{"id":4058,"date":"2012-05-10T20:06:52","date_gmt":"2012-05-10T19:06:52","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/kennethwoods.net\/blog1\/?p=4058"},"modified":"2012-05-22T15:01:12","modified_gmt":"2012-05-22T14:01:12","slug":"cd-review-international-record-review-calum-macdonald-on-galschumann-symphonies-vol-2","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/kennethwoods.net\/blog1\/2012\/05\/10\/cd-review-international-record-review-calum-macdonald-on-galschumann-symphonies-vol-2\/","title":{"rendered":"CD Review- International Record Review, Calum MacDonald on Gal\/Schumann Symphonies vol. 2"},"content":{"rendered":"

A new review from musicologist extraordinaire, Calum MacDonald in the May 2012 issue of International Record Review. On newsstands now, or subscribe via the IRR website here.<\/a><\/p>\n

Now, please go buy a copy so we can make volume 3.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

Click here to order from MDT<\/a><\/p>\n

Click here to order from Amazon.co.uk<\/a><\/p>\n

Click here to order from Amazon.com<\/a><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

From International Record Review<\/strong><\/p>\n

May 2012 (pp 32-3)<\/strong><\/p>\n

I had nothing but praise for the previous disc from Kenneth Woods with the Orchestra of the Swan of Hans G\u00e1l\u2019s Third Symphony coupled with Schumann\u2019s \u2018Rhenish\u2019 (reviewed in July\/August 2011). I find myself in a similar position now.<\/p>\n

G\u00e1l composed his Fourth (and last) symphony in 1973 at the age of 83; like the other works of his advanced old age it is consciously a last visitation of its genre, but in\u00a0 no sense a work of farewell. Perhaps it\u2019s better to think of it as what the Germans call a Bekenntniswerk<\/em> (A work that declares a belief), instinct with a lifetime\u2019s experience but still full of life. G\u00e1l subtitled it \u2018Sinfonia concertante\u2019 <\/em>and it features a quartet of soloists- violin, cello, flute and clarinet\u2014in addition to a severely Classical orchestra of paired oboes, bassoons and horns with timpani and strings. In\u00a0 his programme note for the 1975 premiere in Edinburgh (for which he had to extract all the performing materials himself), G\u00e1l likened the result to a concerto grosso, but though the soloists have a great deal to do both individually and as a group, I feel less of a Baroque antiphony between the four soloists\u2019 concertino\u00a0 and the orchestra\u2019s ripieno than a sense in which the soloists take part seamlessly in a constantly evolving symphonic argument, not so much displaying their virtuosity as bringing out the individual voices of G\u00e1l\u2019s deft and intricate polyphony, into enhanced relief.<\/p>\n

The work\u2019s overall effect, like that of the Third Symphony, is conditioned by the rather paradoxical \u201cserenade\u201d character that informs much of G\u00e1l\u2019s late music. The four movements comprise a preludial \u2018Improvvisazione\u2019 introducing an Allegro moderato<\/em>, a \u2018Scherzo leggiero\u2019 that, according to the composer, is a \u2018burlesque masquerade\u2019 on the figures of Harlequin and Columbine from the commedia dell\u2019arte<\/em>, and an Adagio<\/em> entitled \u2018Duetto\u2019 that spotlights the solo violin and cello, and a cheerful rondo finale entitled, as if to deflect any hint of seriousness, \u2018Buffoneria\u2019. The spirit of Busoni\u2019s Junge Klassizt\u00e4t<\/em> (youthful classicality) seems to preside over the work, most of all in the Italianate leanings of scherzo and finale. The urbane and civilized surface, like a friendly, quizzical smile that never slips even if maintained in the face of long and wearisome experience of fate and human nature, does not exactly conceal great depths, but it certainly diverts the attention\u2014at least on first hearing, so I recommend several repeated ones\u2014from the symphony\u2019s extraordinary richness of ideas and all-encompassing technical command. Equable but not comfortable, infused with a Haydn-like sanity, the work simply stands in principled opposition to chaos, opportunism and the vagaries of fashion. This doesn\u2019t make it a masterpiece (its mastery does that). Throughout his career, G\u00e1l felt himself to be in the Brahmsian tradition, though his music seldom sounds particularly Brahmsian. Yet Brahms himself– usually so niggardly of praise for the efforts of the younger generation\u2014would surely have found warm words of admiration for G\u00e1l\u2019s Symphony no. 4.<\/p>\n

Schumann\u2019s C major Symphony, like the Rhenish on Woods\u2019s previous G\u00e1l\/Schumann coupling, receives a first-rate performance, perhaps a little hard-driven in places but with a wonderful sense of expansiveness and profound and delicate feeling in the slow movement. G\u00e1l, in his BBC Music Guide on the Schumann orchestral works, described this symphony as \u2018not without problems\u2019\u2014but those problems can be compensated for by sufficiently intelligent pacing of the first movement and finale, which these movements certainly receive here. Though I wouldn\u2019t place it, as an interpretation, quite on a par with those of Muti, Marriner or Solti (whom I find especially impressive in this work), it\u2018s a very fine one, and the playing of the Orchestra of the Swan is absolutely top-notch. I found its \u2018Rhenish\u2019 a little small-scale (and it is, when all\u2019s said and done, a smallish orchestra) but there\u2019s no hint of that here.<\/p>\n

It remains to point out that David Le Page, Christopher Allan, Diane Clark and Sally Harrop\u2014the concertante soloists in the G\u00e1l\u2014play throughout with refinement, beautiful tone, an understanding of the idiom and complete understanding of their role in the composer\u2019s polyphonic web. All in all, this is a very welcome and highly recommendable release.<\/p>\n

Calum MacDonald<\/em><\/strong><\/p>\n