MusicWeb International One of the most grown-up review sites around 2024
60,000 reviews
... and still writing ...

Search MusicWeb Here Acte Prealable Polish CDs
 

Presto Music CD retailer
 
Founder: Len Mullenger                                    Editor in Chief:John Quinn             

Some items
to consider

new MWI
Current reviews

old MWI
pre-2023 reviews

paid for
advertisements

Acte Prealable Polish recordings

Forgotten Recordings
Forgotten Recordings
All Forgotten Records Reviews

TROUBADISC
Troubadisc Weinberg- TROCD01450

All Troubadisc reviews


FOGHORN Classics

Alexandra-Quartet
Brahms String Quartets

All Foghorn Reviews


All HDTT reviews


Songs to Harp from
the Old and New World


all Nimbus reviews



all tudor reviews


Follow us on Twitter


Editorial Board
MusicWeb International
Founding Editor
   
Rob Barnett
Editor in Chief
John Quinn
Contributing Editor
Ralph Moore
Webmaster
   David Barker
Postmaster
Jonathan Woolf
MusicWeb Founder
   Len Mullenger


Support us financially by purchasing this from

Alexander MOYZES (1906-1984)
Symphony No. 11, op. 79 (1978) [37:41]
Symphony No. 12, op. 83 (1983) [32:08]
Slovak Radio Symphony Orchestra/Ladislav Slovák
rec. 1993/95, Concert Hall of Slovak Radio, Bratislava
NAXOS 8.573655 [69:53]

On its first appearance this final recording in Marco Polo’s Moyzes’ symphony cycle (8.225093) escaped coverage until it was reviewed by David Barker.

These last two symphonic essays are of substantial length and are respectively in four and three movements. For works written at the worn end of the 1970s and three years into the next decade they are tirelessly melodic, tonally imaginative and texturally lucid. These have a keener edge and a brighter glint than broadly contemporary equivalents such as diverse orchestral works written by Piston, Milhaud, Honegger, Rubbra, Rawsthorne or Lutyens. On the other hand, the relaxation, which is often to Moyzes’ taste, does not pay dividends in terms of transfixing the listener’s attention. This is particularly the case with the Eleventh Symphony.

The Eleventh feels like an essay in easy-going expatiation rather than in fashioning a compellingly steered trajectory. It is attractive, right enough, but not gripping in the sense we find in Bohuslav Martinů’s Fourth Symphony or in Edmund Rubbra’s approximately coeval Eleventh and, from roughly the same time-frame, Aulis Sallinen’s Fourth. In Baxian terms, the Eleventh is the pictorial equivalent of the English composer’s Third and Fourth Symphonies compared to the unshakeable concentration and vice-like tightness of his Symphonies Two and Six.

After the gallery amble that is the Eleventh there is more vertebrate structure and fibrous invention in the three-movement Twelfth. This was written one year before Moyzes’ death. It finds serene, sober and sombre episodes and juxtaposes these with a grim jollity that verges on the sort of thing encountered in the two symphonies by Kurt Weill.

The booklet notes by Ivan Marton buttress the listening experiences very well. As for the sound, it was, and remains, really good. As with other entries in this series the technical side was entrusted to Hubert Geschwandtner. His handiwork, once again, proves a pleasure to encounter.

Rob Barnett


Earlier issues in the Naxos Moyzes Symphony series
Symphonies 1 and 2
Symphonies 3 and 4
Symphonies 5 and 6
Symphonies 7 and 8
Symphonies 9 and 10



Advertising on
Musicweb


Donate and keep us afloat

 

New Releases

Naxos Classical
All Naxos reviews

Hyperion recordings
All Hyperion reviews

Foghorn recordings
All Foghorn reviews

Troubadisc recordings
All Troubadisc reviews



all Bridge reviews


all cpo reviews

Divine Art recordings
Click to see New Releases
Get 10% off using code musicweb10
All Divine Art reviews


All Eloquence reviews

Lyrita recordings
All Lyrita Reviews

 

Wyastone New Releases
Obtain 10% discount

Subscribe to our free weekly review listing