Selected Songs (STRAUSS RICHARD)

SKU: CA.5280900

ISBN 9790007246525.

With the songs Reger wrote between summer 1889 and spring 1901, he made his mark in the music world. His style displayed a harmonic and melodic intransigence which challenged, fascinated, and irritated performers and audiences in equal measure. The song collections which Reger compiled became ever more extensive: opp. 35 and 37 contained six and five songs, opp. 43 and 48 eight and seven, and opp. 51 and 55 twelve and fifteen songs. As well as this, he wrote some individual pieces for inclusion in the Neue Musik-Zeitung (WoO VII/23-29).

In his assiduous search for texts, Reger turned to contemporary lyric poetry with its plurality of styles. The poems which he set were by representatives of the literary Jugendstil (art nouveau) and impressionist movements, including Otto Julius Bierbaum, Detlev von Liliencron, and Richard Dehmel. Here, Reger's musical hallmarks were intensity and subtlety of feeling, a desire for intimacy, and a modern emotional language. This corresponded with the concentration on the modern declamatory song following on from Hugo Wolf, to whom op. 51 is dedicated. In addition, Reger ventured to set texts which Richard Strauss had also set previously, in the process finding different solutions in mood and tonal language.

In January 2008 the Max-Reger-Institut (MRI) in Karlsruhe began publishing a scholarly-critical edition of the works of Reger (RWA). This is supported by the Mainz Academy of Sciences and Literature, and as a Hybrid Edition is exploring new approaches in editorial techniques.

For the first time, in this edition the digital component for this volume will no longer be supplied on a data storage device, but published in an online portal.

SKU: FP.FSC05

ISBN 9790570504169.

Cyril Scott’s music is currently the subject of major revival, having lain largely ignored for much of the 20th Century. Once described as 'the father of modern British music' by Eugene Goossens, and admired by Claude Debussy, Richard Strauss, Igor Stravinsky and his lifelong friend Percy Grainger, he composed four hundred works including: four Symphonies, three Operas, two Piano Concertos, four Oratorios, Concertos for Violin, Cello, Oboe and Harpsichord, several Overtures, Tone Poems, many Chamber works and innumerable songs.

There is a story that when Bernard Shaw commented to Elgar on the (then) daring harmonies of his Second Symphony Elgar replied 'You mustn’t forget, it was Cyril Scott started all that!'.

'a pioneer of British piano music, producing more piano works in the period 1903-1914 than any other British composer and any other international one, with the exception of Scriabin... (He) was a key figure before World War I in helping Britain to break away from musical conservatism and the prevailing Germanic influences.' (Lisa Hardy, The British Piano Sonata 1870-1945).