# Off the beaten track



## sqorda (Aug 9, 2013)

I was about to say that I’m new here when I noticed that I’ve been a member since 2013.

Anyway, to kick things off (after nearly ten years) here’s a list of stuff that might not be on everyone’s radar. Things that in my own very humble opinion deserve to be played, and listened to, more often.

https://open.spotify.com/playlist/7d4wOU0IeQ4zQ1XDQmGXz5?si=12af477d8dd3441e

*JC Bach: Symphony Op 6 No 1 in G major W C7 (before 1769)*
The first movement in particular never fails to lift my habitually morose spirits.

*Haydn: Overture to Philemon und Baucis (1773)*
A hidden gem if ever there was one. I think there are four or maybe five recordings of this overture (to a puppet-opera!). Two of which happen to be by the same outfit.

*Milhaud: String Quartet No 1 Op 5 (1912)*
Is Milhaud the most underrated composer of the 20th century? Milhaud was all of 20 years old when he wrote this piece.

*Rebecca Clarke: Sonata for Viola and Piano (1919)*
There are plenty of recordings of Clarke’s wonderful Viola Sonata, and yet it remains relatively unknown.

*André Caplet: Epiphanie (for cello and orchestra, 1923)*
There are only half a dozen or so recordings of Caplet’s Epiphanie. I find that slightly odd.

*Ruth Crawford Seeger: String Quartet (1931)*
This is a great work. Period.

*BA Zimmermann: Requiem für einen jungen Dichter (1967-1969)*
Sidelined by the slightly younger batch of composers that came to dominate the latter half of the 20th century (Boulez, Stockhausen, Xenakis, Ligeti, Berio, Nono), Zimmermann could be colourful and fun as well as incredibly bleak. The Requiem for a Young Poet (one of his last works) is very 1969. Probably not everyone’s cup of tea. But I find it fascinating. And fun (if you can believe it).

*Louis Andriessen: De Staat (1972-1976)*
Something of a cult classic. And utterly spellbinding.

*Edith Canat de Chizy: Exultet (for violin and orchestra, 1995)*
I just happened to stumble upon this piece by a composer I had never heard of. I’m glad I did.

*Ivan Fedele: Scena (1997-1998)*
Another composer I knew very little about until only a few weeks ago.

Now, does anyone else care to share?


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## Dirge (Apr 10, 2012)

Charles T. GRIFFES: *Piano Sonata* (1918/rev. 19)
:: Masselos [M-G-M ’57] Naxos Classical Archives
Griffes’s Piano Sonata is abstract, angular, dissonant and based on its own scale, which sort of resembles D minor, and it represents an abrupt and drastic change from Griffes’s rather Debussyan/impressionistic earlier output. Superficially, the Sonata sounds like an unlikely stepping stone between Scriabin’s Piano Sonata No. 9 “Black Mass” (1913) and Copland’s Piano Variations (1930), conveying something of the diabolical atmosphere (but none of the programmic implications) of the former and something of the angular rhetoric of the latter … but with an almost Lisztian sense of wandering/journeying about the dramatic narrative. Indeed, some of it, the slow movement especially, sounds as if it could be from «Années de pèlerinage, Quatrième année: Amérique».

Stephan WOLPE: *Passacaglia* from _*Four Studies on Basic Rows*_ (1936)
:: Tudor [Esoteric ’54] hat ART
This twelve-minute twelve-tone solo piano piece is basically one big accelerating crescendo with a cool-down at the end. It has more forward sweep and a stronger sense of purpose than is common in twelve-tone music, and Tudor plays it with fearless commitment. (To me, Wolpe is at his best when he’s working in a strict form such as passacaglia, chaconne, fugue, etc., so it’s not surprising that this is a favorite of mine.)

Elliott CARTER: _*A Symphony of Three Orchestras*_ (1976)
:: Boulez/NYPO [CBS]
_A Symphony of Three Orchestras_ is yet another work in which Carter divvies up his resources and variously juxtaposes or pits the resulting sub-forces against one another. In this case, he divvies up one big orchestra into three little orchestras of differing constitution and assigns each its very own set of four movements. Carter choreographs things so that each orchestra plays a movement in turn, with each movement beginning some time before the preceding movement ends. The result, then, is a continuous, overlapping twelve-movement work. This allows for a good deal of variety and complexity without too much density. Indeed, textures are often quite transparent, and even when they aren’t, when the music is relatively busy and dense, the orchestration is such that a focused listener can discern most any and every voice through the din, giving the illusion of transparency. The Symphony is slowly dramatic in its prevailing work-long descent from high pitch to low, and there are many affecting solos, some downright whistleable (if you’re a very very good whistler), that emerge throughout, the opening trumpet call being the most conspicuous of them. In fact, that very trumpet call is the single most beautiful episode I’ve encountered in any Elliott Carter work—yes, you read right: I used “beautiful” and “Elliott Carter” in the same sentence. It was inspired by Hart Crane’s description of a sea gull over Brooklyn Bridge, and it sounds a bit like the trumpet part from Copland’s _Quiet City_ as played by a trumpeter on a mild acid bender.

György KURTÁG: _*Scenes from a Novel*_ (1982)
:: Csengery, Keller, Csontos & Fábián [Hungaroton]
_Scenes from a Novel_ is a motley cycle of fifteen little songs that have a whiff of the theater about them. Indeed, it might be thought of as the disparate and extroverted alter ego of the deeply self-centered and introverted _Kafka Fragments_. If _Kafka Fragments_ is ultimately the more profound work, _Scenes from a Novel_ is the more welcoming and immediately appealing work.

Brian FERNEYHOUGH: _*La Chûte d’Icare*_ (1988)
:: Rosman, Elision Ensemble [Kairos]
This “little serenade of disappearence” is a sort of pint-sized (ten-minute) clarinet concerto based upon the Icarus myth by way of the Brueghel painting _Landscape with the Fall of Icarus_ (c. 1558) as discussed in the Auden poem “Musée des Beaux Arts” (1938)—the Auden title referring to Musées royaux des Beaux-Arts de Belgique, where the Brueghel painting (now thought to be an early copy of a lost Brueghel original) is kept. The painting and poem can be investigated here: aus unruhigen Träumen

Brueghel drolly depicts Icarus’s flight/plight at the moment of splashdown, an unassuming pair of splayed legs all but lost in the mundanely preoccupied and unnoticing (or uncaring?) scene being the only telltale of the occurring disaster. The painting itself gives no indication that any of its local inhabitants actually notice Icarus falling out of the sky and splashing into the sea, but Auden believes that they have noticed and are leisurely ignoring it. This seems to be Fereneyhough’s view as well, as the local inhabitants of the landscape (the ensemble) are not unaware of Icarus (the clarinet), but they’re leisurely ignoring him. The “programme” (if you can call it that) of the music is quite abstract—there’s no way, for example, that one could hear the music out of the blue and think “Icarus!”—but knowing the subject matter ahead of time and working backwards, one can rationalize/delude oneself into thinking that one detects a method to Ferneyhough’s madness and discern a programme.

The clarinet is pretty busy throughout, often squawking in a sort of vocalized avant-garde jazz manner that reminds me of Eric Dolphy’s “conversations” with Charles Mingus, only Mingus isn’t answering back; in a rationalized programme sense, it sounds as if the clarinet is trying to get the ensemble’s attention but not having much luck—the members of the ensemble are too concerned with tending to their day-to-day tasks to pay him any heed. There’s frustration in the clarinet’s tone from the git-go, with a growing sense of trouble as the work proceeds, culminating in the final meltdown and plummeting descent and splashdown/drowning, which is well represented by the clarinet’s virtuoso cadenza at work’s end. From Icarus’s perspective, the work’s sequence might go something like this: “Excuse me, but I’m having a little trouble with my wings” to “A little help here … anyone?” to “Hey! Ploughman! I know you can hear me, damn it!” to “Houston, we have a problem” to “Holy%#$&_[email protected]!!!” to “Ouch!” _to _gurgle, gurgle, gurgle, gur…._ For their part, the ensemble members react sympathetically without actually engaging the clarinet, maintaining a sort of parallel relationship much of the time. Not everything in the work fits that mold (some might argue that nothing in the work fits that mold), but that’s how I’ve generally chosen to hear it.


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## Art Rock (Nov 28, 2009)

* Warlock - The Curlew*










The Curlew is a song cycle from 1922 by Peter Warlock (actual name Philip Heseltine, 1894 - 1930) on poems by W. B. Yeats. It was written for singer and an unusual accompanying group of flute, cor anglais and string quartet. There are four songs, with a short instrumental interlude between the third and the fourth (see also its Wiki entry). When I bought the CD decades ago, it was to get the two Vaughan Williams cycles, but as good as they were, the Warlock turned out to be the real find. For me, bleak as it may be, it is one of the most beautiful song cycles ever composed.


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## Art Rock (Nov 28, 2009)

* Vasks - Cor Anglais Concerto *











The Cor Anglais Concerto by Latvian composer Pēteris Vasks (1946) was completed in 1989. It is a gentle and pastoral composition, influenced by elements of Latvian folk music, and brilliantly ochestrated. The cor anglais is one of my favourite instruments, and this is by far the best concerto for it that I know.


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## Neo Romanza (May 7, 2013)

Art Rock said:


> * Vasks - Cor Anglais Concerto *
> 
> 
> 
> ...


To follow-up this recommendation with another Vasks work: his _Oboe Concerto_. Pretty much for the same reasons as @Art Rock pointed out for the _Cor Anglais Concerto_. The _Oboe Concerto_ is a shimmering, folk-inspired work that, I believe, will leave you not only satisfied, but ready to hit the repeat button.

Check out this gorgeous performance on Ondine with Albrecht Mayer:


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## Kreisler jr (Apr 21, 2021)

As some pieces for oboe have been mentioned, I'd suggest *August Klughardt's "Schilflieder"* ("reed songs" but it is in fact not a pun on the oboe's reed as it does not work in German. It's a cycle of character pieces for oboe, viola, piano inspired by and named after a collection of poems by Lenau. (Mendelssohn wrote songs based on these poems). Mayer made a recording of this (but I don't know it, I have an older one coupled with songs of the poems)






*Dohnanyi: Sextet*, although this might be moderately well known by now. A wonderful late romantic and colorful (piano, string trio, clarinet, horn) piece.


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## SONNET CLV (May 31, 2014)

Thinking only of "classical" pieces I used in the sound designs of various theatre productions I worked on over the years, a few "off the beaten track" gems surface. They are, of course, no longer off the beaten track for me but have become regularly visited "musical friends" worthy of _your_ attentions, too.

*Kaljo Raid: Symphony No. 1 in C minor (1944)*
The opening of the first movement (Funebre, Energico) served as the curtain raiser for a setting of E.A. Poe's "Murders in the Rue Morgue". There's just so much good music in this lesser-known work that it deserves greater familiarity. Chandos features a recording of the symphony with Neeme Järvi.











*Ulvi Cemal Erkin: Symphony No.2 (1951-1954)*

Music from both the first and second movements of this symphony served to lend a proper atmosphere to a production of _The Terror of Frankenstein: It's Alive!_ The especially haunting opening to the Adagio served well to open the production which began with Doctor Frankenstein stitching together his Creature's body. The bold, theatrical sewing motions grew faster and more frantic as the music progressed, and it soon became obvious from this scene alone that we were dealing with a madman. I still cannot fathom another venue for this music, even after years away from that production. But the symphony spins in my CD deck at least once a year, and generally more often.










Had I ready access to my Production Notes (I do not at my present location) I could identify a dozen more, but I'll add only one more to this short list. Again a work I often play in my listening sessions and which CD is readily available on my shelves.

*Tan Dun: Symphony 1997 (Heaven, Earth, Mankind) *

For a production of Tina Howe's wonderful _Painting Churches_, which calls in the script for various pieces of music, mainly piano pieces by Chopin, I was able to revamp the "sound" of the play to better match the production design we set out to achieve, I felt, a more appropriate ambience for the thematic content with a more eclectic sound-pieces selection than those called for in the script. A featured work, from which the powerful closing moments of the play were drawn, was the Tan Dun symphony.











*Paul Creston: Symphony No. 2, Op. 35*

I recall that years before I seriously ventured into "sound design" -- in fact, I was still in my early teens -- I was contracted, rather informally, to produce an audio tape (narration) for a slide show presentation from a local company that manufactured concrete blocks. (I would eventually work at the plant for a short while following my high school graduation.) I added backgound music to my narration, the first time I had done so, without any knowledge of rights permissions, etc. -- drawing the music from an LP in my then small collection of discs. The "Interlude and Dance", the second movement of the Creston symphony served well to mimic an "industrial sound". (This was well before I had ever heard or _heard of _Mossolov's "Iron Foundry", itself a rather off-the-beaten-track work.)










*Charles Griffes: The Pleasure-Dome Of Kubla Khan* 

In another instance unrelated to theatre sound design, I once recorded myself reading the familiar Coleridge poem "Kubla Khan" over a recording of the Charles Griffes's tone poem. I don't know how closely to the lines and meter the composer adhered when he was writing his "Pleasure-Dome" piece, but I do know that the work fit almost perfectly to my narration. I used the tape for many years in my literature classes. This poem remains my favorite of Coleridge's works, and I can recite the piece from memory while imagining the Griffes music in the background. I definitely wish more folks were familiar with both these works of art, the Coleridge poem and the Griffes tone poem.










In a related instance, I also taped a reading of Thomas Gray's famous "Elegy Written in a Country Churchyard" over a recording of the second movement of Ralph Vaughan Williams's Second Symphony. Again, the music fit perfectly for my purpose, though I'm sure Gray never heard or _heard of_ the Vaughan Williams Second, and I don't suspect RVW planned his music to this particular poem. And because I don't consider the RVW Second as "off the beaten track", I won't mention it here.


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## sqorda (Aug 9, 2013)

Dirge said:


> Charles T. GRIFFES: *Piano Sonata* (1918/rev. 19)
> :: Masselos [M-G-M ’57] Naxos Classical Archives
> Griffes’s Piano Sonata is abstract, angular, dissonant and based on its own scale, which sort of resembles D minor, and it represents an abrupt and drastic change from Griffes’s rather Debussyan/impressionistic earlier output. Superficially, the Sonata sounds like an unlikely stepping stone between Scriabin’s Piano Sonata No. 9 “Black Mass” (1913) and Copland’s Piano Variations (1930), conveying something of the diabolical atmosphere (but none of the programmic implications) of the former and something of the angular rhetoric of the latter … but with an almost Lisztian sense of wandering/journeying about the dramatic narrative. Indeed, some of it, the slow movement especially, sounds as if it could be from «Années de pèlerinage, Quatrième année: Amérique».
> 
> ...


You got me into Ferneyhough. Thanks!


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## MusicSybarite (Aug 17, 2017)

SONNET CLV said:


> *Kaljo Raid: Symphony No. 1 in C minor (1944)*
> The opening of the first movement (Funebre, Energico) served as the curtain raiser for a setting of E.A. Poe's "Murders in the Rue Morgue". There's just so much good music in this lesser-known work that it deserves greater familiarity. Chandos features a recording of the symphony with Neeme Järvi.
> 
> View attachment 181829


Thumbs up for this highly enjoyable and memorable symphony. It was quite a revelation when I heard it the first time. Anyone who has affinity for Tubin's sound world shouldn't have any problem with this magnificent piece.


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## sqorda (Aug 9, 2013)

It’s a mystery to me why the music of Alessandro Stradella (1643–1682) is not better known. A seminal and hugely influential composer.

https://open.spotify.com/playlist/7JKaKO67qS97sN8XTZRTpC?si=cbeab0b019794b13


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