Well, this is a let-down. I fell head-over-heels for Robert
Fuchs’ first two string serenades (see review),
but these later three are - sorry! - kind of boring. The first
time I listened to the disc, I did so in one sitting, holding
out hope for the finale of the last serenade, which is a rousing
parody of Johann Strauss. It was hard to be patient, because
the music here is all derivative and a lot of it just drags
on and on. Robert Fuchs was a very important figure in music
history, his place in which is very well-described in the booklet
essay, but these last three serenades aim to charm and only
sometimes do.
The Serenade No 3 opens with a slow movement, a trick which
can be done well (see Suk’s incredible serenade) but isn’t
here, since the music (andante sostenuto) provides no immediate
interest. Then we have to plod through a six-minute minuet and
an allegretto before arriving at the first bit of the CD with
any harmonic or dynamic contrast, a Hungarian-style finale.
The Fourth and Fifth serenades date from much later in Fuchs’
career, when he had evidently cast aside any last vestiges of
youthful freshness and enthusiasm to write dour, solid Germanic
stuff. No 4 very elegantly blends the sounds of French horns
into the ensemble, and the opening andante sostenuto (again!)
manages a very late-Brahmsian kind of autumnal beauty. But when
Fuchs immediately doubles back to blandly cheery dances afterward,
the result is patently artificial.
Compared to the sweet innocence of the first two serenades,
one gets the sense of a composer too concentrated on having
fun properly to really allow himself to have fun. Even the Johann
Strauss parody (more of a loving homage, really) which rounds
out No 5 is a little too earnest and hardworking. What made
the first two serenades so much fun is that they seemed not
to be trying: they just danced, these wispy, sweet little
trifles. The stuff on the present CD, not so much. The Cologne
Chamber Orchestra plays with the same excellent intonation they
displayed last time, and they’re extremely well recorded.
The blame falls on Robert Fuchs.
Brian Reinhart
Cologne Chamber Orchestra/Christian Ludwig 