So today (after therapy ...) I went to the county library for the first time in a month or so, couldn't find the book or the DVD Mozart and the Whale listed in the catalog, but picked up the following CDs...
Johann Wenzel Kalliwoda (Jan Kalivoda) (1801-1866) - symphonies 5 and 7 (out of 7) and overture no. 16. (One of his overtures for orchestra was commissioned to, and inaugurated, the first season at Carnegie Hall of the New York Philharmonic, I think...? Something like that. So, had some recognition in his day. The 5th symphony I have another performance of on CD, I think this recording I borrowed is the third, which for a full-orchestra work by a now-lesser-known composer is not so bad. His concertino for oboe has done better, I seem to recall, but soloists get to push for things ;^) - that helps! Anyhow, it'll be good to hear another performance of the 5th, and the 7th for the first time.)
(I started the article on this fellow in the English-language Wikipedia- mostly but not entirely a translation from the one in the German-language, but adding some facts and sources I knew- it does to admit.)
2) Sir Arthur Bliss (1891-1975, from 1953-75 Master of the Queen's Music I think) - British composer. CD with his 2nd string quartet and his quintet for clarinet and strings. (The 2nd is actually his fourth, first two of those four not acknowledged but also being recorded in this series on the Naxos label, I believe- the library already has the CD with one of those unnumbered quartets, I think the other will follow?...)
3) 2-CD set of Mikhail Pletnev playing Scarlatti sonatas.
4) Aulis Sallinen (modern Finnish composer) - horn concerto and symphonies 2 (symphonic dialogue for percussion and orchestra) and 4, which like the Kalivoda, is produced by the enterprising :) cpo label out of Osnabrück, Germany (the house label of www.jpc.de) - I have a number of their CDs. (The Swedish label BIS has recorded most of Sallinen's symphonies already also; I first heard a work of his, his cello concerto (which was on a disc with another recording of the fourth symphony), back in 1989 I think back either on the college radio station or listening longer-distance to WFLN out of Philadelphia, a station that no longer plays classical music but was fantastic in range back when they did...) (Yeah, yeah, that may be related.)
5) piano works by Alexander Scriabin (piano sonatas 2 and 9, preludes (op. 74 from about 1914), the fantasy (about 1900), two poems for piano (op. 32 from 1904), two pieces op. 57 (1908), other works) played by Alexander Melnikov. I've heard a few of these, have some in other performances in my "stash" (sonata 2, the first of the two poems I think), but am not that familiar with a number of the others...
