Music That I Have Not Yet Discovered

dulcinea · Post by **dulcinea** » Wed Jun 22, 2005 5:58 pm

Hello to all. I'm new here, so let me explain that I'm 50, and that--apart from a few operas--I know the standard repertoire by heart, so that I'm now looking for new music to discover. For example, I'm not interested in listening for the twentieth time to the Grieg Piano Concerto--now playing over the radio--, but instead want to discover what other music has come from Norway. Would you be kind enough to instruct me? Many thanks in advance.

jbuck919 · Post by **jbuck919** » Wed Jun 22, 2005 6:07 pm

Welcome to this board. You ask a very interesting question.
I'm not the great expert to address it, but I'll offer the following thought:

Ever heard of Ragnar Soderlind? Neither have I--almost. There is another board that some of us post to, the Good Music Guide, where there is a fair amount of discussion of relatively unknown Scandinavian composers. In fact, there are at least one or two Scandinavian members over there.

Please don't interpret this as not wanting you here--quite to the contrary, please stick around. We do have members who have explored flavors beyond my plain vanilla. Just thought you could use the information.

http://www.good-music-guide.com

Ralph · Post by **Ralph** » Wed Jun 22, 2005 8:33 pm

Welcome!

johnQpublic · Post by **johnQpublic** » Wed Jun 22, 2005 8:43 pm

Norwegians, eh?

Very good Romantics = Johann Svendsen & Johann Halvorsen
More modern = Harald Saeverud

UB · Post by UB » Thu Jun 23, 2005 1:42 pm

There is a lot of 20th century music available on the web...which means you can try many composers that you might not know for nothing. Here are a few of my favorite sites:

http://magmasystems.home.comcast.net/Up ... casts.html - you can record these streams by using Total Recorder or some other program that captures the stream.

http://musicmavericks.publicradio.org/ - try both the smooth and crunchy stations. The main drawback is that you have no idea what you are going to hear next.

http://www.artofthestates.org/cgi-bin/complist.pl - for mainly American 20th century composers.

http://www.naxos.com/mainsite/default.asp?pn=composers - once you are registered you can sample extracts of most music for free or for $20 a year you can listen to the full cds.

More modern Norwegian - Arne Nordheim. http://www.arnenordheim.com/

Brendan · Post by **Brendan** » Thu Jun 23, 2005 3:39 pm

Just a thank you to (I assume it is our old friend) Utah Bill for those links, in particular for me the Arne Nordheim site.

DSzymborski · Post by **DSzymborski** » Thu Jun 23, 2005 4:01 pm

There are a lot of terrific Norwegian composers. I second the recommendation for the Svendsen symphonies (I prefer the Jansons/Chandos recording). If 20th century music floats your boat, you really need to listen to some of Harald Saeverud's symphonies, especially 3 and 9 (I don't think they've all been recorded). 3 of Geirr Tveitt's surviving piano concertos have made it to Naxos. There's also a lot of Grieg out there that isn't part of the central repetory and not often heard, mostly piano works.[/quote]

Post by **Corlyss_D** » Thu Jun 23, 2005 4:34 pm

DAN!

How the hell are you! How're things in SABRE??????? What's new on the Hummel front! Welcome!!! What are you doing these days!!!!!!

Hey, everyone! Dan is one of our MSN staffers, an extremely talented brass player, midi composer, statistics major, baseball nut, and Hummel and Czerny authority par excellence!

DSzymborski · Post by **DSzymborski** » Thu Jun 23, 2005 4:57 pm

Extremely talented? Must be confusing me with another Dan!

Kind of got out of habit when the site got it's own domain - I'm a creature of habit. I'm actually freelance writing full-time now, making both of my degrees kinda silly.

Post by **Corlyss_D** » Thu Jun 23, 2005 5:36 pm

DSzymborski wrote:Extremely talented? Must be confusing me with another Dan!

Kind of got out of habit when the site got it's own domain - I'm a creature of habit. I'm actually freelance writing full-time now, making both of my degrees kinda silly.

What are you writing about? Surely not statistics!

BTW, after years of procrastinating and lollygagging, I finally went to my first professional baseball game 3 weeks ago - the Salt Lake City Stingers, a 3A club for the Anaheim Angels. I liked it so much I ran out to get tickets to the the Ogden Raptors, an A club for the Dodgers, which is much closer to me here in Logan. I'm looking for a good book that can teach me how to appreciate the game as a fan, you know what to look for and how to anticipate things. Can you recommend one?

DSzymborski · Post by **DSzymborski** » Thu Jun 23, 2005 5:39 pm

Baseball!

Post by **Corlyss_D** » Thu Jun 23, 2005 5:43 pm

DSzymborski wrote:Baseball!

You earn a living doing that? Wow! You must be damn good! I'm impressed! Congratulations.

Jack Kelso · Post by **Jack Kelso** » Thu Jul 07, 2005 1:14 am

DSzymborski wrote:There are a lot of terrific Norwegian composers. I second the recommendation for the Svendsen symphonies (I prefer the Jansons/Chandos recording). If 20th century music floats your boat, you really need to listen to some of Harald Saeverud's symphonies, especially 3 and 9 (I don't think they've all been recorded). 3 of Geirr Tveitt's surviving piano concertos have made it to Naxos. There's also a lot of Grieg out there that isn't part of the central repetory and not often heard, mostly piano works.

[/quote]

One under-appreciated Norwegian late-Romantic is Christian Sinding (remember the ever-popular "Rustle of Spring"?), who wrote four beautiful symphonies.

How about a couple of Swedish composers? Berwald's four symphonies are lyrical, compact and rhythmically strong. Then there's the more modern Hugo Alfven, whose Fourth Symphony remains one of my favorite Scandanavian works.

Jack

otterhouse · Post by **otterhouse** » Thu Jul 07, 2005 3:19 am

> One under-appreciated Norwegian late-Romantic is Christian Sinding >(remember the ever-popular "Rustle of Spring"?)

I have put a 1927 edison diamond disc recording of this work on-line:
http://homepages.ipact.nl/~otterhouse/S ... uschen.mp3
I is played by May A Mayer. Can someone tell me more about this pianist?
I like the Sinding Violin Sonatas. Very "avant garde" for the 1890's.

Rolf

Jennifer Grucza · Post by **Jennifer Grucza** » Thu Jul 07, 2005 7:36 am

Nielsen's Norweigan, right?

DSzymborski · Post by **DSzymborski** » Thu Jul 07, 2005 7:45 am

Nielsen's a great Dane.

You'll still find Rustle of Spring in big compilations of piano sheet music. Sinding's piano concerto can be found in the Vox series of Romantic Piano Concertos. Worth a good pickup used on Amazon - Hyperion's generally improved on Vox's performances in their series, but there are a lot of pieces that Hyperion hasn't gotten to, the Sinding one of them at last check.

PJME · Post by **PJME** » Fri Jul 08, 2005 1:26 am

Scandinavian composers are well worth investigating. The late romantics and early modernists show an impressive talent;
Naxos will help you for little money:

Valen, Fartein: The Churchyard By the Sea, Op. 20 (and other composers)
-Iceland Symphony Orchestra
-Engeset, conductor
8.557018 Norwegian Classical Favourites

8554497 : Norwegian violin favourites (Bull, Halvorsen,Sinding....mainly late Romantic)
8553715 : Swedish orchestral favourites.A very good and "lovely" program with pleasing orchestral works :de Frumerie,Atterberg,Rangstrom etc.
8555773 :Finnish composers (Sallinen, Merikanto,Rautavaara..)

Hilding Rosenberg is a Swedish composers you might like. His style is not unlike Honegger's, or Copland's or Martinu's...Big symphonies,intense chambermusic....Symphony nr 4 "The revelation of St.John" is a mighty oratorio - like composition for baritone,chorus and orchestra (late 1940'ies).Extremely beautiful,moving a capella choruses are combined with strong orchestral movements.

DavidRoss · Post by **DavidRoss** » Fri Jul 08, 2005 10:21 am

dulcinea wrote:I know the standard repertoire by heart, so that I'm now looking for new music to discover. For example, I'm not interested in listening for the twentieth time to the Grieg Piano Concerto--now playing over the radio--, but instead want to discover what other music has come from Norway.

Hi, dulcinea. Apparently most have taken your "Grieg/Norway" example to mean that you're only interested in Norwegian music. If that's not what you intended then let us know and other suggestions for non-Norwegian composers will probably be forthcoming.

I'm also unclear what "the standard repertoire" means to you. To some it means that core of frequently programmed Germanic composers from Bach & Handel to Mahler. To others it might range from Zelenka to Adams. It might also help if we had an idea of your preferences: symphonic or chamber music, baroque or romantic, etc.

For me the biggest "discovery" in the past few years was Sibelius, who still seems to hover on the fringes of the standard repertoire. My early exposure to Finlandia supported the egregiously mistaken critical view of him as a "late-romantic nationalist"--sort of a less tuneful and less successful Nordic Dvořák. But having been challenged to give him a fair hearing, starting with the symphonies, I soon changed my mind and now regard him as a "modern universalist," one of the most extraordinary, original, and spiritually profound voices in all the arts, a giant on the order of the "3 Bs" and Mozart. Among his heirs I feel are the contemporaries often referred to as "minimalists," of whom John Adams is my favorite; some well-known Brits, chiefly Vaughan Williams and Bax; and many Scandinavians, among whom Rautavaara is certainly foremost.

I've also enjoyed exploring more of the 20th Century Americans--not only the aforementioned minimalists, but more traditional composers like Piston, Barber, and Copland (much more than "one hit wonders"), unique voices like Hovhaness, and contemporaries such as Tobias Picker, Eric Whitacre, Joan Tower, and Jennifer Higdon. And if you haven't already then I suggest exploring the Spanish and Latin American music that still lies outside the mainstream: Rodrigo, de Falla, Albéniz, Granados, Villa Lobos, Ponce, Sor, Lauro, and Barrios, for instance. Though some of their work is orchestral, much is for piano and guitar--the latter an instrument which has yet to be fully accepted by die-hard Germanic traditionalists, but which is rapidly gaining wider acceptance and not in small part due to the wealth of fine music such composers have written for it in recent years.

karlhenning · Post by **karlhenning** » Fri Jul 08, 2005 10:54 am

The hymn-tune adaptation notwithstanding ... I agree, Finlandia is a bit clunky, especially compared to Dvorak.

He got a great deal better :-)

Post by **Corlyss_D** » Fri Jul 08, 2005 2:39 pm

DavidRoss wrote:
dulcinea wrote:what other music has come from Norway.

Hi, dulcinea.
Apparently most have taken your "Grieg/Norway" example to mean that you're only interested in Norwegian music.

What? We we leaping to conclusions again?????

DavidRoss · Post by **DavidRoss** » Fri Jul 08, 2005 4:48 pm

Corlyss_D wrote:
DavidRoss wrote:
dulcinea wrote:what other music has come from Norway.
Hi, dulcinea.
Apparently most have taken your "Grieg/Norway" example to mean that you're only interested in Norwegian music.
What? We we leaping to conclusions again?????

I don't know what she meant, Corlyss. What I read was:

dulcinea wrote:I know the standard repertoire by heart, so that I'm now looking for new music to discover. For example, I'm not interested in listening for the twentieth time to the Grieg Piano Concerto--now playing over the radio--, but instead want to discover what other music has come from Norway.

I took that to mean she wanted suggestions re. music new to her, outside the standard repertoire but not necessarily Norwegian. I thought the statement about Norway was meant only in reference to her example of disinterest in Grieg, and that she might just as easily have selected Debussy in which case she'd have said "France" instead of Norway. But unless she reappears to confirm this suspicion, I'll gladly concede that I'm wrong. (I'm married and have lots of practice at it.)

Post by **Corlyss_D** » Sat Jul 09, 2005 1:02 am

DavidRoss wrote:I took that to mean she wanted suggestions re. music new to her, outside the standard repertoire but not necessarily Norwegian.

I thought Norwegian was what she wanted. Save for what I articulated in my discussion with the Norwegian gentleman on Grieg's Lyric Pieces, I'm completely at a loss for Norwegian anything.

By virtue of her other posts, I'm trying to get her to discover 'new' music by going backward . . . to the middle ages! There's so much undiscovered terrain in the past, there's hardly any reason to look to the future for the pleasure of the new.

RebLem · Post by **RebLem** » Sat Jul 09, 2005 3:23 am

No, Nielsen was Danish.

Why just Norwegians? I would like to recommend three composers, none Norwegian. One is Wilhelm Stenhammar. I suggest starting with the string quartets. Secondly is a German composer named Norbert Burgmuller (1810-36). Schumann considered his premature death almost as great a tragedy as that of Schubert. And thirdly, a contemporary, though aged, Finnish composer, Einojuhani Rautavaara.

Furthermore, there are some little appreciated works by great, well known composers to investigate. Some of the choral works of Schumann, Schubert's Masses, and Dvorak's Cypresses are in this category.

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