Hmmmm…”Learner” Rasharri? What’s all this, then?
SOON
Symphony Saturday
Sir Arthur Sullivan has a hallowed place in the history of classical music for his work in setting the librettos of W.S. Gilbert to music, resulting in the enduring operettas of Gilbert and Sullivan, which are probably the greatest musical achievement of Victorian England. Sullivan didn’t just write operettas, however. He was a prolific composer who wrote a number of operas, oratorios, various orchestral works, and this single symphony, which he considered titling “the Irish Symphony”. He didn’t officially choose that title, and in fact it didn’t end up being attached to the work on a de facto basis until after his passing.
The symphony is a youthful work and as such it is uneven and in places clearly inspired by Sullivan’s musical models — in this case, Mendelssohn and Schumann. Nevertheless, the piece is an engaging listen. I’m not familiar enough with Sullivan’s more mature work to know if and where you can hear in his Symphony hints of what is to come later on when he writes, say, The Mikado or Iolanthe, but Sullivan’s Symphony is a pleasantly typical Romatic-era symphony, with some moments of pleasing lyricism — particularly in the opening, when a portentous opening in the low brass yields to an almost ethereal chord in the strings.
Here is Sir Arthur Sullivan’s Symphony in E Major, the “Irish”.
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Something for Thursday
Twenty Years
Tone Poem Tuesday
Max Bruch’s Scottish Fantasy exists somewhere in the space between tone poem and concerto, with its prominent and technical part for solo violin. It’s not a concerto, however; its structure more casts it as a fantasy on a number of Scottish folk tunes. Bruch was a prolific composer in the Brahmsian tradition, although not much of his music is heard today. His Violin Concerto is a mainstay in the repertoire, and the Scottish Fantasy has not disappeared either. The nature of the work puts me in mind of Berlioz’s great symphony Harold in Italy.
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In other news….
Two developments:
:: Amongst the Stars: The Song of Forgotten Stars Book III will be available on May 25! As is my usual practice, the book will be in paperback first with e-books to follow a couple of weeks later. And I am planning to start selling signed copies of all my books through ForgottenStars.net!
Front cover:
Back cover copy:
I’ve already posted the first two chapters to ForgottenStars.net, and there will be a third chapter up later this week, probably Thursday.
:: The jury is still out on this particular development on the home front. I’m sure we’ll get it all figured out, but for now, things are a bit of a whirlwind at Casa Jaquandor.
Meet the source of the whirlwind: Carla, aka Dee-oh-gee 2.0.
So there we are.
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Symphony Saturday
I seem to recall once owning a set of Franz Berwald’s symphonies. They made no impression on me whatsoever in the occasions I tried listening to them, and I’m not even sure if I still own the CDs. I’m not even sure what led me to listen to him again now, in 2017, but I did, and I’m glad I did so.
Berwald is a virtually canonical example of an artist whose work was obscure in his lifetime to the point of being almost completely ignored. Berwald, a Swede who lived from 1796 to 1868 — a decently long life in that time — couldn’t even earn a living as a musician, instead making his way as a surgeon and then as a factory manager. Of his four symphonies, only the first was played during his lifetime. He didn’t toil in complete obscurity; he had a few champions here and there, but virtually none in his own homeland.
His four symphonies certainly don’t deserve their obscurity, and one wonders just why they were so roundly disregarded during his lifetime. They are not massive works, nor do they place undue demands on the performers; their harmonic language is interesting but would surely not have been unlistenable in a musical climate that was trending toward Tristan. The world of art is a capricious one, and it is hard to escape the notion that what separates those who achieve recognition and those who do not is some celestial roll of the dice. (Enduring legacy? That’s another matter entirely.)
I present two of Berwald’s symphonies here: the Third in C major, titled “Sinfonie singulaire”, and the Fourth in E-flat major, called “Sinfonie naive”. Both symphonies abound with life and rustic nature, and it’s even tempting to hear — since Berwald was Swedish, after all — tantalizing hints of what would come decades later when Sibelius or Nielsen.
Here are the Third and Fourth symphonies of Franz Berwald.
Next week…I’m not sure. I want to do some more homework before I start in on Mahler.
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Bad Joke Friday
Something for Thursday
It seems odd to me that one of the greatest Hollywood film composers, Jerry Goldsmith, had to wait until thirteen years after he died to get a star on the Walk of Fame, but there it is.
Here is some Goldsmith, who is almost always worth hearing.