Schneider / Wagner - Symphony 5 Schwarzwald Saga / Symphony 6 Der Rhein - COMPACT DISCS [CD]

R. Wagner - Britannic Organ 5 [COMPACT DISCS] date 01/29/2013

Bohuslav Martinu's six symphonies were composed between 1942 and 1953 during the composer's years in America. He completed the first five symphonies at the astonishing rate of one per year, although not at any artistic expense - years later, he described the Fifth Symphony as a 'well organized, organic, well ordered work' in an interview with The New York Times. A full seven years elapsed, however, before Martinu completed his Sixth. One of his 'unexpected' works, it took, quite unusually for him, two years to complete, and it's form proved to be a radical change from his previous symphonies. As he wrote to his friend Šafránek - 'I am about to create fantasias!' In November 2021 Sir Roger Norrington announced his retirement from conducting. From 1998 to 2011 he was chief conductor of the former Stuttgart Radio Symphony Orchestra (today the SWR Symphonieorchester), and during that time caused an international stir with what came to be known as the 'Stuttgart Sound' - a synthesis of historically-informed performance practice with the technical capabilities of a modern orchestra. Whether Mozart, Haydn, Bruckner, Brahms or Martinu, Norrington sought to recreate a faithful performance experience, adjusting the orchestra's size and seating plan, and creating an authentic sound without vibrato.

The recording presented here is dedicated to the last two symphonies of Franz Schubert's earlier compositional period. Both are united by their emergence in the atmosphere of the amateur orchestra founded by Otto Hatwig, in which Franz played the viola, and his brother Ferdinand the violin. This orchestra was a stroke of luck for the young Schubert, akin to a laboratory where he could thoroughly test his compositions against the works of composing contemporaries such as Haydn, Mozart, Beethoven and Méhul, and in real world conditions. Nevertheless, in their compositional intent, the symphonies are so fundamentally different that it is tempting to present these two dissimilar siblings on one album. Looking at the entire cycle of the Schubert symphonies, and the existential crisis in which Schubert found himself after 1818, this criticism seems in hindsight to be justified only to a certain extent. The creative chasm that opened up in front of Schubert is documented in his many symphonic drafts and abandoned works. In chamber music and in song composition, his productivity likewise decreased considerably. At that time, there was also the break with his father. Against this background, the Sixth seems like a charming Inchcoming-of-ageInch work that demonstrated to the composer - with the utmost severity - the creative limits of youth-fuelled ardor.