These are disappointing symphonies. Max Bruch’s violin concerti
are each quite unconventional, and the first two have truly immense
melodic appeal (and a welcome conciseness). But his first two
symphonies, on the evidence of this album, match a sort of sordid
stereotype of mid-19th century German romanticism:
they are too long for their material, emotionally generic and
completely forgettable. Bruch seems to have known all the clichés
of romantic music and angled for them all: the First Symphony
is bucolic and pastoral, with an elfin scherzo; the Second
Symphony launches in a sturm-und-drang mood, all bustle and
sternness, and features a no-pause transition from slow movement
to finale that represents a move from darkness to light, from
a troubled mood to joyful thanks. In other words, we have heard
this all before elsewhere.
That
would be no problem if the music retained our interest. But
the unforgettable tunes Bruch lavished on his solo violin
writing is simply not in evidence here. There are many very
pretty sounds: the scherzo of the First and finale
of the Second, especially, feature quite a few. But
nothing makes a lasting impression. Partake in a listening
game: challenge a friend to hum a single tune, any tune, from
either of these symphonies five minutes after the album is
over. The poor friend had better make a very small wager.
I
am, as it happens, an admirer of many symphonies from this
period. Bruch’s First was composed in 1867 and his
Second in 1870. Other composers were working on vastly
more interesting music at the time: Joachim Raff’s marvelous
(and quite inventive) Symphony No. 4 was completed
in 1871, Johann Kalliwoda’s Overture No. 16, composed
in the early 1860s and available on a CPO disc, exhibits a
considerably more advanced musical language, and Johan Svendsen’s
amiable, brilliantly constructed Symphony No. 1 was
written in 1867. Among more famous composers, Anton Bruckner
had already written three symphonies by 1870 (the 00, 0 and
1), Tchaikovsky’s “Winter Daydreams” Symphony was composed
in 1866, Dvořák’s immensely underrated Symphony No.
2 was penned in 1865 and Borodin’s Second Symphony
was begun in 1869. Even if we compare Bruch’s exclusively
to symphonic works in the Germanic idiom these pieces seem
unusually blasé: witness Kalliwoda’s fiercely vivacious orchestral
language, evident decades earlier, or Raff’s intriguing Fourth,
with a scherzo that easily outclasses Bruch’s. Franz Schubert’s
Unfinished Symphony and Franz Berwald’s Sinfonie
singulière speak in considerably more advanced
musical languages despite having arrived on the scene decades
before.
Am
I comparing apples to oranges? Probably. But it is hard to
imagine a listener who will need this album, even if it is
nice to know that the music has been recorded. The pastoral
movements here are faceless and bland, the dramatic movements
feel routine and emotionless, the thematic material never
captures the listener’s interest and the orchestration is
serious-minded with an unwarranted sense of self-importance.
Perhaps the First Symphony’s scherzo is worth an individual
track download.
The
harshness of this review should not be considered a complaint
about the worthy performances by the Staatskapelle Weimar
or the heroic conducting of Michael Halasz. Conductor and
orchestra want to believe in this music, and try their hardest
to persuade us of its worth. But Max Bruch did not make their
job easy.
As
a part of the Naxos Digital imprint, this album is currently only
available for download at the website Classicsonline, where it
sells for rather less than the price of a physical compact disc.
Brian Reinhart
