[78-L] Lenny

[Mike Harkin]

It was the Columbia Graphophone Co.  Overall winner was Kurt Atterberg for his 6th Symphony,which was
rec by Beecham.  Haubiel's Karma vaeiations was a regional winner, also recorded.  I think there was a third
work recorded but will have to wade thru 36 GSE to find it.  Competition was not abandoned, but Atterberg
crteated something of a furore later when he announced that it had been written - at keast in part - as a joke.

Mike in Plovdiv




________________________________
 From: DAVID BURNHAM <burnhamd at rogers.com>
To: 78-L Mail List <78-l at klickitat.78online.com> 
Sent: Tuesday, July 9, 2013 10:26 PM
Subject: Re: [78-L] Lenny
 

I'm aware of that, but there is the beginning of a third movement which has been recorded at least twice, first in 1965 orchestrated by Denis Vaughan and released in a complete RCA box set of LPs of the Schubert Symphonies and the second around 1980 orchestrated by Brian Newbould and recorded by Neville Marriner and the Academy.  As I said before, there are countless examples of composers borrowing music for their compositions but usually, they are used for a reason - either as a joke or an association.  Saint-Saens used two of Offenbach's Can-Can themes played very slowly to descibe the tortoise.  This would have been meaningless if the listener wasn't familiar with the Can-Can music.  Beethoven used "Rule Brittania", "The Bear came over the Mountain", (or whatever the French version is), and "God Save the King" to identify the different armies and the final victor in Wellington's Victory which, once again, would mean nothing to one who doesn't know
these pieces.  Why I'm saying all of this is leading up to the question, Why did Weingartner use a movement which was completely unfamiliar to everyone, (he wrote this in 1930ish), without any reference to Schubert?  There is no question that this is the same movement and it's used completely intact.  Was he trying to pass this off as his own composition?  Or much less likely, Did he actually write this movement and was it later found and thought to be by Schubert?  This was written near the Schubert Centennial year, (of his death), and there was at one point a contest set up for composers to finish the Unfinished Symphony but I think that contest was soon abandoned.  I don't think either Vaughan or Newbould would be deceived by this and would know whether the score is by Schubert.  These questions are, of course, rhetorical, at least I don't know the answers to them, maybe some 78L scholars do.

db




>________________________________
> From: Mike Harkin <xxm.harkin at yahoo.com>
>To: 78-L Mail List <78-l at klickitat.78online.com> 
>Sent: Monday, July 8, 2013 4:29:46 AM
>Subject: Re: [78-L] Lenny
> 
>
>The Schubert 8th doesn't have a third movement.  Not a complete one, anyway.
>
>Mike in Plovdiv
>
>
>
>________________________________
>From: Don Cox <doncox at enterprise.net>
>To: 78-l at klickitat.78online.com 
>Sent: Monday, July 8, 2013 11:40 AM
>Subject: Re: [78-L] Lenny
>
>
>On 07/07/2013, DAVID BURNHAM wrote:
>
>> I'm impressed by all of the vitriol directed at Bernstein here! It is
>> so easy to find examples of composers stealing from other composers or
>> even from themselves; Bach and Handel used their own music over and
>> over, (without records or radio nobody would likely notice),
>> Stravinsky, Brahms, Copland, Tchaikovsky, etc. etc. borrowed themes
>> from others. The first movement of Weingartner's 6th symphony is a
>> direct steal of the third movement of Schubert's 8th Symphony,
>> (Unfinished), but if these artisans are able to expertly rework the
>> material into something fresh, I have no problem with that. How many
>> hear Chopin's Fantasie Impromptu without thinking of "I'm always
>> chasing rainbows"? I would probably never say that Bernstein is my
>> favourite conductor or my favourite interpreter of any composer but I
>> think as a music lover I would be poorer without his interpretations
>> of Haydn, Mahler, Ives, Copland, Shostakovitch, Sibelius, Stravinsky,
>> etc.
>>  Sometimes his emoting is over the top, sometimes his ego gets
>> between the music and the listener, but I've never had a problem
>> suffering a justified ego. If you've listened to his Harvard Lectures,
>> you can appreciate the depth of his understanding of the music he is
>> presenting. Other conductors, such as Celibidache, seem to believe
>> that they know the music much better than the composer himself did, (I
>> don't know of Celibidache ever conducting the music of a female
>> composer), but I've never gotten that feeling from Bernstein; I've
>> always felt he's doing his best to delve into the soul of the composer
>> to find details which, perhaps, were never revealed before.
>> 
>> While Rhapsody in Blue has jazz elements, I wouldn't really call it
>> jazz; as far as I know, the entire piece is scored, there are no
>> ad-libbed solos, and I wouldn't think that Bernstein has the same jazz
>> skills as, say, Andre Previn, (who conducts much of the same
>> repertoire as Bernstein, has done an excellent Gershwin recording of
>> the 3 biggies, as well as items that Bernstein never touched such as
>> Elgar and Vaughan-Williams Symphonies).
>> 
>
>Well put.
>
>I don't think anyone conducted Copland better than Bernstein, and his
>versions of his own West Side Story Dances and Candide overture are
>classic recordings which are not likely to be equalled.
>
>And the great thing about his NYPO recordings is that everyone seems to
>be having a good time performing good music. Some conductors make the
>whole business seem like a punishment.
>
>I think the influence of Mahler spoiled him as a composer. He would have
>done better to follow Bizet, Chabrier and Milhaud.
>
>Regards
>-- 
>Don Cox
>doncox at enterprise.net
>
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