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Sullivan 'The Beauty Stone' on Chandos

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Neil McGowan
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« Reply #30 on: November 09, 2013, 10:35:49 am »

Andrew Clements is little more than a mountebank - one of his prissy downputs is worth its weight in reverse value. The only thing to be said for having Clements review your disc or concert for the Grauniad is that you escaped being reviewed by Martin Kettle :-)
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jimfin
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« Reply #31 on: November 10, 2013, 01:26:54 am »

He reminds me of the late John Drummond, who, when I wrote asking for more British music at the Proms said "it fills me with horror to think of an 18-year-old [as I then was] who listens to Sullivan and Havergal Brian". A reverse nationalist, basically.
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Neil McGowan
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« Reply #32 on: November 10, 2013, 03:59:30 pm »

He reminds me of the late John Drummond, who, when I wrote asking for more British music at the Proms said "it fills me with horror to think of an 18-year-old [as I then was] who listens to Sullivan and Havergal Brian". A reverse nationalist, basically.

Of course - the indoctrination that "Protestant Teutonic Music Is Best" has to start early  ::)
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Albion
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« Reply #33 on: November 10, 2013, 04:41:05 pm »

He reminds me of the late John Drummond, who, when I wrote asking for more British music at the Proms said "it fills me with horror to think of an 18-year-old [as I then was] who listens to Sullivan and Havergal Brian". A reverse nationalist, basically.

What fills me with horror is the fact that a supposedly cultured man with such backward and narrow appreciation of his own native culture should have held the positions of Controller of Music, Radio 3, and director of the Proms for so many years ...

 :o

This period (1987-95), strangely enough, coincided with a noticeable drop in enterprising programmes of British music being played and broadcast by the BBC regional orchestras. Nowadays, of course, generally the BBC gives us such music only whenever there is an x in the month.

 ::) :P >:(

On a lighter note, being a connoisseur of amusing vegetables:





             

 ;D
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"A piece is worth your attention, and is itself for you praiseworthy, if it makes you feel you have not wasted your time over it." (Sydney Grew, 1922)
cilgwyn
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« Reply #34 on: November 12, 2013, 01:10:38 pm »

Very funny! More fruit-veggie (nut?! ;D) critic photo comparisons please! ;D
(But maybe not! We don't want to get sued,by an irate cauliflower,do we?!!)
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jimfin
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« Reply #35 on: November 13, 2013, 12:25:02 am »

Wonderful!
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Albion
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Frederic Cowen (1852-1935)


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« Reply #36 on: December 09, 2013, 01:40:38 pm »

An excellent notice in The Quarterly Review - http://www.quarterly-review.org/?p=2117

 :)
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"A piece is worth your attention, and is itself for you praiseworthy, if it makes you feel you have not wasted your time over it." (Sydney Grew, 1922)
cilgwyn
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« Reply #37 on: December 09, 2013, 02:12:23 pm »

The one in IRR Magazine was positive,but rather cool I thought.
Thank you Albion,by the way! :)
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Albion
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Frederic Cowen (1852-1935)


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« Reply #38 on: December 09, 2013, 05:02:44 pm »

Yes, in the course of a customarily lengthy IRR review (by Graham Rogers), there are some decidedly questionable remarks -

"to modern ears much of [Sullivan's] serious music is unpalatably worthy, sometimes to the point of turgidness" - any specific works being referred to here?

"numbers such as the delightful dancing duet for the Devil and village girl Jacqueline [...] provide welcome flashes of Gilbert and Sullivan-esque spontaneity", presumably amidst the wasteland of otherwise unpalatable turgidity.

"Rebecca Evans is more than equal to the operatic demands of [Philip's] bride Saida" - I'm sure that Saida would wish to have been Philip's bride! Come on, the plot's not that difficult to follow.

"Sullivan's most ardent fans cannot deny that by 1898 - two years after the premiere of La boheme - his resolutely Mendelssohnian style was very old-fashioned, and there is too little here of the compelling excitement which shines through his Gilbert collaborations" - well no Mendelssohn work I've ever encountered sounds like the music in this opera and the hoary old chestnut of comparative chronology really should be put to bed: Sullivan was Sullivan, Puccini was Puccini, get over it!

Nevertheless the review concludes "it is an important work offering much to enjoy, deserving of this first-class advocacy. Chandos is to be thanked and congratulated on a very worthwhile and rewarding endeavour"!

Confusing, perhaps? It reads like two disparate reviews forced into an uneasy compromise.

 ::)
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cilgwyn
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« Reply #39 on: December 09, 2013, 06:38:28 pm »

Indeed! A very odd review!! ??? ???
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« Reply #40 on: December 09, 2013, 07:38:21 pm »

I could suggest that you put your points about the IRR Review into a letter to the Editor.

However, I have written twice in recent months to IRR and neither letter has been published. I cannot recall immediately the subject matter of the first letter. In the second however I took issue with my old friend Malcolm MacDonald's review of the Fritz Brun Symphony No.1. Malcolm wrote that Brun is "probably, despite the claims of his elder contemporary,Hans Huber, Switzerland's most important symphonist". Apart from the fact that Huber was born 26 years before Brun and died before seven of Brun's symphonies had been composed-which doesn't really make him very "contemporary" with Brun in my opinion-my argument was that we simply do not know enough about Swiss symphonism to make such a claim. What about Honegger ??? And even if we discount Honegger, are we really in a position to produce a proper evaluation of the symphonies of, say, Conrad Beck ???

....anyway, this is far from Sullivan I know ::)......and it might still be worth trying a letter to IRR regarding "The Beauty Stone" :)
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Albion
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« Reply #41 on: December 15, 2013, 11:29:00 am »

In contrast, the recording has received an extremely positive welcome on Musicweb -

http://www.musicweb-international.com/classrev/2013/Dec13/Sullivan_Beauty_CHAN10794.htm

 :)
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"A piece is worth your attention, and is itself for you praiseworthy, if it makes you feel you have not wasted your time over it." (Sydney Grew, 1922)

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