Comments on On An Overgrown Path: An unremarkable and commonplace work?

I read your blog comment once, David, and will try...

2007-11-08T22:43:00.000Z

I read your blog comment once, David, and will try to read it again later in the Veteran's Day weekend.

Some odds and ends from this morning...

I see that when Valery Gergiev led the World Orchestra for Peace in Petersburg and Moscow, in 2003, the program included Prokofiev's "Ode to the End of War". I also see that, in 2005, the Orchestra, under Credit Suisse funding, commissioned a new, fairly short work by Esa-Pekka Salonen (certainly not a World Requiem).

More importantly, picking up on the end of David's blog comment, I see that the World Orchestra for Peace's founding conductor Sir Georg Solti, in 1995 for the United Nations 50th Anniversary Concert in Geneva, wrote:

'...I picked the Beethoven for the qualities of brotherhood, liberty and humanity, and the Rossini overture as a homage to Switzerland, but the Bartok for a number of reasons. Not only is he one of my favourite composers, but he also encompasses the whole world: his music is very Western, but based on an Eastern culture.'

*

5 July 1995, Geneva, SWITZERLAND
World Orchestra for Peace

Conductor - Sir Georg Solti
ROSSINI Overture: William Tell
BARTOK Concerto for Orchestra
BEETHOVEN Fidelio - Finale Act II
http://www.worldorchestraforpeace.com/concerts/previous-concerts/5-july-1995/default.aspx

Interesting. I commented on my blog here:http://da...

2007-11-08T22:28:00.000Z

Interesting. I commented on my blog here:

http://davidderrick.wordpress.com/2007/11/08/world-requiem/

Garth, and staying with your Polish thread Stephen...

2007-11-08T17:47:00.000Z

Garth, and staying with your Polish thread Stephen Layton and the excellent Polyphony are performing the young Polish composer Pawel Lukaszewski's Via Crucis in three concerts with the Britten Sinfonia here in Norwich, and Cambridge and London in March 2008.

I'm only guessing, but I wouldn't be surprised if there is a Hyperion recording on the back of the tour.

It's amazing where 'unremarkable and commonplace' works lead!

http://www.lukaszewski.mail.waw.pl/english.htm

Speaking of Berg's Wozzeck and Mahler's Ninth Symp...

2007-11-08T17:39:00.000Z

Speaking of Berg's Wozzeck and Mahler's Ninth Symphony and Requiems, tonight I will try to find my Polksie Nagrania recording of Roman Maciejewski's Missa pro defunctis/ Requiem for 4 solo voices, choir & orchestra (1945-59), dedicated to the victims of all wars (and which was composed in exile in Sweden and California, but premiered at the Warsaw Autumn Festival in 1960). I recall being tremendously impressed by it the times that I have listened to it.
I've been intending to relisten to it for some time. (The on-line RequiemSurvey describes it as Expressionist. Maciejewski also wrote theatrical music for the late Ingmar Bergman.)

http://www.usc.edu/dept/polish_music/composer/maciejewski.html

http://www.worldorchestraforpeace.com/default.aspx

Kyle, yes indeed. Jessica did report that.Sir Adri...

2007-11-08T17:18:00.000Z

Kyle, yes indeed. Jessica did report that.

Sir Adrian conducted the first UK performances of Berg's Wozzeck and Mahler's Ninth Symphony, among other modern masterpieces.

So you can assume that Sir Adrian knew what he was talking about when it came to early twentieth-century music

Here is a reason that none of the experts seem to ...

2007-11-08T17:03:00.000Z

Here is a reason that none of the experts seem to have thought of. It is an unremarkable and commonplace work.

Duchen mentioned that Sir Adrian Boult thought it was boring.