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A recording wishlist

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Albion
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Frederic Cowen (1852-1935)


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« on: January 24, 2021, 10:08:40 pm »

In these terrible times, it does one no harm to dream. As members know, my primary interest is British music of the Victorian and Edwardian eras, and recent years have given me (and many others) the chance to hear works in professional performances which were previously thought impossible in this day and age of constrained economics and populism - for example Sullivan's The Light of the World and The Beauty Stone, Parry's Judith, Cowen's 5th Symphony, Walford Davies's Everyman and Havergal Brian's The Vision of Cleopatra.

For what it's worth, here is my recording wishlist (not a list of what I consider "masterpieces", by the way, whatever they may be), excluding works for which good off-air performances are available):

Cipriani Potter (1792-1871): Symphonies 1 to 9 (1819-1846) an an integral cycle
George Macfarren (1813-1887): She Stoops to Conquer (1864); Helvellyn (1864); St John the Baptist (1873)
William Vincent Wallace (1814-1865): The Amber Witch (1861)
Henry Pierson (1815-1873): Jerusalem (1852); Faust (1854)
William Sterndale Bennett (1816-1875): Concert-Stück (Piano Concerto No.6) in A minor (1841-43, rev. 1848)
Ebenezer Prout (1835-1909): The Red Cross Knight (1887)
John Francis Barnett (1837-1916): The Ancient Mariner (1867)
Frederic Clay (1838-1889): Princess Toto (1876); Lalla Rookh (1877)
Arthur Sullivan (1842-1900): The Martyr of Antioch (1880); The Chieftain (1894)
Alfred Cellier (1844-1891): Doris (1889)
Alexander Mackenzie (1847-1935): Colomba (1883); The Rose of Sharon (1884); The Dream of Jubal (1889); Veni, Creator Spiritus (1891); The Cricket on the Hearth (1901); London Day-by-Day (1902); The Sun-God's Return (1910); Tam o'Shanter (1911)
Hubert Parry (1848-1918): Prometheus Unbound (1880); Ode on St Cecilia's Day (1889); L'Allegro ed il Penseroso (1890); A Song of Darkness and Light (1898); The Pied Piper of Hamelin (1905); Te Deum (1913)
Arthur Goring Thomas (1850-1892): Esmeralda (1883); Nadeshda (1886)
Frederic Cowen (1852-1935): Symphony No.4 (1884); Sleeping Beauty (1885); The Water-Lily (1893); The Dream of Endymion (1897); Ode to the Passions (1898); A Phantasy of Life and Love (1901); John Gilpin (1904); A Suite of Old English Dances (1905); The Veil (1910); The Months (1912)
Charles Villiers Stanford (1852-1924): The Canterbury Pilgrims (1884); Elegaic Ode (1884); The Voyage of Maeldune (1889); Phaudrig Crohoore (1896); Shamus O'Brien (1896); Te Deum (1898); Much Ado about Nothing (1901); The Critic (1916); Merlin and the Gleam (1919, re-orchestrated by Jeremy Dibble)
Frederic Cliffe (1857-1931): Symphony No.2 (1892)
Ethel Smyth (1858-1944): Hey Nonny No (1910); Sleepless Dreams (1910)
Granville Bantock (1868-1846): Hudibras (1902); Lalla Rookh (1902); Sea-Wanderers (1907); The Great God Pan (1914); The Pilgrim's Progress (1928)
Hamish MacCunn (1868-1916): Jeannie Deans (1894)
Henry Walford Davies (1869-1941): The Song of St Francis (1912)
Samuel Coleridge-Taylor (1875-1912): Meg Blane (1902); Thelma (1909); A Tale of Old Japan (1911)
Joseph Holbrooke (1878-1958): Queen Mab (1903); The Bells (1906); Apollo and Seaman (1907); A Dramatic Choral Symphony (1908); Dylan (1910); The Children of Don (1912); Bronwen (1929)
Rutland Boughton (1878-1960): Midnight (1909); Alkestis (1922); The Lily-Maid (1935)
Cyril Scott (1879-1971): Nativity Hymn (1913); The Alchemist (1917-18)
York Bowen (1884-1961): Festal Overture (1929); Symphony No.3 (1951), which only exists in vintage off-air recordings as the score and parts were destroyed


I would like to add a number of other works such as Coleridge-Taylor's Five Choral Ballads (orchestral version, 1905) and two of Cowen's mature operas Thorgrim (1890) and Harold (1895), along with several others, but the lack of extant orchestral performing material (full score and/ or parts) means that their revival is probably beyond mortal ken...

 :)
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jimfin
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« Reply #1 on: January 25, 2021, 11:27:24 am »

I'd second almost all of these! Some of them are probably in the pipeline and others we have practically no chance of hearing!

I might add Smyth's Entente Cordiale, but only if the score can be located. It's not known to be lost, but no one seems exactly sure where it is. Also I'd put on German's Princess of Kensington, very high on my wish list.
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Albion
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« Reply #2 on: January 25, 2021, 12:27:28 pm »

I might add Smyth's Entente Cordiale, but only if the score can be located. It's not known to be lost, but no one seems exactly sure where it is. Also I'd put on German's Princess of Kensington, very high on my wish list.

Yes, agreed to both. So that's two potential purchasers, lol...

 :D
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Albion
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« Reply #3 on: January 26, 2021, 12:02:33 am »

With their great advocacy of forgotten figures such as Henry Cotter Nixon (1842-1907) - an exact contemporary of Henry Gadsby - I've contacted Martin Anderson at Toccata Classics (https://toccataclassics.com/catalogue/) with score and manuscript information on Ebenezer Prout (1835-1909), John Francis Barnett (1837-1916), Henry Gadsby (1842-1907), Thomas Wingham (1846-1893), Frederick Corder (1852-1932) and Frederic Cowen (1852-1935). Who knows?..............

 :)
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« Reply #4 on: January 26, 2021, 01:30:06 am »

Doesn't Toccata record almost exclusively from the 20th century? 

That's my impression anyway, but could be mistaken.
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« Reply #5 on: January 26, 2021, 07:29:52 am »

I think Toccata also do late romantic nineteenth century. Anyway, they produce very high quality recordings of what they do choose.
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« Reply #6 on: January 27, 2021, 02:21:17 am »

Well, if this isn't just a British wishlist, I'd like to plump for a recording of a (naturalized) American cello concerto - the Concerto Fantastico for cello of Charles Martin Loeffler.
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Albion
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« Reply #7 on: January 27, 2021, 02:47:27 am »

Well, if this isn't just a British wishlist, I'd like to plump for a recording of a (naturalized) American cello concerto - the Concerto Fantastico for cello of Charles Martin Loeffler.

Jim, it's a wishlist thread for whatever you would like to see recorded, regardless of nationality, genre or date...

 :)

...and you don't have to go into any detail justifying why your selection is what it is (unlike in similar threads at certain other places)...

 ;)

...just as long as it's not by Raff or Rufinatscha (only kidding)...

 :D
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« Reply #8 on: January 27, 2021, 09:57:08 am »

I would love to see Iain Hamilton's symphonies recorded - particularly the 4th, which has become one of my favourite modern symphonies after discovering it here in our Archive.  Hamilton's centenary is next year, June 2022.   Also I would like to hear the remaining unrecorded symphonies of Arthur Butterworth, whose centenary is August 2023.
I wonder if someone could have a go at reconstructing York Bowen's third symphony?  Since it was performed on several occasions and broadcast at least twice, would there not be parts lying around somewhere?  Failing that, could it be reconstructed from one of the extant recordings?   After all, wasn't André Mathieu's 4th Piano Concerto reconstructed from a performance on a set of 78's?
It's great to see this forum gradually coming back to life again!
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Albion
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« Reply #9 on: January 27, 2021, 11:44:10 am »

I would love to see Iain Hamilton's symphonies recorded - particularly the 4th, which has become one of my favourite modern symphonies after discovering it here in our Archive.  Hamilton's centenary is next year, June 2022.   Also I would like to hear the remaining unrecorded symphonies of Arthur Butterworth, whose centenary is August 2023.
I wonder if someone could have a go at reconstructing York Bowen's third symphony?  Since it was performed on several occasions and broadcast at least twice, would there not be parts lying around somewhere?  Failing that, could it be reconstructed from one of the extant recordings?   After all, wasn't André Mathieu's 4th Piano Concerto reconstructed from a performance on a set of 78's?
It's great to see this forum gradually coming back to life again!

All great ideas, thanks - a big YES to more Hamilton and Butterworth!

I've already contacted both Martin Yates and John Wilson (now that they, unfortunately, probably have more time on their hands) about a reconstruction of Bowen's Symphony No.3 based on the vintage audio material available and await reply... No, there aren't any parts for the work extant.  Myself and Gareth Vaughan visited the reckless publisher de Wolfe at their London offices in 2011 and found that all performing material for the work, along with several other major Bowen scores, was reportedly "destroyed in a flood" at their warehouse-premises circa 1970 (although their lack of any knowledge about Bowen and the inaccuracy of the listings provided by James de Wolfe gave us little confidence and cause to wonder if they knew what on earth they were doing)...

 :)
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Albion
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« Reply #10 on: January 27, 2021, 09:24:17 pm »

I've already contacted both Martin Yates and John Wilson (now that they, unfortunately, probably have more time on their hands) about a reconstruction of Bowen's Symphony No.3 based on the vintage audio material available and await reply.

Here is the gist - [Dear...], I do not know whether or not you know the situation regarding York Bowen's Symphony No.3, Op.137 (1951). Myself and fellow-musicologist Gareth Vaughan visited the London offices of the publisher de Wolfe back in 2011 in the quest to track down several scores that Bowen assigned to them in the 1940s and 1950s. It turned out that the performing material for a number of works (holograph score and copyist orchestral parts), including the Symphony No.3, was (reportedly) completely destroyed in a flood at the publisher's warehouse circa 1970. As you would agree, a tragic loss. However, at least three broadcasts of the work survive from the 1950s conducted by Vilem Tausky, Ian Whyte and Charles Groves (I have copies of the first two of these). Is it conceivable that this major score could be re-created and brought back to life from this vintage audio material?

 :)
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« Reply #11 on: January 28, 2021, 10:36:23 am »

Thanks Albion for this.   It will be interesting to see what follows from it.
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« Reply #12 on: January 28, 2021, 12:25:40 pm »

There's a guy who specialises in reconstructing film scores from the audio -I forget the name. He might be just the person for the job!
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« Reply #13 on: January 28, 2021, 12:35:28 pm »

There's a guy who specialises in reconstructing film scores from the audio -I forget the name. He might be just the person for the job!

Remember, remember the film-score assembler...

 ;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)

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