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presdoug View Drop Down
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    Posted: August 20 2021 at 16:22
I have become interested, even fascinated, in the possibility of having recordings of Music Composers conducting their own music. Something taken for granted today, but it is incredible when you go back in time to see if it is true of previous eras of music.
               I kid you not, when I say I know of, and have heard, recordings of the following composers themselves conducting their own music-Richard Wagner, Richard Strauss, Sir William Walton, Wilhelm Furtwangler (yes, the famous conductor was also a composer), Sir Edward Elgar, Aaron Copeland, Alexandre Glazunov, Maurice Ravel, Sergei Prokofiev, Igor Stravinsky, Gustav Holst, Ferde Grofe.
              And what an experience it is, to hear the composer's own take on how their music should sound! 
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suitkees View Drop Down
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I know of some 20th century/contemporary composers: Hanns Eisler (on the "Historic Recordings/Historische Aufnahmen" series), Pierre Boulez, Bruno Mantovani (D'un rêve parti).
I have several discs with Boulez conducting Boulez: Répons, Messagesquisse/Anthèmes 2, Le marteau sans maître and Dérive 1 & 2 (for an example see Dérive 2...).

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Hi,

Stravinsky! 

In rock music, the only example I can think of is Frank Zappa, who used to get upset when some folks were not listening to the music and only wanted a guitar solo. He would put down the guitar and take up the baton ... and I think he was wielding that as well as any conductor probably could!



Edited by moshkito - August 21 2021 at 07:59
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The Anders View Drop Down
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Benjamin Britten and Malcolm Arnold conducted recordings of their own music too.

But it is not always an advantage. Carl Nielsen f.e was a great composer, but a bad conductor. I don't know if any recordings exist though.

Btw: Recordings with Wagner??

Edited by The Anders - August 21 2021 at 08:29
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Italian maestro Ennio Morricone is well-known for conducting his own cinematic music. Heart

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Edited by Psychedelic Paul - August 21 2021 at 08:36
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Ian Anderson never conducted a symphony, but he didn't need to. Tull keyboardist David (Dee) Palmer, a classically trained musician from the Royal Academy of Music (and appointed as a Fellow of the Academy in the 90s), did all the many orchestral arrangements for Tull from Stand Up onward. 

Here is Palmer's superb adaptation of "War Child" with the London Symphony Orchestra:
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suitkees View Drop Down
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Originally posted by The Anders The Anders wrote:


Btw: Recordings with Wagner??


That would be world news! But highly unlikely. Although experimentation with sound recordings began in the1850s, as far as I know the first recordings of music that we know of are from 1888 (The Lost Chord played by unknown musicians) and 1889: Brahms playing his Hungarian Dance on piano (see here). So, that would be a couple of years after Wagner's death...

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I know Mahler conducted himself, but there are apparently no recordings of this.


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The Anders View Drop Down
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Originally posted by suitkees suitkees wrote:

Originally posted by The Anders The Anders wrote:


Btw: Recordings with Wagner??


That would be world news! But highly unlikely. Although experimentation with sound recordings began in the1850s, as far as I know the first recordings of music that we know of are from 1888 (The Lost Chord played by unknown musicians) and 1889: Brahms playing his Hungarian Dance on piano (see here). So, that would be a couple of years after Wagner's death...


I think he might have confused him with Richard Wagner's son Siegfried. He did some composing himself, and he is very likely to have recorded some of his father's work too - as part of the Bayreuther Festspiel.
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Psychedelic Paul View Drop Down
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John Barry conducting the James Bond theme. Heart
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Originally posted by The Anders The Anders wrote:

Originally posted by suitkees suitkees wrote:

Originally posted by The Anders The Anders wrote:


Btw: Recordings with Wagner??


That would be world news! But highly unlikely. Although experimentation with sound recordings began in the1850s, as far as I know the first recordings of music that we know of are from 1888 (The Lost Chord played by unknown musicians) and 1889: Brahms playing his Hungarian Dance on piano (see here). So, that would be a couple of years after Wagner's death...


I think he might have confused him with Richard Wagner's son Siegfried. He did some composing himself, and he is very likely to have recorded some of his father's work too - as part of the Bayreuther Festspiel.

No, the man himself recorded a cylinder in 1880 as is released on this Grammofono cd, along with the later recordings conducted by his son, Siegfried!

SIEGFRIED & RICHARD Wagner Conducts Wagner: Recordings from Tristan Und Isolde.. - EUR 41,28 | PicClick FR



Edited by presdoug - August 21 2021 at 15:31
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This cd set mentions a fragment of a Love Duet from Tristan conducted by Richard Wagner in 1880; it used to be on youtube, but I think it is gone from there, but here is the cd cover, itself.


Edited by presdoug - August 21 2021 at 15:15
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Originally posted by suitkees suitkees wrote:

I know of some 20th century/contemporary composers: Hanns Eisler (on the "Historic Recordings/Historische Aufnahmen" series), Pierre Boulez, Bruno Mantovani (D'un rêve parti).
I have several discs with Boulez conducting Boulez: Répons, Messagesquisse/Anthèmes 2, Le marteau sans maître and Dérive 1 & 2 (for an example see Dérive 2...).
Interesting; I have always wondered what Boulez conducting Boulez would sound like...
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presdoug View Drop Down
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Originally posted by BaldFriede BaldFriede wrote:

I know Mahler conducted himself, but there are apparently no recordings of this.
What we do have are piano rolls from the first decade of the 20th Century, where he is playing part of a movement from his 4th and 5th Symphonies, but on piano, only.
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presdoug View Drop Down
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Originally posted by The Dark Elf The Dark Elf wrote:

Ian Anderson never conducted a symphony, but he didn't need to. Tull keyboardist David (Dee) Palmer, a classically trained musician from the Royal Academy of Music (and appointed as a Fellow of the Academy in the 90s), did all the many orchestral arrangements for Tull from Stand Up onward. 

Here is Palmer's superb adaptation of "War Child" with the London Symphony Orchestra:


Hey, thanks, that is pretty cool. Orchestral arrangements of Tull are new to me.
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presdoug View Drop Down
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Originally posted by moshkito moshkito wrote:

Hi,

Stravinsky! 

In rock music, the only example I can think of is Frank Zappa, who used to get upset when some folks were not listening to the music and only wanted a guitar solo. He would put down the guitar and take up the baton ... and I think he was wielding that as well as any conductor probably could!

Stravinsky conducting Stravinsky is quite interesting......yeah, who could overlook Zappa! What a unique person, he was.
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presdoug View Drop Down
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Originally posted by Psychedelic Paul Psychedelic Paul wrote:

John Barry conducting the James Bond theme. Heart

Thanks for that, Paul.
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suitkees View Drop Down
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Originally posted by presdoug presdoug wrote:

 
This cd set mentions a fragment of a Love Duet from Tristan conducted by Richard Wagner in 1880; it used to be on youtube, but I think it is gone from there, but here is the cd cover, itself.

Well, I sincerely put in doubt the veracity of that claim of Grammofono, who put out this cd. Partly because of Wagner's health conditions in his last years, partly because the performance history of Tristan und Isolde (but I'm not a Wagner specialist), but especially because of the state of recording techniques in 1882, 1883... Nothing is impossible, but it seems really very highly unlikely to me.

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Originally posted by suitkees suitkees wrote:

Originally posted by presdoug presdoug wrote:

 
This cd set mentions a fragment of a Love Duet from Tristan conducted by Richard Wagner in 1880; it used to be on youtube, but I think it is gone from there, but here is the cd cover, itself.

Well, I sincerely put in doubt the veracity of that claim of Grammofono, who put out this cd. Partly because of Wagner's health conditions in his last years, partly because the performance history of Tristan und Isolde (but I'm not a Wagner specialist), but especially because of the state of recording techniques in 1882, 1883... Nothing is impossible, but it seems really very highly unlikely to me.
Nothing is etched in stone, I realise, but Thomas Edison invented the cylinder in 1877, and patented it in 1878, so it could have happened. 
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John Williams conducting The Imperial March from Star Wars. Heart
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