Many
years ago I bought a job lot of orchestral full scores, a carton
load, at the bottom of which I found the printed full score
of Weingartner’s fascinating Second Symphony. Furthermore it
was Sir Henry Wood’s copy with his markings, and a timing at
50 minutes. In fact Wood seems to have only played it once,
on 24 September 1901, when newly published. Now at last we
have this vivid recording which plays for 43’ 45”.
In
the first few years of the twentieth century, Weingartner made
a brief impact on the musical scene as a significant new composer.
In London in 1902-3 the St James’s Hall Popular Concerts – that
celebrated and long lasting chamber music series, then in its
penultimate full season – saw Weingartner as the pianist in
his own Piano Sextet with the Kruse Quartet, and some songs.
Later in the same series Londoners heard Weingartner’s String
Quartet Op 24. At Bournemouth, Dan Godfrey played the First
Symphony twice. It was also heard in London at the Philharmonic
Society, but neither seems to have played the second or later
symphonies. Weingartner’s spectacular choral settings Traumnacht and Sturmhymnus – surely
candidates for recording - written for Henry Coward were sung
by the Sheffield Choral Union in 1904, and then forgotten.
In
the UK at least, Weingartner’s reputation as a composer was
soon eclipsed by his standing as a conductor, in which capacity
he first came to England in his mid-thirties, in 1898. Yet
he wrote nine operas, the first of which, Sakuntala,
introduced to the Hofkapellmeister at Weimar by none other
than Franz Liszt, was first produced there in 1883. There are
many songs, some of which were recorded on 78s - two with Weingartner
orchestral works from 78s are on Japanese Shinseido/EMI SER
8544 - though only Liebesfeier, with orchestra, is in
today’s catalogue, in many historical recordings. Of course
there is his celebrated - should I say infamous? - orchestration
of the Hammerklavier Sonata (reissued on Pearl GEMMCD
9358; Naxos Historical 8.110913). Older followers of European
radio stations may remember a number of Weingartner revivals
in the 1960s and 1970s, and in addition to the tone poem on
this CD perhaps the most notable was the Cello Concerto in
A minor Op 60 played by the cellist Werner Taube and the Saarland
Radio Orchestra, not yet recorded commercially. In his recent
authoritative study of conductors and the German tradition
(The Virtuoso Conductors, Yale UP), Raymond Holden devotes
a chapter to Weingartner, remarking ‘Weingartner’s compositions
deserve to be heard’. One has, whole-heartedly, to agree.
This
splendid CPO series of Weingartner’s orchestral music, has
pipped a projected series by a British company to the post,
and has so far spanned three volumes giving us symphonies 1,
2 and 4, as well as orchestral tone poems and overtures. Here
the coupling is the tone poem Das Gefilde de Seligen - the
score gives the English translation as ‘The Fields of Heaven’,
the booklet as ‘The Elysian Fields’ - after a pastel by the
painter Arnold Böcklin, whose pictures also inspired Reger
and Rachmaninov at much the same time. It is a substantial
and imposing score at nearly 23 minutes. The vast wide-spanning
climaxes, all solemn chorales and shimmering brass, are remarkably
well caught by the Basel players, conductor Marko Letonja feeling
the spacious architecture and allowing the music time to grow
and soar.
Yet
the highpoint of this CD, indeed of the series thus far, is
the Second Symphony. Those who responded to the First Symphony
on CPO 999 981-2, a cherishable even bucolic work, falling
somewhere between Dvořák and Humperdinck in idiom, will
find that Weingartner’s style, though still recognisable as
the composer of that work, has moved on, and is now on an altogether
more epic scale. His Brucknerian treatment of simple motifs,
massively orchestrated, builds with inexorable repetition though
always knowing when to move on.
The
near-quarter hour first movement sets the scale. This is a
delightful movement which immediately attracts one to Weingartner’s
musical world; a new voice in a familiar language. From the
slowly emerging drama of the Lento introduction, with
its gradual dramatic build-up, and gorgeous second subject
tune, the first movement is an arresting statement which needs
to be heard live. The scherzo is in the ländler tradition of
German symphonic scherzos. Here a massive bucolic country dance
is eventually contrasted with a winning pastoral trio tune.
In contrast the eloquent Adagio opens with an extended
Beethovenian hymn from the strings. There is a soaring violin
solo, sweetly taken by the leader who is uncredited on the
booklet, and certainly deserves to be named. Later Weingartner
asks the timps to play triads (two players), an effect that
is spooky when quiet, gloriously threatening when loud.
After
three such gripping and strongly characterised movements the
opening of the finale revisits the opening theme, but apart
from the closing pages is never bombastic. Indeed the opening
fugato, at first on the strings is beautifully caught, the
placing of the strings remarkably specific.
Recording
producers have differing philosophies on the orchestral balance
they favour in the studio, particularly in the way they deal
with the harp. In the symphony Weingartner writes for the harp
sparingly, and it does not appear at all in the slow movement.
This suggests to me that when he asks for it he means it to
be heard. I must say I often felt the harp to be too reticent,
especially in the outer movements, and in its one undoubted
moment of drama, ten seconds from the end, a glissando in octaves
across two bars marked ‘con tutta in forza’, fff, while
the orchestra is ff to me is all but inaudible, at least
when listening in stereo. This should be a great splash
of romantic colour; rather disappointing. Otherwise here is
a long overdue project and this a worthwhile disc. The Second
Symphony is a noble work, which will probably represent the
series in many non specialist collections.
I
have only played the CD in stereo. The majority of listeners
who like me are without SACD equipment can be assured that
generally it still sounds remarkably good. I look forward to
future instalments and especially Weingartner’s choral Seventh
Symphony of 1935-37.
Lewis Foreman
Basel Symphony
Orchestra/Marko Letonja 
[66:38] 
