Frankfurt Kabuff

At a time when many of his contemporaries were exploring more fluid structures, Franz Schmidt while perhaps stretching tonal harmony to its limits, continued to embrace 19th-century form and achieved a highly personal synthesis of the diverse traditions of the Austro-German symphony. His language, rather than being wedded to a narrative of dissolution and tragedy is radiant and belligerently optimistic and reveals this scion of largely Hungarian forebears as the last great exponent of the style hongrois after Schubert, Liszt and Brahms.

“Le Sacre du Printemps” (The Rite of Spring) by Igor Stravinsky is regarded as a key work of classical music of the 20th century. Due to its rhythmic and tonal structures, interspersed with numerous dissonances, it created turmoil in the audience at its world premiere in Paris in 1913, but was then able to quickly establish itself as a central work in the repertoire of concert halls.

With this disc, German label Neos takes on an enterprising project, Bruno Maderna: Complete Works for Orchestra, Vol. 1. Outside of Italy, Maderna is recognized as a significant figure within Italian avant-garde associated with Nono and Berio, but his music is not is well known as theirs, apart from his fanciful and hip Serenata per un satellite (1969). Within Italy, Maderna is remembered as one of her greatest conductors, although he is worshipped to such extent in that role that his compositions have been overlooked. Such a series, hopefully, would serve to redress the balance; Maderna's experience as conductor helped inform his compositions, and by having access to his orchestral pieces one might be able to determine to what extent his composing impacted his work as a conductor.

A devoted disciple of Falla, Ernesto Halffter (less avant-garde a composer than his older brother Rodolfo or his more famous nephew Cristobal) gave up so much of his time and energy to the colossal task of making sense of, and completing, his mentor’s Atlantida that his own output remained modest, consisting chiefly of a chamber opera, ballets, concertos for violin and for guitar, and a handful of other works. The first of his Esquisses symphoniques (written before he was 20), the exuberant “Chanson du lanternier”, is heavily indebted to early Stravinsky: more individual (though with Debussian overtones) and very impressive both for its orchestral writing and its eloquence, is the second, “Paysage mort”. But it was his sizeable Sinfonietta, completed shortly afterwards in 1925, which really attracted attention at home and abroad. There have been three or four previous recordings of it (including the very last recording – on Spanish Columbia – made by the conductor Ataulfo Argenta), but none are currently in the catalogue.

Throughout the 19th century, the chamber music of Georges Onslow (1784-1853) was afforded the same respect as that of Mozart, Haydn, and Beethoven. According to one source, “his work was admired by both Beethoven and Schubert, the latter modeling his own 2 cello quintet (D.956) on those of Onslow and not, as is so often claimed, on those of Boccherini.” While Onslow was known as “the French Beethoven,” his string quartets/quintets fit neatly within the 'quatuor brilliants' genre that arose from Louis Spohr. This type of string writing gives the first violin freer rein as a soloist; a concerto for violin and string quartet, in other words.

When Vilde Frang programs violin concertos in unexpected pairs, such as her 2010 coupling of Jean Sibelius' Violin Concerto in D minor with Sergey Prokofiev's Violin Concerto No. 1 in D major, or her 2012 disc of Carl Nielsen's Violin Concerto matched against Pyotr Il'yich Tchaikovsky's Violin Concerto in D major, the results are quite fascinating. For this 2016 release on Warner Classics, Frang plays the Violin Concerto in D major, Op. 35 of Erich Wolfgang Korngold and the Violin Concerto, Op. 15 of Benjamin Britten, and the works invite comparisons because they are so dramatically different.

Inbal and the Frankfurt Radio Symphony Orchestra are nearing completion of their Mahler cycle, which on the whole is highly distinguished. This two-disc set gives us the climactic Ninth Symphony, arguably the greatest work of its kind composed in this century, and the opening Adagio of the Tenth in the Erwin Ratz 1964 edition. Presumably Inbal rejects the Deryck Cooke performing version, which is an immense pity because judging from his incandescent interpretation of this first movement, he would have something special to tell us about it.

In the lush mosaic of Russian 19th-century music life, Franz Xaver Gebel (1787-1843) was a fascinating, if marginal tile. Born in Germany, Gebel emigrated to Moscow in the 1820s and there taught a generation of students, including Nicolai Rubinstein, while composing on the side. His chief role in Moscow was organizing chamber music concerts with the intention of elevating music taste in Russia. He impressed some pretty big names in the process, such as Borodin and Glinka. Gebel wrote eight quintets and the two selected for this recording are the best examples of his art currently on disc; if you're curious about him, this is the quintessential gateway. (Profil has followed up with recordings of some string quartets and the string quintet op. 27 , of which the latter is the better choice.)

After a string of failed attempts to establish himself as a pianist and composer in the capitals of Europe, Ferdinand Ries was brought to London in 1813 by the same impresario who had imported Haydn 20 years earlier, Johann Peter Salomon. All three works were written during this time in England while Ries enjoyed the favor of the upper classes and looked for a wife. Presumably, he composed these works for himself on piano with the other parts to be played by wealthy amateurs. The pedestrian string writing in the first two works substantiates the premise that they were composed for London's dilettantes.

After a string of failed attempts to establish himself as a pianist and composer in the capitals of Europe, Ferdinand Ries was brought to London in 1813 by the same impresario who had imported Haydn 20 years earlier, Johann Peter Salomon. All three works were written during this time in England while Ries enjoyed the favor of the upper classes and looked for a wife. Presumably, he composed these works for himself on piano with the other parts to be played by wealthy amateurs. The pedestrian string writing in the first two works substantiates the premise that they were composed for London's dilettantes.