Bamert

Dohnányi's penchant for quality musical entertainment bore popular fruit with his perennially fresh Variations on a Nursery Theme. Howard Shelley's performance is a model of wit and style, blending in with the orchestra whenever the moment seems right and employing an ideal brand of rubato. Bamert's conducting is properly portentous in the Introduction and charming elsewhere, whether in the musicbox delights of the fifth variation, the animated bustle of the sixth or the seventh's novel scoring (plenty for the bassoons and bass drum).

Ernst von Dohnanyi (Ernő Dohnányi) was for many years a little known and unjustly neglected composer. Chandos' series of recordings of works performed by Matthias Bamert and the BBC Philharmonic significantly increased his profile, and are regarded as best examples of this repertoire.
2010 marks the fiftieth anniversary of Dohnanyi’s death. To commemorate this anniversary, Chandos has packaged the two Piano Concertos on one album, released on the Classics label.

Josef Myslivecek dropped out of university at the age of sixteen, and along with his twin brother became an apprentice to the family millers’ business. In 1758 both became journeymen, and in 1761, master millers. It was soon after this that Myslivecek decided to devote himself to music. He studied organ and composition and in 1763 left Prague for Venice where he studied operatic composition. He immediately became known as ‘Il Boemo’ (The Bohemian) because his name was impossible for the Italians to pronounce. Myslivecek’s first opera was staged in 1766 and a further opera was produced a year later for the birthday of the King of Naples, but despite this early success and the enormity of his output (which included concertos, a quantity of chamber music, some forty-five symphonies, oratorios and nearly thirty operas), Myslivecek died in abject poverty, in Rome, at the age of fifty-four.

Chandos’ Dutch music series continues with this second disc of Hol symphonies. As with Symphonies 1 and 3, Nos. 2 and 4 display Hol’s mastery of symphonic form, orchestration, and counterpoint. They also reveal the prevailing influence of Mendelssohn, Schubert, Schumann, and Brahms (with occasional suggestions of Dvorák). Mendelssohn figures most in Symphony No. 2, with an opening movement that rides along like many of the German composer’s tempestuous allegros, followed by a fleet-footed and colorful scherzo. Symphony No. 4 begins with a slow introduction before launching into the driving allegro proper. There’s energy aplenty in the following scherzo and much tender emotion in the adagio. The finale, like that of the Second Symphony, creates a festive atmosphere based on folk-dance rhythms.

Richard Hol (1824-1904) was a leading figure in Dutch music during the 19th century. The son of an Amsterdam milkman, he graduated from the Royal Music School in 1844 and went on to become a nationally famous composer, conductor, organist, pianist, and teacher. Hol composed a large body of choral and vocal music, an opera, and a comparatively small number of orchestral works, including four symphonies. Both symphonies on this disc bear the influence of mid-19th-century German composers (particularly Schumann and Mendelssohn), but Hol’s own voice is readily discernible.

German-born English composer William Herschel (1738-1822) achieved fame as an astronomer, the discoverer of the planet Uranus; but his formal training was musical, and in the early 1760s he composed a series of symphonies, six of which are featured here. They are attractive works in simple forms, all centered on the keys of C or D, scored for continuo, strings, winds, and occasional brass in various combinations. Each has three movements, and none lasts more than about 12 minutes. Not surprisingly, Nos. 14 and 17, which feature horns and timpani, pack the largest punch, and Herschel wrote some surprisingly memorable tunes (particularly in the allegros), making these slight works easy on the ear and, if a touch formulaic in construction, seldom dull.

The Dutch are way too hard on themselves. So far, Chandos has released three discs (including this one) in its ongoing Dutch composers series featuring the Residentie Orchestra of The Hague, and all three have been excellent. And yet, the writer of the booklet notes treats this music as if listening to it were some kind of penance. He should take a lesson from his English colleagues, who indiscriminately promote any piece of native trash as God’s gift to the world of music. Well, maybe he needn’t go quite that far.

For many years, John Field, the Irish composer of wonderful piano music, was unjustifiably neglected by musicians and critics alike. If considered at all, Field, who came between Beethoven and Chopin, was considered at best a transition figure, or at worst a musical curiosity. Nothing could be further from the truth. Field's music is nothing short of a revelation. It is lyrical yet complex, the work of a master musician who could stand with the best of the writers for the piano. Fortunately Field's music is now beginning to be heard more often on classical radio and is more available on recordings. And this one, especially of his Second Piano Concerto, is excellent. .

Georg Vogler was one of the 18th (and early 19th) century's great "characters". He began his career at Mannheim where, if Mozart is to be believed, no one especially liked him, although he evidently was successful enough. He then traveled all over the world, literally, from Paris to Sweden to North Africa, teaching music as he went. His two most famous pupils were Weber and Meyerbeer, both of whom loved him. And no wonder.

Catalonia isn’t renowned for its contribution to the Classical symphony, so it comes as something of a surprise to find nearly twenty works of such craftsmanship by Carlos Baguer, organist of Barcelona Cathedral in the late 18th century. In their structure, use of colour and in certain melodic details, these works owe much to Haydn, though Baguer tends to repeat, rather than develop, his material. Matthias Bamert is perhaps better known as a conductor of Romantic and contemporary music, but here he shows himself to be a sympathetic director of the classical repertoire, producing excellent results from the London Mozart Players.