immediately appealing or instantly memorable music.  But everything I have heard, at least so far as the orchestral music is concerned, created a sufficiently favourable impression to encourage me to want to listen again.

By so doing, I have found his music quite rewarding, albeit after repeated hearings (particularly so in the case of the Second Piano Concerto and Violin Concerto).  On the lighter side, the three orchestrated piano preludes ‘From the Edge of the True World’ were immediately memorable and his ‘Pictures from Dante’ on Dutton made an initial strong impact.   That may have been because the ‘Paradiso’ is in the medieval dorian mode, although John Purser, in his biography of Chisholm, thought the religious theme was not original, though he couldn’t identify where it came from.

My interest in pursuing Chisholm came from buying his book The Operas of Leoš Janáček when I was a teenager.  The introductory section contained an essay which discussed music he had composed, including the piano and violin concertos.  In 2010 or so I purchased a CD from the Erik Chisholm Trust.  This led to me entering into some correspondence with his eldest daughter Morag, after she wrote to me enquiring what had interested me in her father’s music.  She assumed I was an accomplished pianist, which I am not.

Songs with piano generally don’t interest me too much.  However, I will buy the Delphian CD when it is released.

Recorded in September last year and due for release in June.

Limited information currently available.

https://www.delphianrecords.com/products/erik-chisholm-songs?_pos=2&_sid=9fbccf3c5&_ss=r

See also:

https://www.facebook.com/erikchisholmcomposer/

I just saw this post today.

Absolutely delighted you (Colin) are back.  ;D ;D ;D ;D ;D

I have greatly missed your insightful contributions.  Thank you for returning.  :) ;) :D

🤗🥳🤩

Thanks for this.

Here is a link to an earlier thesis on Drysdale:

https://ttu-ir.tdl.org/bitstream/handle/2346/20621/31295013698476.pdf?sequence=1&isAllowed=y

In the early 2000’s I invited one of my partners in my law firm, together with his wife, to my home for dinner.  Several of Scotland’s most prestigious musical establishments, orchestras, performing societies etc were his clients (happily I was able to service some of them in my area of legal expertise).  Prior to my joining the firm I knew of him by reputation as having the largest classical music record collection in Scotland.  By the time I knew him he had given his record collection away but had literally thousands of classical music CDs in the main room of his home. 

What relevance is this to this thread? Well at dinner I mentioned Hyperion’s Scottish composer series.  My law partner mentioned he had tried, years before, to interest a major Scottish orchestra in recording these composers but without success (although the orchestra did feature in the Hyperion series). His wife mentioned she had sung in the performance of Mackenzie’s The Sun-God’s Return.  She was unenthusiastic about the piece though I would love to have heard it.

I once owned an almost complete recording of MacCunn’s Jeanie Deans on two cassettes (the opening of the Opera was slightly cut short).  I had purchased it from the Scottish Music Information Centre (it may still be available).  It was from a performance in Ayr.  It was not an opera I particularly enjoyed and was my least favourite item on the Hyperion disc.  I was very glad when a complete Lay of the Last Minstrel was uploaded to the British and Irish Music catalogue.

Below are three links to an article and a thesis on Hamish MacCuun.

https://academicworks.cuny.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=1005&context=qc_pubs

http://etheses.dur.ac.uk/2456/1/2456_467_-_vol_1.pdf?UkUDh:CyT

http://etheses.dur.ac.uk/2456/2/2456_467_-_vol_2.pdf?UkUDh:CyT

The last (?), or at least one of the only, film score(s) by Bernard Herrmann not previously released on record or CD.  From the 1972 British film based on an Agatha Christie novel.  New digital recording.

See: https://quartetrecords.com/product/endless-night/

Several cuts from full score but the original beginning of the wedding celebration in Act 2 including juke box (not included in the original LP release (available on Naxos) or Chandos CD but included in original vocal/piano score) can be heard for the first time in decades  ;D

Cast and details can be found at:  https://www.paleycenter.org/collection/item/?q=all&p=470&item=T90:0141

See: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XJWlzBKjA6E

Partially funded via Kickstarter (£40,000 plus raised). Original planned release date in 2019 delayed for over a year but CD has been available to most funders since May/June  :) A superb recording  ;D

See: http://www.tadlowmusic.com/2020/11/king-of-kings/

Musical extracts can be heard on above link.


See also: https://www.filmscoremonthly.com/board/posts.cfm?forumID=1&pageID=1&threadID=142289&archive=0

See: https://somm-recordings.com/recording/george-dyson-the-open-window/?_ga=2.135705394.2094360347.1601247070-633347831.1601247070