Dearest Reader: I apologize for the delay in reviewing this piece. My life suddenly got busy, busy, busy when I accepted a long-term substitute teaching position at a local middle school to help out a friend (the principal of the school). My last day of teaching will be in early June, and then I have a short trip to Chicago and Detroit. Once I get back, I'll finish up my comments and rating for this piece (on of before June 17th), and then I'll get back on track as of June 18th with a new piece. At that point, I'll be back to retirement life! Stay tuned! ; ) Ugh! I've procrastinated long enough, and it's time for me to get back into the swing of things! As you know from the note above, my "life of leisure" as a retiree got interrupted when I agreed to go back into teaching as a long-term substitute to help out a principal-friend of mine at a local middle school. I had a blast, but now I'm back to care-free days -- and I even made the trip to Chicago and Detroit (as mentioned above) -- and...
Well, I've just been putzing around -- so enough putzing! (Is that how you spell "putzing"?) I need to finish this review and then move on! LOL. I listened to Bortkiewsicz' concerto way back in April when I first made this post, and I'm listening to it again now as I type. I chose the work because I'd had decent luck this year with piano concertos (i.e., I'd found some real gems), so I had high hopes; alas, the overall result (i.e., my reaction, review and rating) did not live up to the height of my hopes. Back in early April I reviewed a piano concerto by Victor Kosenko, and I wrote, "Think the Tchaikovsky concerto in B flat minor, the opening of the Grieg A minor concerto, the Warsaw Concerto, or the Brahms No. 1 in D minor. There is nothing more exciting than a pianist pounding out a piano line in an explosion of power and passion with a rousing orchestration behind it – and THAT is the Kosenko concerto in a nutshell." Well, the same can be said for the Bortkiewicz concerto. There's excitement, there's pounding, there's power and passion, there's even a trill in the upper registers of the piano that plays on for twenty measures. However, there doesn't seem to be any real cohesion to the concerto. Oh, there are parts that are Rachmaninoff-like, Tchaikovsky-ish, Grieg-y, and even Gershwin-esque. But as a whole, the work is not greater than the sum of its parts. It's pleasant to listen to and certainly exciting at times -- but it's really a hodgepodge of themes presented in a patchwork of pounding and prowess. Meh.
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LOL -- this is a first! I selected a piece to listen to this week -- a piece I've never heard before: Moritz Moszkowski's Piano Concerto in E Major.
Last week I listened to and rated Victor Kosenko's piano concerto -- a work by the 8th name on the list -- and I loved it. I figured that I'd had such good luck with his piano concerto, let's try to keep the streak going (if one enthusiastic review for a piano concerto can be considered a "streak"), so I thought I'd give Moszkowski's piano concerto a try. Well, this morning -- just as I started to type this post -- I played Moszkowski's concerto in the background for a "first" listen. Immediately, I thought, "gee, this sounds familiar. Have I heard this piece before?" Then it dawned on me -- I think I've reviewed this concerto before for this very blog! I searched my archive list shown at the right, and there was the name, "Moszkowski." I clicked on it, and voila -- I reviewed this work during the week of 3/14/21, HERE. It turns out I was working through a list at ClassicFM.com entitled "The 11 most underrated composers in classical music," HERE. As far as I know, this is the first time I've selected a piece to listen to "for the first time" for a second time! LOL! Back to the drawing board! I'll pick another piece to listen to later today! Okay, so I've selected a new piece for this week: I went to Spotify, typed in the name "Moszkowski," and picked the first work in a list of pieces by the composer, "Overture in D Major." You can listen to the overture HERE. I have many favorite overtures. Some of them are overtures to operas (Tannhauser, Rienzi, Candide, The Barber of Seville, etc.), and others are just orchestral works (An Outdoor Overture, Overture di Ballo, Hebrides Overture, etc.). Therefore, I tried to find information on this piece to find out if it were an overture to an opera, an introductory piece for some incidental music for a play, or a standalone orchestral work. There was little information available, but from what I could determine, this is, indeed, a standalone work, one with no opus number. And, as a matter of fact, this was Moszkowski's first composition. A site about an album of works by Moszkowski (HERE) states, "This third volume presents his very first orchestral work, a strikingly assured Overture in D major, written when he was seventeen...." Another site I explored (HERE) asserts that the Overture is "unpublished" (at least at the time the article was written?) and that it was discovered "around 2011." This site also states that "The main thematic material in this Overture closely resembles that of some motives in the 1st movement of his Symphony, which he would...write about a year later." I've not heard Moszkowski's Symphony, so I can't speak to that, but I will say that some of this overture did remind me very much of another work -- but I can only sing it; I can't recall its name! LOL! NOTE: SEE THE "UPDATE" BELOW. I FIGURED OUT WHAT THE PIECE IS! ; ) One of these days, when I hear that piece again, I'll come back to this page and update it with info as to what that song is! Anyway, I did enjoy Moszkowski's Overture (D Major is such a cheerful key!), but I don't see it being one of my "go-to" overtures like all of the titles I mentioned above. Of course, if Moszkowski was 17 when he wrote this piece, then that's really quite impressive! It's definitely worth a listen. UPDATE: I figured out the name of the piece that Moszkowski's overtures reminded me of, the Ruy Blas Overture by Felix Mendelssohn (composed in 1839) -- specifically the melody at about 2:45 into the YouTube video (with score) posted HERE.
For the past few weeks, I’ve been working my way down a list of underrated – and unknown to me – composers from the Romantic era. This week I listened to a piano concerto by Viktor Konsenko.
After I typed “Viktor Konsenko” into the search line of YouTube, various pieces popped up. However, one of them, his piano concerto, had been uploaded with the caption “**MUST HEAR**.” Okay, I thought, if this is a “MUST HEAR,” then I must hear it – and I’m glad I did. Wow, what a piece! Think the Tchaikovsky concerto in B flat minor, the opening of the Grieg A minor concerto, the Warsaw Concerto, or the Brahms No. 1 in D minor. There is nothing more exciting than a pianist pounding out a piano line in an explosion of power and passion with a rousing orchestration behind it – and THAT is the Kosenko concerto in a nutshell. The concerto was composed in 1928, and it’s comprised of three movements:
I will note, though, that I saw some comments like, “I wonder how much of the 2nd and 3rd movements are really Kosenko?” and “lost parts of 2nd,3rd movement (were composed) during World War II (1939-1945), and “later completed in 1937” (Kosenko died of kidney cancer in October 1938) – so I’m not sure exactly what’s going on with that. Still, I enjoyed the full concerto, no matter when written and/or by whom. ; ) In the first movement, the orchestra opens with a crescendo that swells to a passionate pitch, and then the piano enters with a run of keys pounded out in octaves – and the race is on, so to speak. As I listened, I skimmed the comments under the linked video above, and I actually LOL’d when I read this because it captured exactly what I was thinking: “I just love the over the top do everything a piano can do romanticism of the 1st movement.” There were other comments under the video that also connected with me: “This supercharged potboiler surely provided many a concertgoer with an exhilarating and uplifting experience.” “The piano writing is simply stunning, such a shame it has fallen into neglect. I would demand a revival, but fear from opposition that Rachmaninov is superior. It probably is, but what the hell!!" “Echoes of Rachmaninoff” (specifically, his Concerto No. 2 in C minor, the same key as this concerto) – and “Heavily influenced, he produced this concerto but sadly failed to match up to Rachmaninov's mastery in orchestration” (which is spot on). At one point early in the week, when I first searched for the concerto on Spotify, I couldn’t find the complete work, so my first experience listening to Kosenko’s piece was with the 2nd movement only – and I loved what I was hearing. Not too long into it, though, I wondered why I was hearing piano only and no orchestra. It turned out I was listening to a piano transcription of the movement, but still, it was riveting. I loved the range and use of the entire keyboard with both the orchestra’s and piano’s parts. That was all I could find on Spotify. I would have loved to have heard the entire piece as transcribed for the piano, but I thoroughly enjoyed the piece with full orchestra on YouTube. @collectionCBR was right when he or she posted the video: Kosenko’s concerto is a “MUST HEAR.”
I had such good luck in selecting Farrenc’s first symphony, that I thought perhaps I would have similar good fortune with Gretchaninov’s first symphony – and that was almost the case. I did enjoy the work, but just not as much as Farrenc’s.
Gretchaninov’s symphony is written in four movements:
The work was composed in 1894 while Getchaninov was under the tutelage of Rimsky-Korsakov‚ and the influence of his teacher‚ as well as Borodin and Tchaikovsky‚ are much in evidence throughout much of the work. Also, the premiere of the work was conducted by Rimsky-Korsakov, and music historians report that the conductor did not necessarily think highly of the work. On a site called “Interlude” (“created by lovers of music for those who share their passion”), I found this: “Although (Gretchaninov) took composition lessons from Sergey Taneyev and sat in the counterpoint class with Arensky, his initial attempts at composition were judged to be a waste of time! Only when he received a scholarship to study at the St. Petersburg Conservatory with Rimsky-Korsakov did his career blossom. A Concert Overture was well received, and his first String Quartet won a prize in the Belyayev Chamber Music Competition in 1894. However, the highlight of his early career was the performance of his First Symphony with Rimsky-Korsakov conducting the premiere in 1895. The work bears a dedication to his teacher, as ‘a token of deep respect and gratitude.’ Despite appearances to the contrary, Rimsky-Korsakov had a somewhat low opinion of the work. ‘It’s really not good! If someone who has a natural inclination to compose in the style of Rubinstein and writes fairly well in this style, suddenly takes a fancy to Borodin and begins to compose in his style, it won’t work.’ Despite his teacher’s reservations, the music shows competence in structure and orchestration, and the pleasant use of Russian thematic materials.” Do Rimsky-Korsakov’s doubts about the symphony hold any water? Maybe. But as a whole, the work does contain memorable music characterized by passion and drama with a Russian flair. |
A New Hope:As the header above says, each week I will listen to a piece of classical music that I've never heard before, and then I will report out what I thought about it. Archives
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