Gothic-ness

[phi1ip]

Today was the departmental lunch, where everyone brought a present and then played an entertaining game wherein each round a person was invited to open one of the presents for themselves, or otherwise take somebody else's present from them (and who would then either have to open a present or take somebody else's other than the present that was

Comments

[phi1ip]

*Ding!* Yes, the first symphony (known simply as the Gothic) of Havergal Brian. He's one of the oddest cases in 20th century music - he lived to be 96 (died in my birth year) and wrote a huge amount of music over the course of his life; for example 32 symphonies, most of them written after he'd turned 80 years old! And perhaps because of the forbidding reputation of the first symphony, the lesser works hardly ever get played.

Most performances have actually been put on using amateur ensembles or professional players donating their services, since there's no way a professional orchestra could afford the costs in rehearsal time of putting it on. The sole commercial recording is mind-blowing to say the least: the second half of the work is a 70-minute-long setting of the Te Deum which at times sounds like Spem in alium for a giant orchestra, four choirs, and extra brass orchestras; it's an unbelievable difficult work to bring off.

[foxe]

Yep, I heard about this when Horst was down staying with us for ComBio (Sept/Oct), but at that point it was all still secret. Does this mean it's been released for public knowledge now?

[phi1ip]

It doesn't appear to be much of a "secret" when you can easily Google for it! :-) But admittedly, the problem with searching for this was knowing precisely what to look for in the first place :-)

I first got wind of this yesterday reading the latest RMP newsletters, one of which made passing reference to it: the people managing the RMP website haven't changed the members' password since 2001 (ref: Mahler's 8th symphony: Veni, creator ________...) I then Googled and found the discussion list; this (as far as rumours go) confirmed the original plan was for it to be performed for the 25th anniversary of 4MBS in May next year. (There are no details to be gleaned from 4MBS' web site which give any indication of this, however, just confirmation of some facts.)

Perhaps the original planned date has slipped, but presumably the project is still proceeding forward at a somewhat slower rate.