Indebted 2

RCO - Anthology of the Royal Concertgebouw Orchestra, Vol 2, 1950-1960 (2003) {14CD Box Set Q Disc 97018, Limited Edition}
XLD rip (secure mode) | FLAC (tracks)+CUE+LOG -> 3.80 Gb | MP3 @320 -> 2.39 Gb
Full Artwork @ 300 dpi (jpg) -> 133 Mb | 5% repair rar
© 1950-60, 2003 Radio Netherlands Music / Q Disc | 97018
Classical / Orchestral / Symphony

Again we are indebted to NM Classics for another volume (the second) in their Anthology of the Royal Concertgebouw Orchestra series. This one covers the period 1950-1960 and contains many unusual treasures as well as a number of performances that have already been issued: the fine Daphnis and Chloe with Monteux which currently is available on both Audiophile Classics and Music & Arts, Bruno Walter's Mozart, Mahler and Strauss all of which are available on Music & Arts, and the Brahms concerto with Monteux/Milstein, available on Audiophile Classics and Arioso (as well as a discontinued Tahra set). However, there are many fascinating items here including a number of major additions to Eduard van Beinum's discography. We have Beinum conducting music of Dutch composers Hans Henkemans (1913-1995), Anthony van der Horst (1899-1965), and Matthijs Vermeulen (1888-1967).

Both these works were written for sibling pianists, and both disappeared from sight after their first few performances. Mendelssohn's E major Concerto dates from 1823, when he was only 14: he and his sister Fanny premiered it the following year in Berlin on her birthday, but it had to wait until 1960 for publication. The concerto's style is clearly indebted to Mozart, but it has a considerable charm of its own, not least in the extended slow movement.

In the lineup of promising music geniuses whose lives were cut short, Norbert Burgmüller (1810-1836) is an imposing figure. During his lifetime, he made an impression on Mendelssohn and found an ardent champion in Schumann, who proclaimed "After Franz Schubert's early death, no other death could cause more grief than that of Burgmüller." He studied composition with Louis Spohr, who left a mark on the four string quartets. Three of them were completed while Burgmüller was still a student, but nothing in them suggests juvenilia. These are serious works steeped in a post-Beethoven outlook. While drawing upon Spohr's classicism and 'quatuor brillant' style, they look forward to early Romanticism and have lyrical qualities akin to Schubert.

When he is remembered at all, Josef Bohuslav Foerster is remembered for one of two things: that he was the first person Mahler confided in when he finally figured out how to end his "Resurrection" Symphony in C minor or that he was the composer who wrote the conspicuously Mahlerian "Easter Eve" Symphony in C minor. As this Musikproduktion Dabringhaus und Grimm disc demonstrates, however, there was more to Foerster than that. These world-premiere recordings of the Czech composer's First Symphony in D minor and Second Symphony in F major with Hermann Bäumer leading the Osnabrück Symphony Orchestra show that before he was writing like Mahler, Foerster was writing like Wagner.