Cornelis DOPPER (1870-1939)
Symphony No.2, Päân I, Päân II
Residentie Orchestra The
Hague/Matthias Bamert
Recorded 2000
Chandos CHAN 9884
[65.08]
Crotchet
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Cornelis Dopper (1870-1939) was a Dutch composer, which, if you think about
it, is a rare species after you have considered Sweelinck (who bridged the
16th/17th centuries), Alphons Diepenbrock who just
predates Dopper, and Willem Pijper who flourished between the two world wars.
Pivotal to Dutch music-making in the early years of last century is the
Concertgebouw Orchestra and its leading light, the conductor Willem Mengelberg,
it was who gave Dopper his post as second conductor to the orchestra between
1908 and 1931. Dopper trained as a violinist, studied composition with the
German Reinecke in Leipzig, and eventually ended up as a conductor in America
where he premiered Puccini's Madama Butterfly. During his years in
Amsterdam with Mengelberg he also gave first performances of much French
music as well as Sibelius, de Falla and Reger, and is remembered for his
pioneering children's concerts. His own compositions include seven symphonies,
but also several operas, but, despite his champions Mengelberg and Richard
Strauss, his name disappeared from concert programmes after 1945.
Chandos and Matthias Bamert have chosen to record the second symphony. It's
certainly not a hard work to digest in terms of harmonic vocabulary, indeed
its weaknesses are rooted in this very lack of adventure. True there are
fine melodic moments and sound orchestration, but elsewhere there's a lot
of meandering, and very basic structures such as endless scale passages or
four-bar phrases. The first movement is the best, somehow thereafter it all
falls away and never quite reaches the same heights. Brass fanfares abound
but without any Brucknerian majesty or Sibelian menace, rustic (clog?) dances
make ritual appearances in a Beethoven Pastoral symphony-like mode
but there's too much of a dour quality prevailing, which hints heavily at
Dutch Calvinism. The two Paens are frankly no more than fillers. It's all
well played by the Residentie Orchestra (significantly not by the Concertgebouw)
and conscientiously conducted by the ever-enterprising Bamert but his heart
does not seem to be in it all the time and there's no sign of a great Dopper
revival ahead on the strength of this sample.
Christopher Fifield.
