Word: e-minor
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...Grieg's E-minor sonata is the set's only other piece in the standard repertoire. (In his liner notes reprinted from the original 1973 release Gould, with typical humor, claims that his rendition of the sonata should be considered as definitive because his maternal grandmother was Grieg's cousin.) The same can be said of Gould's performance of the Grieg sonata as of the Brahms' Intermezzi: he emphasizes inner (detractors would say "extraneous") voices, and takes unusually slow tempos. Still, taken on its own terms, the sonata is musically coherent and surprisingly lyrical, especially the Andante Molto second...
...Smetana. And for devotees who must have their daily dose of Beethoven, the Minnesota Orchestra is staging an imaginative Sommerfest lasting through Aug. 14 that features all 16 of the composer's works for solo instruments and orchestra. The repertory includes such oddments as the Romance in E-Minor for flute, bassoon and piano and Beethoven's own piano arrangement of his violin concerto...
...MOST self-consciously profound contribution on the two recent releases of Sullivan's music is the Symphony in E-minor, named (by the composer) "The Irish". It would be easy to dismiss the style as distilled Mendelssohn. This would be wrong for there is an individuality of expression quite apart from some (admittedly) marked similarities. The eclecticism of Sullivan was a legitimate transition from the German roots of Mendelssohn to the more progressive and experimental styles of Holst, Vaughan Williams, and Howells...
...attention are often sparse (in contrast to the Bach trios!). Beautiful themes are exposed, but then lapse into less-than-profound filler. Huge crescendi too often come from and lead to nowhere. Basically, Victorian music could not cope with the olympian symphonic medium. Although the time of the E-minor's composition, 1866, antedates Brahms and Dvorak, the Sullivan is valuable to us more as a well-crafted curiosity with touches of genius (particularly in the first movement...
...that has survived straight through in the repetoire from its composition. It may still be heard occasionally played by the Boston Pops. But it remains an inferior piece, especially when contrasted to the better examples of a form in which Sullivan excelled. The record of Di Ballo and the E-minor Symphony is avoidable for all but the most avid students either of symphonic history or Sullivan's music...