Carbon-dating a luminous, lost composer
mainFrom the Lebrecht Album of the Week:
Never heard of Carbonelli? Don’t feel too bad about it. The Vivaldi scholar Michael Talbot writes that he ‘has remained unknown, even to specialists’. Listen to the music, though, and you will wonder how work of such quality and intricacy could vanish so comprehensively into the mists of history….
The restoration of Giovanni Stefano Carbonelli could be the musical rediscovery of 2017.
Read on here.
And here.
And here.
Even today the overall prospects for making a life as a wine merchant are obviously better than as a violinist.
There are loads of unknown composers from the 15th century, up to our time. Forexample, ever heard of Melchior Neusidler, composed lute music, worked for the banking family called Fugger! Captain Tobias Hume, composed for viola da gamba, 1569-1645 travelled about Europe, Johann Friedrich Meister, wrote a set of trio sonatas called Il giardino del Piacere, Johann Stadylmayr, Hofkapellmeister in Innsbruck, 1607-48, wrote Masses, Motets, Nicola Matteis, violinist in England from 1650, Joseph Netzer, born in Zams 1809-1864, composed lieder, chamber music, symphonies, piano sonatas,Josef Pembauer, 1848-1923, established the Conservatorium in Innsbruck, studied with Bruckner & Rheinberger, composed symphonies, lieder, masses, cello concerto, cello sonatas, Johann Rufinatscha, born 1812 Mals, died Vienna 1893, composed piano concerti, concert overtures, symphonies, chamber music, Josef Matheis Hauer, invented a different 12 note method earlier than Schoenberg. Take a google at some of these if you have never heard of them, some of their stuff is on you tube, eg Pembauer, Hauer, Neusidler’s lute music is excellent.
No one would ever have to spend a dime on commissioning new works from terrible modern composers if they just started digging up and re-premiering some of music of wonderful, but forgotten, composers of years gone by.
Fritz Kreisler passed off some as his own, already years ahead mate, yes modern music really sucks, pop, classical the lot. I have been digging up the obscure for years, I find them more interesting, what do make of Josef Pembaur Cello concerto. Fantastic. I have most of his stuff now. I attend Innsbrucker Festwochen for 3 weeks all baroque, you can get the CDs in the Landes Museum
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CpSXU4_Ncuk
The public wants a portion of new music on the side of the ‘standard’ repertoire. I think that part of the successful revival of Baroque music beginning in the early 50’s was due to offering the audience a ‘new’ repertoire. At that point in time some jazz music was also elevated to ‘Art’ music, at least in Europe, and the explanation is probably the same (plus the fact that improvisation in classical music was mostly abandoned), that is lack of good ‘new’ music.
Here are some Josef Matthias Hauer pieces
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Mg8QVa34uQs
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PeM8U_P7DYU
The op 20 Etudes were dedicated to Schoenberg, he had a row over who invented wrong not music, Hauer’s sounds like tonal but on shaky ground, its more bearable than Schoenberg.