Who's Richard Nanes?
Yibo Dong (-1)
Richard Nanes. It showed that his work was performed by a Russian orchestra
in, I believe, the Soviet days because the film looked rather old. Anyway,
I caught up only a fraction of a piece called Rhapsody Pathetique for Violin
and Orchestra and really liked it. Now my question is, who is this composer?
I looked up the Stevenson's Guide and found that he had a few works issued
on an obscure label.
Thanks.
-Yibo
Mike Quigley
The back of the latest Schwann Opus catalog has a full page ad for
Nanes' Holocaust Symphony No. 3. It says this piece is a "powerful
musical statement by the composer" and that Nanes has "been recognized
internationally as a brilliant pianist as well as one of America's
leading contemporary composers" (!!!!!).
I have never heard anything by this guy, but I get the impression the
release of his music is strictly a vanity affair.
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kyc...@kuhub.cc.ukans.edu
> y4b...@srv.PacBell.COM (Yibo Dong (-1)) wrote:
>
>>Last Sunday the PBS in the States showed a program about a composer named
>>Richard Nanes. It showed that his work was performed by a Russian orchestra
>>in, I believe, the Soviet days because the film looked rather old. Anyway,
>>I caught up only a fraction of a piece called Rhapsody Pathetique for Violin
>>and Orchestra and really liked it. Now my question is, who is this composer?
>>I looked up the Stevenson's Guide and found that he had a few works issued
>>on an obscure label.
>
> The back of the latest Schwann Opus catalog has a full page
Richard Nanes was born in Philly in ? year.
He started his muscial ed at 5 and later in Conservatoire National Superieure
de Musique de Paris.
In 1985, he was appointed Composer in Residence to New Jersey's Cathedral of
the Sacred Heart, "thus extending a noble musical tradition that began with
Palestrina and continued through Bach and Mozart."
~~From his album jacket.
*Judging from the photo on the jacket of this 1986 album, he is about 40.
I have seen his CD's in our local store. They all have a rather lengthy
(well, detailed) description on the cover.
Delfon Recording Society
305 3rd Ave. West
Newark, NJ 07107 (201) 484 6438
Enjoy!
Chin/Ks.
>
Mark Schuster
>
>The back of the latest Schwann Opus catalog has a full page ad for
>Nanes' Holocaust Symphony No. 3. It says this piece is a "powerful
>musical statement by the composer" and that Nanes has "been recognized
>internationally as a brilliant pianist as well as one of America's
>leading contemporary composers" (!!!!!).
>
>I have never heard anything by this guy, but I get the impression the
>release of his music is strictly a vanity affair.
>
Richard Nanes happens to own the recording and publishing companies that
his works are produced by. I have also heard rumors that he has
purchased Schwann Opus as well.
I have played his Rhapsody Pathetique for Violin & Orchestra that was
mentioned in the previous post as well as his second symphony. I was not
fond of either work.
--
Mark Schuster
Viola/Composition Student
DePaul University, Chicago, IL
msch...@wppost.depaul.edu
marks...@aol.com
Jeff Harrington
: In article <3mfg9a$q...@deep.rsoft.bc.ca>, Mr_Gi...@mindlink.bc.ca
: says...
: >
: >The back of the latest Schwann Opus catalog has a full page ad for
: >Nanes' Holocaust Symphony No. 3. It says this piece is a "powerful
: >musical statement by the composer" and that Nanes has "been recognized
: >internationally as a brilliant pianist as well as one of America's
: >leading contemporary composers" (!!!!!).
: >
: >I have never heard anything by this guy, but I get the impression the
: >release of his music is strictly a vanity affair.
: >
: Richard Nanes happens to own the recording and publishing companies that
: his works are produced by. I have also heard rumors that he has
: purchased Schwann Opus as well.
: I have played his Rhapsody Pathetique for Violin & Orchestra that was
: mentioned in the previous post as well as his second symphony. I was not
: fond of either work.
I had a chance to talk to his manager last January and he told me a few
interesting stories. First, Mr. Nanes is incredibly wealthy and has
self-financed his recordings, many performances, publications. This puts
him in a position similar to Gordon Getty. Give the symph some money,
ask for a performance...
His music is very much like Rachmaninov... but not close to being as
persuasive, melodically. Call it neo-romantic Yanni if you will...
His manager had told me that even though Mr. Nanes is a Sephardic Jew,
that he's been getting inquiries and even performances from groups who
were looking for Hispanic composers!
The rich, benefitting from the PC!
'-)
--
Jeff Harrington
idea...@dorsai.dorsai.org
--
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lma...@tiger.lsu.edu
Our local classical FM "weekend guy" is enamoured with Richard Nanes. I
have heard his recorded works for the last four years. I'm looking
forward to moving from the area soon.
The one "quality" (talk about a misleading term!) which strikes me about
Nanes is his utter lack of originality. It's downright aggressive. As if
he were saying to the listener, "Look, who the hell needs their own
recognizable creative voice anyway? I'll just take these arpeggi from
Franz and Frederick and absolutely drive them into your brain. They're
beautiful, aren't they. Why shouldn't I have the use of them?"
But, of course, this is just one man's opinion.
Larry Magee
lma...@tiger.lsu.edu
Frank Forman
Gerber, said that he was "possibly the worst composer to have ever been
recorded." I said to myself, why not try it? I forget just which piece
it was, something for piano. It started out okay and I wondered what Les
was fussing about. I kept listening, and kept listening, and kept
listening. Well, when you listen to classical music, I realized, there
is a structure to the music that extends over a whole movement, if not
over the whole work. You have to have some ability to hold that
structure in mind if you are going to like classical music and
appreciate those structures.
But it got more and more difficult to grasp any real structure
in the Nanes piano work. It got so that I had a real headache and was
incredibly relieved when the piece was over. I was trying *so* hard to
like the work, and maybe prove Les was wrong!
BUT, I find the tone poems of Richard Strauss objectionable
(though not as objectionable) for the same reason. They just meander. I
have heard lots and lots of Strauss, mostly in the process of collecting
recordings by artists I admire for their ways with other composers. And
not even the great Mengelberg can persuade me of the merits of Strauss!
Have I become stubborn in my distastes here? Well, I made a
mistake copying a tape a few months ago and thought I was about to hear
Messiah (Scherchen mono recording, of course). I was listening to it
outdoors on a walkman and had no other tape to switch to. I did not
recognize the work, which began somewhere in the middle. I kept
wondering who the composer might be. Eventually I suspected Strauss. It
wasn't until I got home and played the tape for Sarah (and she, too,
suspected Strauss) that it dawned on me to check my list of tapes of
Mravinsky, whose recording of the Alpine Symphony was divided up on the
LP rather peculiarly. So what I had been listening to was the last forty
minutes of the work. I had this in my collection only because I collect
Mravinsky. (I also have a tape of the first rec. of the work, made
acoustically by Oscar Fried. I'll be happy to make copies of these. Just
ask. I'll get to listen to them again.)
Now, while listening to the work out of doors and not knowing
what it was, i had no idea whether the work would end before the tape
did. It seemed to me many, many times that the piece was *about* to end,
but it just kept going on and on and on. And this reminds me of a teevee
broadcast of the distinguished violinist (who played the Mendelssohn
concerto to show that he was not an Antisemite, only to learn that that
appeasment was unacceptable, because Mendelssohn was not a practicing
Jew. Anyone have a tape of this?) Louis Farakhan addressing an audience.
Great rhetoric! (though rather short on logic). It, too, sounded many,
many times like it was going to end. After about forty minutes I turned
off the teevee, so I missed out on whatever it was the man was building
up to.
Wagner, of course, rambles on also, and this is a
necessary defect of opera. But he has very great moments, esp. in the
orchestral excerpts.
Frank
melk...@bucknell.edu
Forman) wrote:
> (though not as objectionable) for the same reason. They just meander. I
> have heard lots and lots of Strauss, mostly in the process of collecting
> recordings by artists I admire for their ways with other composers. And
> not even the great Mengelberg can persuade me of the merits of Strauss!
I listend to some piano piece by Nanes and was very turned off by it.
His music is very boring!
It's too bad you do not like Strauss. I think there is a cure though.
I often find that conducters and orchestras that I greatly admire (i.e.
Vienna PO, Berlin PO, Karajan, Boulez, etc.) do not have an affinity for
Strauss' music. However, I find that performers that ordinarily I would
pass by for most music do a fabulous job with his music. It must take a
different kind of thinking to play Strauss. The Vienna PO is my favorite
orchestra, but I listen to Alpine Symphony with Previn and it just is not
the right sound. They lack the simultaneuos fluidity, preciseness, and
elegance which must all be present at once for the music to work. You are
right about the tone poems seeming to meander, but you are not accounting
for the extramusical elements that Strauss uses for the structure of the
piece rather than the traditional forms and variations of the traditional
forms that other composers stick to in purely orcherstral music. The cure
for your disease is two-fold (you have the opposite illness I have. My
illness is called "Strauss Disease" of which the symptoms are:
1) Inability to stop listening to his music.
2) Listening to other post-romantics like Mahler and Sibelius hoping to get
the same sound as in Strauss only to discover that the sound cannot be
obtained from anywhere else.
3) The most shameful symptom: Resorting to listening to pieces of other
composers that "borrow" Strauss's themes, e.g:
John Williams Love Theme from Superman (Transfiguration theme from
Op.24),
Copland Third Symphony, theme from middle of first movement (Strauss'
Also Sprach... theme from end of part 1 ),
even "'N' 'B' 'C'"... the TV network's identification theme (the first
three notes and last three notes of the father theme of Symphonia
Domestica),
and Williams' score for Schindler's List, whoops!... that's Mahler 9.)
I am not sure what your disease is called but I think this is the cure:
1) Listen to music from Strauss' "Indian Summer" period i.e. the 1940's.
I recommend the Four Last Songs (go with Felicity Lott on all of the
Orchestra Lieder, two disks on Chandos, you can't go wrong with her and
Jarvi), the late Horn Concerto (stay away from Tuckwell/Ashkenazy, these
two clowns are hopeless. Ashkenazy, especially, should find a new line of
work; he is a failed pianist turned pseudoconductor. This guy can't do
anything right; he is definitely going to be out of a job if does not
start to wise up and put out some good recordings), Oboe Concerto,
Sinfonie Concertante for Orch. clar. and bassoon, Capriccio: A
conversation piece in one act, and Commemorative Waltz for Munich.
All of these pieces contain a more traditional formal structure because
Strauss begins regressing to older styles late in his life. The above
pieces are all excellent.
2) Listen to some performers that have a feel for his music. Most
notably, Rudolf Kempe and the Dresden State Orchestra on EMI. These are
good ADD sound and come in three volumes with three full length CD's in
each volume and will cost you $22 for each volume. These cover almost all
of his total musical output for orchestra. A good second bet if you are
an audiophile and require superbly recorded music is Jarvi and the
Scottish National Orchestra, he comes close to Kempe but can't quite match
him. Only go with the Jarvi if you absolutely cannot tolerate more than
.02% background noise. Nobody else can even touch these two except maybe
Reiner and the Chicago SO's rendition of Don Juan and Ein Heldenleben.
For the operas, Karajan is reasonble but nothing to write home about. I
have not found recordings of his operas that I really like yet.
Good luck.
Brian
Mike Quigley
> 3) The most shameful symptom: Resorting to listening to pieces of other
> composers that "borrow" Strauss's themes, e.g:
> John Williams Love Theme from Superman (Transfiguration theme from
> Op.24),
>
[this was posted by someone on FILMUS-L:]
>I've long thought the most striking similarity I've found between Williams'
>work and late nineteenth-century orchestral music (and I know both
>repertoires very well, both as a scholar and as a professional orchestral
>brass player)is in Superman. "Can You Read My Mind" is, for quite a few
>measures, exactly the same as the "transfiguration" theme from R. Strass's
>"Death and Transfiguration." Was Williams' responsible for this song, or
>was it written by someone else? (I don't own the soundtrack though I've
>played it many times in various orchestra.)
[this was the reply by Mark Koldys, sometime r.m.c. participant and
critic for ARG:]
Jeez, I've heard this so many times, and I still can't figure out how
even people with musical training make this claim. They are NOT the
same. The are different. The Superman theme uses the first five notes:
C-E-G-E(octave up)-D. Strauss uses C-D-E-E(octave up)-D. Some
similarity, but in no way is it "exactly the same for quite a few
measures"!
[back to the original poster...]
>and Williams' score for Schindler's List, whoops!... that's Mahler 9.)
Yeah, sure ... I am VERY familiar with Mahler's 9th, having listened
to about 7 or 8 different versions of it in the last few months and
any similarity with the Williams score really escaped me.
s
> > 3) The most shameful symptom: Resorting to listening to pieces of other
> > composers that "borrow" Strauss's themes, e.g:
> > John Williams Love Theme from Superman (Transfiguration theme from
> > Op.24),
> >
> Jeez, I've heard this so many times, and I still can't figure out how
> even people with musical training make this claim. They are NOT the
> same. The are different. The Superman theme uses the first five notes:
> C-E-G-E(octave up)-D. Strauss uses C-D-E-E(octave up)-D. Some
> similarity, but in no way is it "exactly the same for quite a few
> measures"!
>
> [back to the original poster...]
>
> >and Williams' score for Schindler's List, whoops!... that's Mahler 9.)
>
> Yeah, sure ... I am VERY familiar with Mahler's 9th, having listened
> to about 7 or 8 different versions of it in the last few months and
> any similarity with the Williams score really escaped me.
Unfortunately, my comments were interpreted as mean-spirited; this
always happens. I am not claiming that the melody Williams uses IS the
T&V theme from Strauss' piece. But anyone with musical training could not
possibly deny the direct influence of the Strauss on Williams' score. The
melody has the same contour, the harmonic progression is the same tonic to
third inversion V/V, the voicing for the horns is the same, the color is
very similiar, etc. I am not saying that this is a bad thing that
composers borrow from one another. It is obvious that Brahms uses themes
from Schumann's music. If you don't believe me listen to the Introduction
and Allegro for Orch./pno Op. 134 by Schumann and compare the thematic
content with the last movement of Brahms' second symphony. Or compare the
thematic content of Alpine Symphony with the first movemnt of Brahms third
symphony or compare Strauss' Festmarch with the last movement of Beethoven
7. I am not complaining. I just like to pick on Williams because his
music always seems less effective than the source he gets his ideas from.
The character of his film score for Schindler's List is so similiar to the
Adagio of Mahler 9 even though there are no themes borrows from the
Mahler. I think that the film score is less intersting, and I don't
understand while Speilberg just didn't say to Williams, "Just rework the
material from Mahler 9 since that is the effect I want for the
screenplay." And that would have worked much better than Williams' less
interesting original music that gives the same message only more dilute.
I doubt Speilberg would not have wanted a less emotionally dilute score if
given the choice. He really did not have a choice, he did not know
better.
Here is an example of a work that borrows a theme exactly note for note
but does not sound like it is trying to be the source. The melody from
Andrew Lloyd Webber's memory from Cats is EXACTLY the same relative
pitches as the melody from Ravel's Bolero. This does not upset me at all
since ALW's music does not sound like its source which means I can't go
back to the source and expect to here the same thing in a better way, just
in a different way since it is not the same thing. I am not a big Webber
fan, but I am not upset with his borrowing.
In fact, I am not upset with Williams; I am just bored by him. If
Williams wanted a love theme why didn't he just take it from Don Juan?
Brian
Mike Quigley
> Unfortunately, my comments were interpreted as mean-spirited; this
>always happens. I am not claiming that the melody Williams uses IS the
>T&V theme from Strauss' piece. But anyone with musical training could not
>possibly deny the direct influence of the Strauss on Williams' score. The
>melody has the same contour, the harmonic progression is the same tonic to
>third inversion V/V, the voicing for the horns is the same, the color is
>very similiar, etc. I am not saying that this is a bad thing that
>composers borrow from one another.
Unless you have heard John Williams actually admit that he "stole"
this music, please don't make any remarks about the "direct
influence"... As far as I know, Williams has never admitted this, and
I really doubt that he would, even >if< he did! ";-/
Brian Melkowits
Quigley) wrote:
> s [that's what it says...] wrote:
^ Whoops! sorry about that. Should be melk...@coral.bucknell.edu
> > Unfortunately, my comments were interpreted as mean-spirited; this
> Unless you have heard John Williams actually admit that he "stole"
> this music, please don't make any remarks about the "direct
> influence"... As far as I know, Williams has never admitted this, and
> I really doubt that he would, even >if< he did! ";-/
OK, fair enough. If he did I wish he would abmit it; nothing to be
ashamed of, right?
Brian
Roger Gabriel Lopez
:
: I listend to some piano piece by Nanes and was very turned off by it.
I was just introduced to Nanes a couple of weeks ago at a performance by
the Chicago Philharmonia of his Adagio Pathetique for Violin and Orchestra
(I think, don't have the program in front of me.) I actually found it
pretty compelling as far as modern music goes. I thought it
conveyed a sense of drama far more effectively than most contemporary
works do. I haven't heard his piano pieces, but at least I can venture
than Nanes' ouevre isn't _uniformly_ boring.
--
=-==-==-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-
Roger Lopez
- joll...@owlnet.rice.edu
Gene Ward Smith
> Now my question is, who is this composer?
Nobody worth bothering with. Forget him, I'm trying to.
--
Gene Ward Smith/Brahms Gang/University of Toledo
gsm...@lab1.utoledo.edu