MusicWeb International One of the most grown-up review sites around 2024
60,000 reviews
... and still writing ...

Search MusicWeb Here Acte Prealable Polish CDs
 

Presto Music CD retailer
 
Founder: Len Mullenger                                    Editor in Chief:John Quinn             


CD REVIEW

Some items
to consider

new MWI
Current reviews

old MWI
pre-2023 reviews

paid for
advertisements

Acte Prealable Polish recordings

Forgotten Recordings
Forgotten Recordings
All Forgotten Records Reviews

TROUBADISC
Troubadisc Weinberg- TROCD01450

All Troubadisc reviews


FOGHORN Classics

Alexandra-Quartet
Brahms String Quartets

All Foghorn Reviews


All HDTT reviews


Songs to Harp from
the Old and New World


all Nimbus reviews



all tudor reviews


Follow us on Twitter


Editorial Board
MusicWeb International
Founding Editor
   
Rob Barnett
Editor in Chief
John Quinn
Contributing Editor
Ralph Moore
Webmaster
   David Barker
Postmaster
Jonathan Woolf
MusicWeb Founder
   Len Mullenger


Buy through MusicWeb for £14.60 postage paid World-wide. Immediate delivery
You may prefer to pay by Sterling cheque or Euro notes to avoid PayPal. Contactfor details

Purchase button

 

Karl Amadeus HARTMANN (1905-1963)
Sinfonia tragica (1940-43) [23:35]
Concerto for Viola and Piano accompanied by wind instruments and percussion (1954-56) [27:12]
Tatjana Masurenko (viola)
Frank-Immo Zichner (piano)
Berlin Radio Symphony Orchestra/Marek Janowski
rec. Jesus-Christus-Kirche, Berlin, November 2002
CAPRICCIO 71112 [50:51]



This is a disc especially notable for its promotion of the Viola Concerto – or more properly the Concerto for Viola and Piano accompanied by wind instruments and percussion of 1954-56. I’m not aware that it’s been previously recorded and though Capriccio doesn’t proclaim it as a premiere recording on the box they do in the booklet notes. This company has demonstrated its commitment to Hartmann before, not least in the Spivakov/Conlon disc of the Concerto funčbre, coupled with the Second and Fourth Symphonies.  This is the string opus most associated with him of course. The later work for viola and piano is of an entirely different sort.
 
It was written for William Primrose. Like the question of recording I’m not aware that the Scotsman ever played it, though he was certainly supposed to give the premiere in Frankfurt am Main in May 1956. As he was ill his place was taken by Jascha Vleissi. Primrose makes no mention of Hartmann in his autobiography.
 
The single most pronounced influence on the concerto is that of Berg’s Chamber Concerto. The oscillation between terse and lyric is in the hands of the viola soloist; the piano’s subsequent entries add percussive colour. I must note straight away that the balance between the two instruments and the orchestra has been excellently realised. The Melodie central movement encapsulates the complex textures and procedures to which Hartmann has submitted his material. Percussive moments become overt, melodies are long-breathed but difficult, polyphony is pervasive. There is maybe some Blacher influence in the finale, a Rondo of tightly constructed and rhythmic incision. The Bartók influences are not obvious though they do also exist. The path of the work is rather binary, with both solo instruments engaged in their own rather individual battles. It’s played with total commitment and facility by the soloists and orchestra under Janowski. And yet one can’t pretend it’s an easy or phlegmatic listen.
 
The Sinfonia tragica has a somewhat complicated history. This dates from 1940 with some revisions made in 1943. The first movement was then later utilised for the Symphony No.3. The 1940 version was originally planned to be performed in Brussels in Paul Collaer’s Musique 1941 concert series – the work was dedicated to him – but the performance was cancelled. A subsequently scheduled 1946-47 premiere in the same city also collapsed because of the loss of the score. It wasn’t until 1973 that it was found in the archives of the Belgian radio broadcasting company.
 
Berg and Stravinsky haunt some of the writing; the opening is tense, brittle and allusive. The tightly argued echoes of Webern are embedded in the score but the defiant assertion of the Rite of Spring allusions (try Movement 1; around 9:40) are the most striking and emblematic. The second of the two movements is snarling, martial and inflammatory in places – it doesn’t open Tumultuoso for nothing – and in certain places it also suggests Janáček’s Taras Bulba.

Once again there is no let-up in the formidable energy levels displayed by the Berlin Radio Symphony and Janowski. The first ever recording of this was by the Bamberg Symphony and Karl Anton Rickenbacher on Koch Swann CD 312952 and it was coupled with the Second Symphony and Gesangsszene. SACD has given the Berlin performance a powerful presence and its uniquely valuable coupling is a must.
 
Jonathan Woolf
 

 

 

 


Advertising on
Musicweb


Donate and keep us afloat

 

New Releases

Naxos Classical
All Naxos reviews

Hyperion recordings
All Hyperion reviews

Foghorn recordings
All Foghorn reviews

Troubadisc recordings
All Troubadisc reviews



all Bridge reviews


all cpo reviews

Divine Art recordings
Click to see New Releases
Get 10% off using code musicweb10
All Divine Art reviews


All Eloquence reviews

Lyrita recordings
All Lyrita Reviews

 

Wyastone New Releases
Obtain 10% discount

Subscribe to our free weekly review listing

 

 

Return to Review Index

Untitled Document


Reviews from previous months
Join the mailing list and receive a hyperlinked weekly update on the discs reviewed. details
We welcome feedback on our reviews. Please use the Bulletin Board
Please paste in the first line of your comments the URL of the review to which you refer.