Robert Fuchs vs. Johannes Brahms - 1 : 1

[Seda Röder]

Hi Everyone!

I just wanted to let you know that the fifth episode of my podcast series "Blackbox" is now available for download on my website:

http://www.sedaroeder.com/podpress_trac/web/799/0/Blackbox_005.mp3

As you all know in this podcast series I usually talk about contemporary music, but this time I would like to focus on music that is "new" not in the sense that it was composed recently, but that is "new" because it is still undiscovered for the wider public: the piano sonata op. 88 in g-minor by Robert Fuchs.

Fuchs was a contemporary of Brahms and in today’s episode I compare two pieces by these two composers.

Please leave me a comment if you like the podcast!

Best wishes,
– Seda

[Lenore Von Stein]

Enjoyed it - Thanks for sending these to me Lenore

[Jeffrey Quick]

Like political history, musical history gets written by the victors...and I'm getting increasingly interested in 19th-c "also-rans". Very often, it's not a question of quality, but of departure from the progressive musicohistorical narrative, of the deliberate failure of their music to do what that narrative demands.

[Seda Röder]

I definitely agree... for some reason we seem to love the "history of progression", which is of course very interesting, but in order to have a fuller picture of a certain time frame, I think it is unavoidable to look at the other side of the medallion. Thanks for your comment!
Best,
seda

Jeffrey Quick said:

Like political history, musical history gets written by the victors...and I'm getting increasingly interested in 19th-c "also-rans". Very often, it's not a question of quality, but of departure from the progressive musicohistorical narrative, of the deliberate failure of their music to do what that narrative demands.

[Seda Röder]

Thank you!

Lenore Von Stein said:

Enjoyed it - Thanks for sending these to me Lenore

[Jeff Harrington]

Seda could you list a few 19th century composers that history has passed over that merit reconsideration? (Anybody else for that matter!).

[Seda Röder]

Sure! I am better informed about the Viennese scene, so I am naming a few composers who were active there. (At Harvard I spent sometime researching the development of modernity and Viennese musical life before the WWI.) All of these guys were born after the 1st half of the 19th century.

Robert Fuchs (1847-1927, his sonata I talked about in my podcast was composed around 1911)
Joseph Marx (1882-1964, great songs, some of his music is known, mostly by singers)
Conrad Ansorge (1862-1930, student of Liszt, he was actually in Germany but very popular in Vienna)
Wilhelm Kienzl (1860-1941, a devoted Wagnerian, also a Liszt student)
Karl Weigl (1881-1949, beautiful melodramas)
Egon Wellesz (1885-1974, he is also a very important musicologist)
Richard Heuberger (1850-1914, a great operetta composer, wrote some of the best entertainment pieces for piano, they're real fun to read:-)

Best,
Seda


Jeff Harrington said:

Seda could you list a few 19th century composers that history has passed over that merit reconsideration? (Anybody else for that matter!).

[Jeffrey Quick]

OK, I'll play:
Josef Rheinberger. Best liturgical composer of the 19th c. (overall better for that than Bruckner, more consistently tasteful than Gounod --who when not playing to the groundlings can be a very good sacred composer indeed). Perhaps even 2nd-best choral composer (next to Brahms). Fine chamber music, too...just downloaded the Nonet.

J.W. Kalliwoda. One of the last of the guys with a princely patronage gig. Op. 61 string quartets are quite nice.

G.W. Chadwick: not sure if you can say that "history passed him by", but the concert hall certainly has. Also, some of his best work after turn of century. Student of Rheinberger. He got dissed by previous generations for "speaking Brahms" (actually more Dvorak), but now it's really clear to hear the Yankee accent in his Brahms (like you can hear the Yorkshire pudding in Parry's Brahms). Symphonies and quartets with a great sense of fun and propulsion. He wrote a verismo opera about Italian immigrants that rubbed the Italian director of the Met the wrong way and had to wait until 1997(!) for its premiere. Famous in new music circles for remarking to Horatio Parker re an early Ives song, "That's as good a song as you could write." Taught Arthur Shepherd and William Grant Still (who later studied with Varese), among others.

[Jeff Harrington]

Thanks Seda and Jeffrey! I'm always very interested in the dead ends of history. There's often a little window there to something that hasn't been milked to death. That's why I like Bruckner motets and Wolf string quartets, etc... I'm sure my Naxos streaming service has practically every piece by all those guys! LOL...

[Seda Röder]

This is great! Thanks Neil!

Neil Goodchild said:

Hi Seda,

This channel's set of neglected PIANO works may interest you in regards to further discussions. :-)

http://www.youtube.com/user/Hexameron