Bernard ZWEERS (1854-1924)
Symphony No. 3 Aan mijn vaderland (1886-1890) [63:04]
Het Residentie Orkest, Den Haag/Hans Vonk
rec. 24-26 August 1977, Nieuwe Kerk, The Hague. ADD
STERLING CDS-1088-2 [63.04]
Bernard ZWEERS (1854-1924)
Concert Overture Saskia (1906) [7:32]
Symphony No. 2 in E flat major (1882-1883) [32:05]
Suite for the incidental music for Vodel's Gijsbrech van Aemstel (1892)
[17:48]
Radio Filharmonisch Orkest Holland/Lukas Vis (suite); Jean Fournet (overture)
Netherlands Radio Symphony Orchestra/Antoni Wit (symphony)
rec. AVRO Klassiek 12 May 1973 AAD (overture); NPS Radio, 19-21 June
2001 DDD (symphony); VPRO Radio, 11 September 1980, AAD (1748). DDD
STERLING CDS-1061-2 [57.26]
This most recent Sterling release (CDS-1088-2) brings back into circulation
a recording of the Dutch composer, Zweers’ Third Symphony. It dates from
the vinyl heartland of 1977 and will be familiar to specialists of the Dutch
national repertoire. It last appeared in 1993 when it formed volume 4 of Olympia’s 400
Years of Dutch Music series (OCD503). The now halted Chandos Dutch series
never picked up on Zweers so Sterling’s three Zweers symphony discs make
an ideal complement alongside the very different works of Verhulst, Hol, Dopper,
Voormolen and Vermeulen.
The Zweers is a symphony of Brucknerian length across four graphically titled
movements. These are: I In the Dutch forests; II In the country; III On the
beach and at sea; IV To the capital. In this work Zweers has come a long way
from the heavily Germanic orientation of the first two symphonies. He now deploys
a brilliant palette of poetic ideas and colouristic devices. There’s
more than a dash of passionate Tchaikovsky here, a flurry of Rimsky there.
The effect sometimes recalls Louis Glass’s much later Fifth
Symphony and the colouristic tone poems of Glazunov (The Sea and The
Forest) and Ludolf
Nielsen. There’s some simply glorious writing for the brass and the
last movement harbours plenty of glowing examples which also give off a pleasingly
grating bite. I had wondered if it would be all rather suite-like but there
is a symphonic steel to Zweers’ writing which makes this more than a
merely well-crafted pictorial indulgence. This is a symphony of lavish duration
but of well conceived and executed ideas deployed within their span
for potential pleasure and no further.
It all works well and is aided by a close-up Decca-style recording that unflinchingly
plays all the orchestral details in the listener’s lap. It’s a
very agreeable effect and not at all claustrophobic. There is the odd tape
blip and faltering blemish - unsurprising in an iron-oxide tape getting on
for 35 years old - truth to tell I noticed only one of each and those in the
first movement.
This will appeal to those who love their nationalist programme symphonies with
a Tchaikovskian accent.
NOTE: I am also including here a now-completed review of the Second Symphony
disc from Sterling which I had shelved part-written when two other reviews
of that
CD were submitted.
STERLING CDS-1061-2
With this disc of radio-sourced tapes of widely varying vintage Sterling
launch their Dutch Romantics series. It partners Bo Hyttner's German, Swiss
and Danish
Romantics series.
Zweers was active as a teacher until 1922. His pupils included Daniel Ruyneman,
Bernard van den Sigtenhorst Meyer, Willem Landré, Sem Dresden, Anthon
van der Horst and Hendrik Andriessen.
The overture boils with quiet and heart-warming confidence. It radiates a glowing
warmth derived perhaps from Brahms Second Symphony with a satisfying blush
borrowed from Richard Strauss. This is not a work of busy bustle nor of dramatic
gesture.
The Second Symphony is less well known than the Third Symphony entitled To
My Fatherland (Aan mijn vaderland).
Brawling and biting brass distinguish the first movement of the Second Symphony.
There’s an infusion of Schumann and Brahms in the fabric (4.19 tr. 2).
At 6:03 there’s a passage that is playfully Beethovenian - redolent of
symphonies 5 and 7. If the brass affirmatives tends to crush the breath out
of the music there is no doubting its bull-in-a-china-shop triumphalism at
the end of the first and last movements. The second movement is an Andante with
a lacy Delibes-like orchestration. It’s not at all impressionistic. The
sturdy regal quality of this work is definitely 19th century in
feel and squarely within the access established by Brahms (symphony 4) and
Schumann (symphony 2). In the movement there are some moments of great and
jovial buoyancy.
The Van Aemstel music is in five predominantly earnest - even grim -
movements across almost eighteen minutes. The first has considerable symphonic gravitas with
emotional turmoil in evidence. The Brahms First Piano Concerto may be a model
- at least in mood. The Dies Irae runs through tr.10 even sporting echoes
of early Sibelius: Kullervo and First Symphony.
Rob Barnett
see also reviews of Symphony 2 (CDS10612) by Guy Rickards and Ian Lace and of Symphony 1 (CDS10682) by Rob Barnett