Comments on On An Overgrown Path: Very great composers still without recognition?

Jim, can you let us know what you find out about E...

2008-08-05T08:27:01.788+01:00

Jim, can you let us know what you find out about Emanuel Moór? - a lot of readers are interested.

Thanks.

That's a tantalizing quote, especially since I com...

2008-08-05T01:47:00.000+01:00

That's a tantalizing quote, especially since I completely agree with him about Julius Roentgen. If JR didn't do much to advance music, he created some beautiful works in traditional styles -- making him more of a Mendelssohn than a Beethoven, but isn't that good enough? I'd especially recommend the KOCH disc of his two-piano works and the NM Classics disc with his 1930 Symphonie.

So given my love of Roentgen, and the fact that I've liked the two Tovey pieces I've heard so far, I've got to investigate Moór, who's a completely new name to me. Thanks!

-Jim Moskowitz
The Unknown Composers Page
http://kith.org/jimmosk

P.S. For some reason blogger.com seems to be garbling my livejournal account name, giving it a hyphen instead of the underscore I'm actually typing into the 'identity' field, just FYI.

Not completely forgotten new music, but I am intri...

2008-07-30T14:32:00.000+01:00

Not completely forgotten new music, but I am intrigued that Yakov Kreizberg and the National Symphony Orchestra (Washington)will be devoting the second half of a program to Franz Schmidt's Symphony No. 4 in C major this coming autumn. Fairly recently, I admired the work on a recording.

(Last night, I listened to a less than fine recording of the Prokofiev Symphony #2 [1924], under Rostropovich, and wondered whether I would ever hear that work in concert. I would like to.)

I recall that a CD of Moor's cello sonatas (three ...

2008-07-30T05:29:00.000+01:00

I recall that a CD of Moor's cello sonatas (three I think, or two sonatas and a couple of pieces) was released a few months ago. I remember taking it from the New Releases section at WHRB. I recall being unsurprised that Moór wasn't better-known. The sonatas struck me as being quite good, and quite grounded in romanticism; but lacking in a sometimes-dissonant, brooding quality of the big contemporary symphonists: Mahler, Strauss, Nielsen. Not to say that cello sonatas need have that quality; but as the only music of his I've listened to it's the only thing I have to go on. Anyway, there are examples abound of great composers born in 186x/187x whose music wasn't "modern" enough to be brought into the fold: Moór ranks among them. (Ludwig Thuille and Kurt Atterberg I would say are further examples).

As for Tovey, his cello sonata and solo suite have failed to move me. I vaguely recall commenting "rubbish" on the CD insert, next to the solo suite.

Oh, I managed to find that Moór CD online:

http://www.cduniverse.com/search/xx/music/pid/7602850/a/Mo%F3r:+Sonatas+For+Cello+And+Piano+%2F+Szab%F3,+Krausz.htm

YouTube yields this performance of Röntgen's Kommt...

2008-07-29T19:20:46.743+01:00

YouTube yields this performance of Röntgen's Kommt her zu mir alls -

http://uk.youtube.com/watch?v=owePFhHehVU

After hearing Casals' performance of Röntgen's Cel...

2008-07-29T18:32:33.580+01:00

After hearing Casals' performance of Röntgen's Cello Sonata, Grieg wrote: 'This man does not perform, he resuscitates.'