Hello Readers!<\/p>\n
Greetings from Vftp Int\u2019l Headquarters, where the 2009-10 season is officially underway.<\/p>\n
I have a few rehearsals to contend with in the coming week, but I\u2019ll be spending the bulk of my week preparing for next week\u2019s recording sessions with Northern Sinfonia.<\/p>\n
It\u2019s a historic undertaking- on a personal level, it\u2019s my first commercial CD as a conductor, something I\u2019ve been looking forward to for a long time. More importantly, this will be the first CD of the orchestral music of composer Hans G\u00e1l.<\/p>\n
My friends who read this will have heard me discuss this project with great enthusiasm over the many months, even years, that this CD has been in the works. One common thread in these many discussions is the fact that few, very few, knowledgeable, curious and broadly educated musicians know the music of Hans G\u00e1l. To be honest, I long knew him only as the editor of the works of Brahms, including my very well worn scores of the symphonies and concerti.<\/p>\n
It was my colleague on this disk, the violinist Annette Barbara Vogel, who introduced me to G\u00e1l the composer. \u201cHe was a composer?\u201d was my first response. Turns out he was a pretty good one- when the idea was hatched by the G\u00e1l Society and Annette to try to record the Violin Concerto and Concertino, I was more than onboard.<\/p>\n
As the sessions approach and progress, I\u2019d like to start to get readers up to speed on this remarkable man, teacher, scholar and composer, and hopefully to draw you in to the process behind making the first recordings of 3 major works (in addition to the two violin works, we\u2019re recording his Triptych, op 100 for orchestra, a stunning and virtuosic symphony in three movements).<\/p>\n
The G\u00e1l Society has a wonderful and comprehensive website- one of the best available for any composer. It is the <\/em><\/strong>place to start for learning about his music. There is an extensive biographical outline available here<\/span><\/a>. There is also a lovely portrait and tribute from MusicWeb here<\/span><\/a>. Some general background on currently available recordings of his music is here<\/a><\/span>.<\/p>\n I\u2019ve already learned so much in preparation for this project, but the most important thing I\u2019ve learned is that G\u00e1l was not simply a worthy or interesting or fine composer- he was a major, major, major composer<\/em><\/strong>. I\u2019ve lived the longest with the Violin Concerto now- we did it with the Lancashire Chamber Orchestra to a packed house and standing ovation last October, which was amazingly the piece\u2019s UK premiere and only it\u2019s 4th<\/sup> performance since 1932.\u00a0 Over time my opinion of it has evolved from affection to enthusiastic advocacy to passionate enthrallment to jaw dropping wonder. It’s a masterpiece.\u00a0The Triptych and Concertino are similarly fascinating, beautiful, stunning and original.<\/p>\n So, the questions are- what makes this music so special? Why isn\u2019t it well known? How did Ken Woods get to be the first conductor to record some of this music?<\/p>\n Stay tuned for the answers to these and other pressing questions<\/p>\n KW<\/p>\n Bio from Wikipedia-<\/p>\n <\/p>\n Hans G\u00e1l<\/strong> (August 5<\/a><\/span>, 1890<\/a><\/span> – October 3<\/a><\/span>, 1987<\/a><\/span>) was an Austrian<\/a> composer<\/a>, teacher<\/a> and pianist<\/a>.Hans G\u00e1l was born in the small village of Brunn am Gebirge<\/a>, just outside Vienna<\/a>. He was trained in that metropolis at the New Vienna Conservatory<\/a> where he taught for some time. While a student he won the K. und K. (Royal and Imperial) State Prize for composition. In 1928, he won the Columbia Schubert Centenniary Prize for his Sinfonietta. The next year, with the support of such important musicians as Wilhelm Furtw\u00e4ngler<\/a>, Richard Strauss<\/a> and others, he obtained the directorship of the Mainz<\/a> Conservatory. G\u00e1l composed in nearly every genre and his operas, which included Der Artz der Sobeide<\/em>, Die Heilige Ente<\/em> and Das Lied der Nacht<\/em>,were particularly popular during the 1920s. When Hitler rose to power, G\u00e1l was forced to leave Germany and eventually emigrated to Britain, teaching at the Edinburgh<\/a> Music Conservatory for many years.G\u00e1l’s style, not surprisingly, was rooted in the Austro-German musical tradition of the late 19th century and in his early years, he was influenced by Brahms. However by the end of the First World War, he developed his own musical language. He did not embrace the Second Vienna School<\/a> or twelve tone music<\/a>. His later music generally is polyphonic<\/a> in structure but does not eschew traditional melody. Many of his works are tonally complex while at the same time offer lyric episodes of great beauty.Beside opera, G\u00e1l wrote many orchestral as well as chamber music works, which many regard among his finest efforts. Wilhelm Altmann, the eminent chamber music critic, writes about G\u00e1l’s first string quartet<\/a>, composed in 1916, in his Handbuch f\u00fcr Streichquartettspieler<\/em> (Handbook for String Quartet Players) as follows: “Those who enjoy Brahms’ music should pay great attention to this work although this is not to say that it is merely a copy of Brahms’ style. While the Quartet is somewhat in the style of Brahms<\/a>, it is also indebted to Schubert<\/a> and to the general musical milieu of 19th century Vienna… the entire work is very finely written and shows good understanding of quartet style.”<\/p><\/blockquote>\n