Knowing His Market

I'm not being sniffy about this run of warhorses from BBC Music mag back in 2005. I realise that the magazine will have a rolling readership and many newcomers will have been happy to have recordings of these works. I was just surprised at the time to see so many in close proximity to one another. The warhorse in question here certainly is an old warhorse, Mendelssohn's Violin Concerto played by Tasmin Little with the BBC Scottish Symphony Orchestra conducted by Stefan Solyom. The disk begins with a much less frequently performed Mendelssohn piece, Calm Sea and Prosperous Voyage played by the Ulster Orchestra under Nicholas Braithwaite. A much more benign sea in this overture length work that could be seen as a counterpoint to the Hebrides Overture. The disk concludes with Symphony No 1 ( Grand Symphony ) by Carl Czerny in a performance by the Ulster Orchestra conducted on this occasion by Jurjen Hempel. Czerny's symphony is classical in style and being written as late as the 1840s, it was by then something of an anachronism. Well worth hearing however and if Czerny's reputation now is a minor one, he would have been unconcerned since at the time he was one of the wealthiest of all 19th century composers because of his ability to craft music of passion and brilliance without over taxing the technique and interpretative skills of potential middle class players in the burgeoning music societies of the time.