A prolific and much-performed composer in Germany and his native
Austria during the first part of his career, Gál reached the
UK as a refugee following the Anschluss. His name became indelibly
associated with Edinburgh University, where he taught for many
years. He continued to compose unceasingly but his reputation
as a composer did not really transfer to the UK. For many he
remained an academic and a writer on music, roles he filled
very effectively.
By the time I attended Edinburgh University (1971-5) Gál was
in complete retirement, though he was often to be seen in the
Music Faculty Library and at the Reid Concerts. A quiet, reserved
figure, he kept himself very much to himself. I personally had
no direct contact with him and I doubt if any of my contemporaries
did either. Just two occasions stick in my mind.
The first was during the “Dallapiccola week”. The Italian composer
Luigi Dallapiccola was visiting Edinburgh to receive an honorary
doctorate and a Reid concert was dedicated entirely to his music.
During the interval he was introduced to Hans Gál. The reader
must try to imagine the scene. Both were rather small, frail
men with white hair brushed straight back. Both had a decided
stoop and, when speaking to someone, tended to lean even further
towards their interlocutor, peering earnestly through thick
glasses. Dallapiccola was actually 14 years younger than Gál,
but he had aged less gracefully and the two might have been
taken for twins. The reader should see in his mind’s eye the
human arch created as the two men leant towards each other,
each wearing his most earnest expression. It is fortunate they
did not have curly hair or Lewis Carroll’s incident of the two
footmen might not have been avoided.
And my other memory is of the premičre of this Fourth Symphony,
which the composer conducted at a Reid Concert in 1975. Having
thought of Gál as just someone you saw around, I found him unexpectedly
impressive on the rostrum. In his 85th year his movements
were small but clear and he exuded a quiet authority. The Reid
Orchestra clearly loved him, and I never heard them play better
in my four years of attendance.
As for the music, the 1970s were cruel years for all but a particular
type of contemporary music. The personal brand of post-dodecaphony
essayed by the then Reid Professor, Kenneth Leighton, was about
as conservative as you could go without being laughed at. To
us young bloods and blades it seemed that Gál was just reliving
a style – late Richard Strauss – that had passed its sell-by
date even in his youth. “Practically all straight out of [R.
Strauss’s] Capriccio” was one comment. The fact that
the performance took place at all – I heard nothing else by
Gál in those four years – was seen as an indulgent gesture to
an old man who had done sterling work for the University in
former years. I, at least, recognized the skill with which it
had been put together, but I don’t think any of us thought we’d
ever hear it again.
Nowadays we take a more pluralistic view. Composers tend to
be judged on the strength of what they are aiming to do rather
than sheer conformity with the dictates of the avant-garde.
Composers who were once dismissed because they were writing
romantic symphonies while Stravinsky and Schoenberg were undermining
the foundations of music as it was then conceived, are now assessed
on whether the romantic symphony is a good one or not. Readers
who regularly visit this site will know that I have been a particular
advocate of some of these “behind-the-times” composers, so I
should be the last person to apply theorems to Hans Gál. And
yet this symphony worries me, rather in the same way that George
Lloyd worries me. I think it is perfectly possible to write
music that is melodic, harmonic and formally laid out in a recognizably
traditional way, but which somehow, subtly, nevertheless belongs
to its times. It was once said of Edmund Rubbra that, if his
music doesn’t belong to our own times, it couldn’t have been
written in any other times. Maybe I should get to know more
Gál, starting with his earlier works. As far as this symphony
is concerned, time really does seem to have stopped for Gál
in the 1930s. I leave readers to decide whether this matters.
They will certainly find a skilfully assembled work. Whether
they will find the themes actually memorable I am not sure –
I experienced none of the half-familiarity you can find when
rehearing a piece you first heard 35-plus years ago. Nor am
I sure whether any great depths will emerge beneath the pleasant
surface. But if you like late Strauss, give it a try. The performance
seems excellent.
The Schumann goes very spiritedly too, with real conviction
and plenty of dynamic shading. Tempi are brisk in the faster
movements, the “Adagio espressivo” quite grave and broad. There’s
a little more portamento from the violins in this movement than
we usually hear today, but not enough to worry you if you don’t
like it. What I do find is that the lively acoustic – I think
it must be a small, quite reverberant hall – creates overall
a slightly wearing effect given Schumann’s obsessive doublings.
Almost as if the idea had been to recreate the sound of the
Reid Orchestra playing in the Reid Concert Hall. Gál’s more
transparent textures bloom in such an acoustic, maybe Schumann
would have benefited from more space.
There seems little point in making comparisons with other recordings
of the Schumann. If you’re collecting Schumann symphonies and
couldn’t care less about Gál, there are plenty of versions as
good or better that come with more Schumann. And if you want
to investigate Gál, wouldn’t you want more of him? No doubt
this pairing would make a nice concert, but records aren’t concerts.
Christopher Howell
See also review
by Byzantion
Orchestra of the Swan/Kenneth Woods