Orchestral Works - Volume 1
Comedietta, Op. 82 (1928) [9:25]
Variationen über ein russisches Volkslied, Op. 55 (1917) [24:26]
Musik am Abend, Op. 44 (1913) [14:12]
Sinfonia breve, Op. 96 (1932) [17:48]
NDR Radiophilharmonie Hannover/Werner Andreas Albert
rec. Großer Sendesaal, NDR Hannover, 19-23 Jan 2009
CPO 777 447-2 [66:00]
Orchestral Works - Volume 2
Symphony in D Minor, Op. 39, Schmied Schmerz (1912) [32:34]
Aus dem Reiche des Pan Op. 22 (1906-20) [15:17]
Variationen uber Prinz Eugen, Op. 108 (1939) [16:06]
NDR Radiophilharmonie Hannover/Werner Andreas Albert
rec. Großer Sendesaal, NDR Hannover, 24-28 Jan 2011
CPO 777 679-2 [64:21]
Graener, who made his career for many years in the world of English
music theatre and became and remained a British subject, rose to prominence
in the Nazi Reichsmusikkammer. He had joined the Nazi party in 1933.
It can come as a little surprise then that his music largely vanished
after 1945. This invisibility was compounded by his death in 1944 and
the destruction of many of his manuscripts in the bombing of Berlin.
There is a Paul Graener website
if you would like to delve further.
I first encountered his name and music from some rather dim and distant
sounding tapes of Two Swedish Dances and a Vienna Symphony
sent to me by the late Richard D C Noble, always a generous sharer of
obscurities. Graener’s 15-minute tone poem The Flute of Sanssouci
was championed at one time by Toscanini and his NBC broadcast in 1938
was issued by Dell’Arte (DA9024). More recently the ever-inspired,
ever-questing Sterling
issued the first all-Graener anthology and included the Sanssouci
work and the Vienna Symphony. His piano trio works can be found
on another CPO
CD.
On the evidence of these two fairly well filled CDs Graener was no iconoclast.
The music is idyllically conservative: essentially nineteenth century
romantic but with lightened transparent textures. There’s little
Brahmsian coagulation here. Also common to these scores is a grace -
something close to kindliness. There are moments when you catch yourself
thinking that here is a twentieth century Schubert but with cross-currents
from Siegfried Wagner and occasionally from Richard Strauss.
I had expected crashing and rushing music from the Comedietta
but instead we get a smiling and musing light-spirited fantasy with
Fauré-like overtones. The Russian folksong forming the subject
of the Variations Op. 55 is none other than The Song of the Volga
Boatmen - the same tune that puts in an appearance in Glazunov’s
Stenka Razin. The variations maintain that light touch without
being trivial. I had half expected something Regerian but this is mostly
fairy-dust and imagination. Not to say that there are not graver moments
such as the Lento variation (tr. 7) although even that episode
plays under a gentle illuminating moon. Presumably it was a coincidence
that this work dates from the year of the Russian Revolution.
Musik am Abend again picks up on that tender wistful Gallic enchantment.
It’s poetic, coaxing and caressing - almost but not quite in the
same vein as Bantock’s Pierrot of the Minute or Ravel’s
Ma Mère l’Oye. The Sinfonia breve is in three
short movements: the flanks being heavy with the sort of defiant neo-baroque
grandeur beloved of Stokowski in his transcriptions while the central
chapter is serenely romantic.
Volume 2 starts with a half-hour Symphony (Sorrow the Blacksmith)
in three movements. The big opening Larghetto is starrily dreamy
and emotionally in turmoil. It comes close to sounding like Brahms and
Elgar with a dash of Richard Strauss. The writing for the violins is
especially striking. The pensive Adagio is no stranger to storms;
even anger. The finale is an Allegro Energico with a Brucknerian
theme that is determined, distinctive and positive. This romping theme
goes through various transformations towards steadily glowing serenity
and peace. This work together with the Symphonietta for Strings
and the symphonic poem From Valleys and Heights owes its existence
to the tragic death of Graener’s eight year-old son in London
during the composer’s sojourn there as a theatre conductor.
The op. 108 Variations take as their subject the German folksong Prinz
Eugen, der edle Ritter. This 16-minute work is given in a single
track and indeed plays uninterrupted and without obvious seams. The
music is reminiscent of Strauss again - this time the dreamier aspects
of Rosenkavalier. There is also some aggressive melodrama as
at 9:55 with the assertive rattling of the side-drum, a fugal element
and some discomfiting militaristic bombast towards the end. The Variationen
uber Prinz Eugen and the Feierliche Stunde were written for
the Reich Music Festivals of 1938 and 1939.
The four movements of Aus dem Reiche des Pan are:-
I. Pan traumt im Mondlicht [2:48]
II. Pan singt von der Sehnsucht [1:50]
III. Pan tanzt [3:18]
IV. Pan singt das Welt-Wiegenlied [7:21]
Here we are back in the realm of Musik am Abend and Comedietta.
Crudely characterised, you can hear this music as a German impressionistic
mix with Bantock’s idyllic Mediterranean classical era works such
as Sappho Fragments, Pagan Symphony and Aphrodite in
Crete. The Pan tanzt movement has a strong Straussian accent
but with the sort of light-footed quality you find in Bax’s Spring
Fire and Dance in the Sunlight. The sun permeates the melancholy
reflections of the final movement which is longer than the other three
movements put together. It ends roundedly in a long sustained breath.
All in all Graener’s music is not easily dismissed - much as received
wisdom might like to for non-musical reasons. His music merits further
exploration. The dark and eloquent accents of the Symphony Schmied
Schmerz are striking. As for his impressionistic works such as Comedietta,
Aus dem Reiche des Pan and Musik am Abend, these are well
worth hearing again and again.
Rob Barnett
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