Ornstein book finally being published by Dover

[davidjosepha]

It looks like Leo Ornstein is finally going to get a lot of his works printed in a pretty thick Dover book (~300 pages) to be released later this year, November 21. Before this, I think only a couple of his works could be found printed, and none by a major publisher. You'd have to resort to printing the music off, which is a huge pain when you're trying to work!

https://www.amazon.com/Piano-Works-1913-1990-Leo-Ornstein/dp/0486490777/ref=sr_1_8?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1344431990&sr=1-8

The disappointing thing about this is this still won't be even half Ornstein's piano works, I don't think. The Amazon page said it would include 16 pieces, then went on to list a few of them: Three Moods, Impressions of the Thames, Wild Men's Dance, Chinatown, A Long Remembered Sorrow, and Morning in the Woods. I couldn't find the length of Chinatown, but if you account for the others, that leaves just over 200 pages left for 10 more pieces (if you use the page lengths of the versions available online, anyway).

The things I'd like to see printed the most are the waltzes and sonatas, but the waltzes take up over 100 pages by themselves, and the sonatas aren't short either. I just hope it's a good sign that Dover is printing this and that perhaps more of his works will get printed soon. Maybe I'll finally learn some of his music now!

Anyone else excited?

[ahinton]

It looks like Leo Ornstein is finally going to get a lot of his works printed in a pretty thick Dover book (~300 pages) to be released later this year, November 21. Before this, I think only a couple of his works could be found printed, and none by a major publisher. You'd have to resort to printing the music off, which is a huge pain when you're trying to work!

https://www.amazon.com/Piano-Works-1913-1990-Leo-Ornstein/dp/0486490777/ref=sr_1_8?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1344431990&sr=1-8

The disappointing thing about this is this still won't be even half Ornstein's piano works, I don't think. The Amazon page said it would include 16 pieces, then went on to list a few of them: Three Moods, Impressions of the Thames, Wild Men's Dance, Chinatown, A Long Remembered Sorrow, and Morning in the Woods. I couldn't find the length of Chinatown, but if you account for the others, that leaves just over 200 pages left for 10 more pieces (if you use the page lengths of the versions available online, anyway).

The things I'd like to see printed the most are the waltzes and sonatas, but the waltzes take up over 100 pages by themselves, and the sonatas aren't short either. I just hope it's a good sign that Dover is printing this and that perhaps more of his works will get printed soon. Maybe I'll finally learn some of his music now!

Anyone else excited?

I'm sure that Severo is - and, after all, he's been making as much as possible of Leo's music as easily and widely available as he can for quite some years now.

Best,

Alistair

[indutrial]

'Excited' would be an overstatement, but it is pleasing to see these works getting some love. I'd be excited if a company like Dover put some focus on rare Soviet scores in the same way they focus on Soviet science and mathematics publications. Reissuing stuff that's freely available electronically is more of a convenience than anything.

[davidjosepha]

'Excited' would be an overstatement, but it is pleasing to see these works getting some love. I'd be excited if a company like Dover put some focus on rare Soviet scores in the same way they focus on Soviet science and mathematics publications. Reissuing stuff that's freely available electronically is more of a convenience than anything.

Yes, it is definitely a for-convenience thing. If i were dying to learn any of his pieces, I wouldn't let fumbling with papers stop me--I'd just memorize the piece as quickly as possible so I could do away with them! But I will be getting a hold of this book as soon as it's released.

What sorts of rare Soviet scores are you interested in?

[j_menz]

Thanks for the heads up. Now pre-ordered. 

[davidjosepha]

Thanks for the heads up. Now pre-ordered. 

Ever since someone recommended Ornstein in that thread I made asking about composers I've never played before, I've been checking about twice a week to see if I can find anywhere that publishes his stuff. I'm glad Dover now is!

[austinarg]

This is excellent news. I'm still waiting for the to publish Alkan's Op. 35 and Kapustin works 

[j_menz]

This is excellent news. I'm still waiting for the to publish Alkan's Op. 35 and Kapustin works 

You'll probably be waiting a long time for them to do Kapustin as he's still alive and has a publisher. You can get them at www.tutti.co.uk but they aren't at that Dover pocket friendly price.

[indutrial]

What sorts of rare Soviet scores are you interested in?

Over the years and through many different forums, I've found lots of interesting scores from Soviet composers like Evgeny Golubev, Anatoly Alexandrov, Vladimir Fere, Nikolai Myaskovsky, Vasily Zolotarev, Valery Gavrilin, Eduard Abramian, Kara Karaev, Volodymyr Huba, etc... which all, to varying degrees, seem to suffer from the reckless (and often misunderstood) stigma of 'socialist realism' or, more accurately, from the laziness of musicologists and music historians who aren't willing to conduct difficult research on non-Western topics.

[davidjosepha]

Over the years and through many different forums, I've found lots of interesting scores from Soviet composers like Evgeny Golubev, Anatoly Alexandrov, Vladimir Fere, Nikolai Myaskovsky, Vasily Zolotarev, Valery Gavrilin, Eduard Abramian, Kara Karaev, Volodymyr Huba, etc... which all, to varying degrees, seem to suffer from the reckless (and often misunderstood) stigma of 'socialist realism' or, more accurately, from the laziness of musicologists and music historians who aren't willing to conduct difficult research on non-Western topics.

Ah. The reason I ask is because I really love the Russian and Eastern European music and am always looking for new Russians to check out.

[indutrial]

Ah. The reason I ask is because I really love the Russian and Eastern European music and am always looking for new Russians to check out.

I've never really been terribly disappointed when I've gone looking into some obscure composer from that region. Especially in Russia and the former Soviet sphere, there's a colossal amount of music that traces its origins back to Scriabin and probably even more that bears similarity to the works of Prokofiev, Shostakovich, etc...

You might enjoy poring over the following Youtube channel:

videos

This person posts all sorts of rare piano music from Russian and East European composers, as well as other interesting stuff. I recently enjoyed this piano concerto by Galynin:

[williampiano]

I just pre-ordered it. I'm guessing most of the pieces in it will be to difficult for me, but I'm quite fond of listening to Ornstein's works so it'll be something nice to have. 
It is quite surprising they are printing this. I never would've expected that Dover, of all publishers would be printing Ornstein.

[j_menz]

They may well be public domain. There is a website maintained by his son and grandson that has a great many scores available for free in pdf format:

https://www.poonhill.com/list_of_works.htm

[davidjosepha]

Update, for those interested.

I emailed Severo before making this topic and he emailed back saying he was away from home, but would reply when he got home.

He emailed me back today, so I thought I'd share what he said, in case anyone is interested.

Dover is being slow, perhaps because they're dealing with my imperfect source material. I think they were perhaps expecting higher quality photo-ready copy. But maybe they're just being slow.

The included works are:

Three Moods                        S005    26
Suicide in an Airplane            S006    15
Impressions of the Thames     S053    14
Wild Men's Dance                 S054    21
Chinatown                          S060    28
A Long Remembered Sorrow   S102    13
Morning in the Woods            S106    11
Tarantelle                           S155    12
Metaphor #3                       S200    11
Impromptu 1                      S300    10
Fourth Sonata                     S360    44
Eighth Sonata                     S364    60
Waltz #5                           S400    15
Waltz #9                           S400    11
Waltz #12                          S400    7
Fantasy Piece #3                 S440    6
             
TOTAL                                   304

There are no present plans for further volumes. Probably depends how they make out with this one. (Buy a hundred copies!!)

Thanks for the kind words. Yes this music is far better than the attention it's received so far. There's so much faddism in the music world. Also, he was known and is still thought of as a wild man. But his oeuvre is so much larger than that. Eventually it will be recognized.I viewed my job as rescuing it from history's trash-bin,and I believe I've succeeded in that.

Here's my latest announcement to interested parties.

From: Severo Ornstein <severo@poonhill.com>
Subject: Ornstein music - Exciting news
Cc:
Bcc: Music Interest 3

First, apologies to those (few) of you whom I've already told.

Item 1 - Marc-Andre Hamelin is going to be touring the Ornstein Piano Quintet with the Pacifica Quartet and they will then be recording it for Hyperion Records. You can imagine how thrilled I am with this news. The schedule is as follows:

Nov.11, 2013: San Francisco Performances
Nov.12, 2013: Philharmonic Society of Orange County, Irvine, CA
Nov.14, 2013: New Orleans Friends of Music
Nov.16, 2013: Columbus Chamber Music Society. Ohio
Nov.19, 2013: Carnegie Hall (probably Zankel I imagine)
Nov.20, 2013: Philadelphia Chamber Music Society
April 1, 2014: Wigmore Hall, London
April 2-5: Hyperion recording (location tbd)

Item 2 - A young Russian pianist, Arsentiy Kharitonov, is making several CDs of Ornstein piano music for Toccata Classics in England. The first in the series has just become available. See it, listen to samples, and order it at  https://www.toccataclassics.com/cddetail.php?CN=TOCC0141. He is presently working on the complete set of waltzes for the next volume.

Cheers,

Severo

[williampiano]

I just received mine in the mail a few day ago. Anybody else?

[j_menz]

I just received mine in the mail a few day ago. Anybody else?

Yep, got mine just before Christmas. 

Haven't gotten to it yet, though. 

[arielmagno]

I was checking sheetmusicplus some time ago, and came across with Ornstein's Suicide in an Airplane, issued by Noten Roehr (I did not know about this edition before), do any of you know anything about that? It's $ 26.95, quite expensive for a 4-minute piece, just wondering if it looks the same as in the book published by Dover...