Moritz MOSZKOWSKI (1854-1925)
Johanna d’Arc; symphonic poem in four movements, Op.19 (1875-76)
Sinfonia Varsovia/Ian Hobson
rec. 2018, Witold Lutosławski Concert Studio (S1), Polish Radio, Warsaw
TOCCATA CLASSICS TOCC0523 [59:26]
Moritz Moszkowski is remembered primarily for his piano pieces, many of them morceaux, of which a number remained in the repertoires of virtuosi roughly up to the time of the Second World War. This latest release, however, offers something utterly different; a four-movement symphonic poem dating from his early twenties, which is making its first appearance on disc.
Johanna d’Arc, written in 1875-76, was inspired by Schiller’s play Die Jungfrau von Orleans. It was composed at a time when Moszkowski was writing a considerable amount of orchestral music – there is an unpublished Symphony in D minor from 1873 and somewhat later three orchestral suites, amongst a sheaf of other works. Johanna d’Arc is scored for a large symphonic orchestra including piccolo and harp and has a role for solo violin. Each movement contains a superscription; ‘Joan’s pastoral life. Her exalted mission is revealed to her in a vision’ is the first movement whilst ‘Inner conflicts – Recollections’ is the second. ‘The Procession of the conquerors to the coronation at Rheims’ is the third panel and ‘triumph, death and apotheosis’ largely sums up the final section.
The suite lasts an hour with the opening movement the longest at 23 minutes, in this performance. Its Raff-like pastoral introduction has lyric richness and is adeptly orchestrated, with the solo violin offering a somewhat pious presentiment. Some Wagnerian-Brucknerian elements are present too but contextualised in a much lighter ethos, except for echoes of Götterdämmerung from time to time, a work Moszkowski saw at the same time he was writing the suite, so inevitably some of this has seeped into his writing. Themes are ardent though not always profound and if one finds parts of this opening panel prolix one would be in agreement with some of the critics at the première who felt the same way.
The solemn second section reveals Moszkowski to be a melodist securely rooted in Romanticism, those arching lines offering profuse and generous expression. The third panel, meanwhile, is a Processional March with a cantabile-based trio and certainly shows he knows what to do with percussion. The finale is march-based too, though fortunately contrasted because it’s a fife-like military march – roles for flute and piccolo and the return of the violin leads to Joan’s vision and a resumption of the ripe romanticism as well as a transfiguration scene of Wagnerian pretensions.
There are fine notes by Martin Eastick and a well-judged recording. Ian Hobson directs the Sinfonia Varsovia in convincing fashion; they have made valued contributions to the reprtory on disc before and reprise that again here.
There’s much to like in this well-drilled and responsive reading. It offers a different slant on a composer whose posthumous reputation is that of piano pot-pourris. If not everything is convincing, and is said at too great a length, then perhaps subsequent performances would have allowed Moszkowski to rethink the work’s proportions.
Jonathan Woolf
