Friday, December 3, 2010

Horn Concertos - Othmar Schoeck, Charles Koechlin, Ethel Smyth - Marie-Luise Neunecker

Composer(s): Othmar SCHOECK, Charles KOECHLIN, Ethel SMYTH
Performers / Conductor: Marie-Luise NEUNECKER (Horn), Saschko GAWRILOFF, Uri MAYER
Orchestra/Ensemble: Radio-Philharmonie Hannover des NDR
Label: Koch Schwann
Catalog #: 3-6412-2 H1
Format: CD
Time: 57:49 min
SPARS Code: DDD
















A horn player's delight by Larry VanDeSande (Amazon.com)
Why a recording as wonderful as this one goes out of print is a mystery to me. Marie Luise Neunecker is among the handful of the world's greatest horn players, which she amply demonstrates on three nonvirtuosic vehicles in this recording -- the concertos by Charles Koechlin, Othmar Schoeck and Ethel Smyth's very Brahmsian concerto.

It is the latter work that establishes this recording as one to cherish, for Neunecker and conductor Uri Mayer understand Smyth was a Brahms acolyte and, together, commit themselves to a very Brahmsian -- nee autmnal resignation -- interpretation of the Englishwoman's music. If you can imagine the famous bearded Brahms writing a horn concerto late in life, this is probably what it would sound like.

The Koechlin and Schoeck concertos don't quite measure up to this standard but Neucecker's performances outlast any other recorded versions. Together, the trio of horn concertos will delight fans of the instrument now and for many years to come. Hopefully, one of these years, someone will buy the rights to this recording so people don't have to pay $50-$65 for a collector's copy, like you may have to do here.

9 comments:

  1. http://www.megaupload.com/?d=WRJU8OYG
    http://www.megaupload.com/?d=AQFTTZO9
    http://www.megaupload.com/?d=QWMS47BE
    PW: Ficus vasculosa

    Please feel free to make some comments, they go a long way to encourage me to continue my blog contributions. ^_^

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  2. Listening here the sooo beautiful Koechlin's 'Poème'... amazing beauty, my dear Yun-ming!! THANKS!!! ...& of course, your blog is excelent site to all music lovers! Congrats!!

    Rob

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  3. Thanks Yun-ming, as I said before your choices are perfect! I am in complete gratitude for your posts! Thank you very much!

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  4. Hello Yun-ming. I have some problems with these files. I can't unzipped them because their names are too long. Could you rename them? Thanks in advance

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  5. @antoarma: Try to copy the parts in an empty folder in C (your main HD)... You'll be able to manage long named archives there

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  6. @robertofthepampas: Thanks so much for providing assistance. :-)

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  7. Wow this looks amazing, Koechlin is always interesting and I've never had the pleasure of listening to Schoeck or Smyth. Thank you!

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  8. Yun Ming,

    Thanks for choosing this cd for your blog.
    The music is splendid, as is the recording by the way.
    Would be very happy if more work of Koechlin could be found anywhere. He is far underrated!!

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