Charles Rosen box coming

[Larry Kart]

Post from elsewhere:

Sony is about to issue a box devoted to recordings of Charles Rosen.

No idea what the contents will be, of course.

Possible now that [Peter] Gelb has left Sony.

[Chuck Nessa]

Bach, Beethoven, Liszt, Schumann, Webern, Schoenberg, Stravinsky, Carter - what else?

[Chuck Nessa]

I forgot Debussy and Chopin.

[Larry Kart]

There's "Virtuoso!" (Epic), c. 1965, a disc of 19th Century and early 20th Century arrangements: Mendelssohn-Rachmaninov, Strauss-Godowsky, Schubert-Liszt, Strauss-Taussig, Kreisler-Rachmaninov, Bizet-Rachmaninov, Chopin-Rosenthal, and Strauss-Rosenthal. It's quite something. Nice, and perhaps surprising, passage from Rosen's notes about the Bizet-Rachmaninov (a transcription of the minuet from the "L'Arlesienne Suite"): "The details are as exquisite as in all of Rachmaninov's work -- with the use of sonority for rhythmic effects --and his melancholy is everywhere felt."

Photo on the back shows Rosen in an imposing hairstyle, a kind of pompadour that is about a quarter as tall as the rest of his head. Reminds me of the way my paternal grandmother did her hair.

He also recorded some Bartok for Epic.

[Stefan Wood]

Link?

[Larry Kart]

Link?

There is none so far. The post I quoted from Rec. Music.Classical.Recordings is all there is.

OTOH, here is a YouTube link to "Virtuoso!"

https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLC84591F610ACAA45

Rosen's notes are included, also the pompadour photo.

[king ubu]

any relation to Jeanne-Antoinette Poisson?

on the serious side: what would be a read by Rosen for a newbie like me? Sounds like somebody I'd be interested to check out (some day, no time right now), and I guess if they do one of those multi-boxes, no substantial notes will be included ...

[Chuck Nessa]

Crap.

[king ubu]

wot?

[Chuck Nessa]

Forgive me but he's one of my old favorites. He also has contributed some wonderful pieces to the New York Review of Books. He had a famous print fight with Brendel. A google search will fill in holes.

[Larry Kart]

His writing over the years had about as much of an effect on me as that of anyone who wrote about music. He fought a lot of good fights with great effectiveness. His little book about Schoenberg is a particular gem. And the two big ones -- "The Sonata Principle" and "The Romantic Generation" -- are virtual monuments. I also like the way in his later days that he pretty much gutted that dangerous jerk Richard Taruskin. And LOTS of fascinating recordings.

[Larry Kart]

Rosen's CBS labels recordings:

J.S. Bach: "The Last Keyboard Works of Bach"
Goldberg Variations
Art of Fugue
The 2 ricercars from The Musical Offering
Odyssey, (P) 1969

Bartók: Improvisations on Hungarian Peasant Songs
Bartók: Études, op. 18
Liszt: Réminiscences de Don Juan
Liszt: Sonetto 104 del Petrarca
Liszt: Hungarian Rhapsody no. 10
Epic, (P) 1964

Beethoven: "Charles Rosen Plays Beethoven"
Piano Sonata no. 29, op. 106, "Hammerklavier"
Piano Sonata no. 31, op. 110
Epic, (P) 1965

Beethoven: "The Late Piano Sonatas": Sonatas 27-32
[british] CBS, (P) 1970
Columbia, (P) 1971

Boulez: Piano Sonatas 1 & 3
Columbia, (P) 1973

Elliott Carter: Piano Sonata
Epic, (P) 1962

Elliott Carter: Double Concerto
w/Ralph Kirkpatrick, harpsichord; Gustav Meier, conductor
Epic, (P) 1962

Elliott Carter: Double Concerto
w/Paul Jacobs, harpsichod; ECO; Frederick Prausnitz, conductor
Columbia, (P) 1968

Chopin Recital
Epic, (P) 1960

Frédéric Chopin: Piano Concerto no. 2
Franz Liszt: Piano Concerto no. 1
New Philharmonic Orchestra, John Pritchard
Epic, (P) 1969

Debussy: Études
Epic, (P) 1962

Debussy Recital
Epic, (P) 1967

Haydn Sonatas
No. 20 in C minor
No. 46 in A flat major
No. 44 in G minor
[british] CBS, (P) 1969
Vanguard, (P) 1978

Liszt: see Bartók & Chopin

Mozart: see Schubert

Ravel: Gaspard de la nuit
Le tombeau de Couperin
Epic, (P) 1960

Schoenberg: 2 Piano Pieces, op. 33a & 33b
Schoenberg: Suite for Piano, op. 25
Stravinsky: Serenade in A
Stravinsky: Sonata
Epic, (P) 1961

Schubert: Sonata in A major, D. 959
Mozart: Rondo in A minor, K. 511
Epic, (P) 1963

Schumann: Carnaval
Davidsbündlertänze
Epic, (P) 1963

Stravinsky: Movements for Piano & Orchestra
Columbia Symphony Orchestra, Stravinsky
Columbia, (P) 1961

Stravinsky: see also Schoenberg

Webern: Complete Works with opus numbers
5 Lieder, op. 3 [Heather Harper]
5 Lieder, op. 4 [Heather Harper]
4 pieces for violin & piano, op. 7 [isaac Stern]
3 pieces for cello & piano, op. 11 [Piatigorsky]
Quartet for violin, clarinet, tenor sax, & piano, op. 22
3 songs, op. 23 [Heather Harper]
3 songs, op. 25[Heather Harper]
Variations for piano, op. 27
Recorded 1969-1971
Columbia, (P) 1978

VIRTUOSO!
Recital of showpieces by pianists (Rosenthal, Godowsky, Rachmaninov, etc.)
Epic, (P) 1966

[johnblitweiler]

His writing over the years had about as much of an effect on me as that of anyone who wrote about music. He fought a lot of good fights with great effectiveness. His little book about Schoenberg is a particular gem. And the two big ones -- "The Sonata Principle" and "The Romantic Generation" -- are virtual monuments. I also like the way in his later days that he pretty much gutted that dangerous jerk Richard Taruskin. And LOTS of fascinating recordings.

Wilfred Mellers' book The Sonata Principle had a major effect on me. Did Rosen also write a book with that title?

[Larry Kart]

His writing over the years had about as much of an effect on me as that of anyone who wrote about music. He fought a lot of good fights with great effectiveness. His little book about Schoenberg is a particular gem. And the two big ones -- "The Sonata Principle" and "The Romantic Generation" -- are virtual monuments. I also like the way in his later days that he pretty much gutted that dangerous jerk Richard Taruskin. And LOTS of fascinating recordings.

Wilfred Mellers' book The Sonata Principle had a major effect on me. Did Rosen also write a book with that title?

Sorry for the confusion. I gave to Rosen's book "The Classical Style: Haydn, Mozart, Beethoven" the title of Mellers' book, which I too read and learned from.

[Spontooneous]

Rosen also wrote "Sonata Forms."

BTW, that Haydn LP, released over here on Vanguard, is revelatory.

[sgcim]

I still have bad memories of Rosen ridiculing my choice of Balzac to write a paper on for his Music and French Literature course in college.

"Balzac? Oh really. I didn't know that people actually read him anymore..."

[Larry Kart]

I still have bad memories of Rosen ridiculing my choice of Balzac to write a paper on for his Music and French Literature course in college.

"Balzac? Oh really. I didn't know that people actually read him anymore..."

Hmm -- that was stupid on Rosen's part. When I got into Balzac about ten years ago, I was overwhelmed. Two that blew me away were fairly obscure I think -- "Beatrix" and "A Tenebrous Affair." I picked them because I was convinced (rightly I think) that the quality of the translations would be crucial for me, and these two were part of a generally excellent series of translations of French fiction that were commissioned in the immediate postwar era by an English firm, the Elek Press. Sadly, those Elek translations cost a lot on the used book market these days when they can be found at all; happily, our local library still has the copies they bought back then. I'd love to "liberate" them some day, before they get deacessioned.

[blind-blake]

http://www.amazon.co.uk/Charles-Rosen-Complete-Columbia-Collection/dp/B00M16B51O

[ATR]

As usual for these complete album collection Sony boxes, the price per disc is terrific. But that's a side issue. This is an important release both because of the performer and the music. Charles Rosen, recently deceased as many of you know, was awarded I think it's called The Medal of Freedom by President Obama. If there had been one person you would want to ask any question about music, art, or literature during his lifetime it would have been Mr. Rosen. He was also an inveterate supporter, champion, and performer of contemporary/avant garde classical music, most notably the compositions of Elliott Carter.

A good friend of mine of many years was an undergraduate student of Rosen's at Stoney Brook, and also a pianist. He enlightened me years ago and we saw Rosen regularly in a stuffy little library in the middle of the summer playing piano at the Rockport festival. We also attended the 100th birthday celebration for Elliott Carter at Tanglewood where Rosen was featured in several performances, most notably the concerto for piano and harpsichord where he played with Ursula Oppens. I haven't read any of his books, which is an omission on my part, but I did read his articles in NYReview of Books. I have to say that I wonder if his remark about Balzac was misunderstood. Perhaps he was impressed that someone these days was still reading Balzac besides him. Or maybe not. But you can bet he read Balzac and would never dismiss anything without knowing what he was dismissing.

As for this box set, by all means grab a copy. My friend Matt has made several comments in advance of its release. First, that many of the recordings will be available for the first time on CD. Second, that the Debussy is 'historic'. And third, that the late Beethoven sonatas are played the best here of any available recordings. I've looked for Rosen's recordings on and off for years, and I will say that many of them are out of print and very pricey to hear. The ones I do have, principally Elliott Carter and Webern, are excellent.

[Stefan Wood]

Looking forward to this.

Edited December 1, 2014 by Stefan Wood

[Larry Kart]

FWIW, two comments from Amazon on a problem with the set, the second one from English pianist Raymond Clarke:

1) There is much to recommend this collection, but yet again Sony have made a mess of the re-mastering of Stravinsky's Movements for Piano and Orchestra. When this appeared on LP it was complete, i.e. it included the repeat in the first movement as indicated in the score. Somehow, when it was issued on CD the repeat got excised. I had hoped that by now someone at Sony might have learned to read music and notice that they had left a good chunk of the recording on the cutting room floor. Not good enough, Sony. This is an insult both to the memory of Charles Rosen and of Igor Stravinsky.

2) The problem was not just that the repeat was excised: it was that the first AND second time bars were included. The first 26 bars are played, but after performing the "first-time" bars the performance then proceeds (without observing the repeat sign!) to the "second-time" bars. If it was planned to omit the repeat in the CD reissue (and there is no justification for this anyway) then the "first-time" bars should have been excised.

[mjzee]

Larry, I just got from a board member the Lennie Tristano Mosaic box, and I noticed you quoted Charles Rosen in your liner notes.

[Larry Kart]

Larry, I just got from a board member the Lennie Tristano Mosaic box, and I noticed you quoted Charles Rosen in your liner notes.

Yes, that was a lucky semi-accident. That Rosen essay "Bach and Handel" is in an old Penguin collection of essays by various writers, "Keyboard Music," and I'd always been intrigued by the passage I quoted because Rosen makes a point there that undermines so many "modern" keyboard Bach performances of the time (e.g. Glenn Gould's) in which the entrance of each fugal voice typically is picked out and thrust at the listener.

"It is remarkable {Rosen writes] how often Bach tries to hide [the successive entrances of a fugal theme] by tying the opening to the last note of the previous phrase, how much ingenuity he has expended ...in keeping all aspects of the flowing movement constant." (My emphases).

Rosen goes on to sat that because Bach's keyboard works (organ music aside) were not conceived for public performance but were intended for the educational/pleasurable use of the player himself, there was no need to emphasize those fugal entrances because the player in effect was the audience and could scarcely not know when each new voice entered because it was his fingers that were, so to speak, doing the walking. In any case, remembering what Rosen had said (I quoted a lot more, maybe too much), it seemed like it might apply to the Tristano of "Line Up" and "C Minor Complex," so I threw that whole long passage in there.

[MomsMobley]

FWIW, two comments from Amazon on a problem with the set, the second one from English pianist Raymond Clarke:

1) There is much to recommend this collection, but yet again Sony have made a mess of the re-mastering of Stravinsky's Movements for Piano and Orchestra. When this appeared on LP it was complete, i.e. it included the repeat in the first movement as indicated in the score. Somehow, when it was issued on CD the repeat got excised. I had hoped that by now someone at Sony might have learned to read music and notice that they had left a good chunk of the recording on the cutting room floor. Not good enough, Sony. This is an insult both to the memory of Charles Rosen and of Igor Stravinsky.

2) The problem was not just that the repeat was excised: it was that the first AND second time bars were included. The first 26 bars are played, but after performing the "first-time" bars the performance then proceeds (without observing the repeat sign!) to the "second-time" bars. If it was planned to omit the repeat in the CD reissue (and there is no justification for this anyway) then the "first-time" bars should have been excised.

Clarke is an excellent pianist; his recording of Ronald Stevenson "Passacaglia on DSCH" esp. though the bland Marco Polo cover doesn't exactly suggest that... too bad it's not been re-issued on Naxos, likely more people would know about it.

http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B00000460N