This, by my reckoning,
is the third instalment in ASV’s (now
Sanctuary’s) project to record Joseph
Marx’s complete orchestral music. While
there was a likeness in style between
volumes 1 (Natur-trilogie ASV
CD DCA 1137) and 2 (orchestral songs
and Verklärtes Jahr ASV
CD DCA 1164) this selection represents
a departure from the voluptuous nature
paintings of the 1920s and 1930s. All
these works compare somewhat with the
difference in style between Richard
Strauss as tone poet and Richard Strauss
the composer of Le Bourgeois Gentilhomme.
The Alt-Wiener
Serenaden is in four movements
written much in the shadow of Hayn’s
Viennese legacy. The Intrada is
a confident confection - a hybrid of
Handelian grandeur and gracious song
- as in Elizabethan Serenade. The Aria
is taken at a slow and liquidly-moving
pace, warm and a touch Brahmsian (Second
Symphony) with the added colouring of
a harpsichord. The Minuet is
quicker without being in any way a scherzo.
Its pacing reflects a sedate waltz which
moves from transparent texture to gorgeous
apparel in a flowing together of transitions
and awakenings. Lastly the Presto
ambles smartly along with the walker
catching glimpses from time to time
of imperial vistas among the less exalted
views which are never less than charming.
This high-hearted confidence recalls
Frank Bridge’s Suite for Strings
tilt and even looks back at Elgar’s
Introduction and Allegro. This
work was given its premiere by Karl
Böhm and the Vienna Phil on 14
April 1942. It celebrates that orchestra’s
centenary. Marx (and Sloane) keep things
mobile fighting the tendency to cloy
or coagulate.
Very much in step with
the Serenaden is the four movement
Partita in Modo Antico.
Although it predates the Serenaden
it is clearly cut from similar cloth.
This is however a work of Haydnesque
simplicity. While there are some hints
of his lush romantic style of the 1920s
in the Serenaden that voice is
absent completely in this music. Again,
if anything, we hear the delicately
affecting simplicity of Bridge’s probingly
nostalgic music for strings interlaced
with the devotional austerity of Palestrina.
If you like playful string music try
the Vivace of the final Presto.
Then comes the Sinfonia
in Modo Classico originally
written like the Partita for
string quartet (both quartet versions
plus the Chromatico are on ASV
CD DCA 1073) but arranged for orchestra
in the mid-1940s. Again the ambience
is rather like romantic Bridge offset,
in the first of the four movements,
by some Mahlerian ‘Ländlerisch’
touches. The glistening Adagio is
more romantic but by no means weighed
down with the sort of luxuriant profusion
to be found in the Natur-Trilogie.
It on occasions seems to look toward
a sort of Nimrod nobility. The
Tempo di Menuetto looks across
the years to the equivalent third movement
in the Serenaden. The Poco presto
finale is a romantically affectionate
and springy mood picture with admiring
glances cast in the direction of Bliss’s
Music for Strings (without quite
the complexity of that work), Wirén’s
Serenade and again towards Bridge
and the genre pieces such as Rosemary.
Good to see Steven
Sloane, who seems ideally sympathetic
to Marx’s varied idioms, at the helm.
His Bochum orchestra rise to the challenge
of such richly furnished music. I was
very pleased to see that he is also
recording for Capriccio in a recently
released recital of Bloch’s early orchestral
music. Before too long I hope that we
will be seeing the release of his and
David Lively’s CD of the two Marx piano
concertos so that we can at last hear
the Castelli Romana concerto
in all its romantically luxurious Italianate
panoply. After that the major revelation
will be the long-awaited premiere recording
of Marx’s massive Herbst-Symphonie.
As ever the CD is greatly
strengthened by the notes written by
Berkant Haydin who single-handedly wrought
the Marx renaissance we are now enjoying.
His website is still the definitive
and outstanding source of information
about Marx.
The Marx renaissance
opens a fresh chapter here in music
that looks to Germany’s musical heritage
with results that are light-of-heart
yet serenely nostalgic.
Rob Barnett
Bochum Symphony Orchestra/Steven Sloane 
