Franz LACHNER (1803-1890)
Symphony No 6 in D major, Op 56 (1837) [44.14]
Concertino for Bassoon and Orchestra in E-flat major (1824) [17.09]
Evergreen Symphony Orchestra/Gernot Schmalfuss
rec. 3 January 2017, Keelung City Cultural Centre, Taipei, Taiwan
CPO 555 210-2 [61.37]
It might be a good idea if you start by listening to the Bassoon Concertino, as it is the composer’s earliest surviving orchestral work. It betrays a style of little originality, but which owes a substantial debt to composers such as Hummel, Franz Danzi and Ferdinand Ries. The opening bassoon entry is dramatic and the orchestral writing confident, but the material, although tuneful with some memorable ideas which wouldn’t be out of place in a G and S operetta, is mostly quite naïve and repeated in a foursquare manner. However, Lachner was only twenty-one and might not even have had the experience so vital to a young composer of hearing his Concertino. He would surely have loved Chia-Hua Hsu’s wondrous tone and the natural, effortless orchestral support from Gernot Schmalfuss.
CPO recorded Lachner’s 3rd Symphony (also with the Evergreen Orchestra on 555 0871-2) a few years ago but that has not come my way. The 6th Symphony is a mature work and was greatly praised by Schumann, which must have given Lachner a considerable lift, especially as Schumann had previously written words to the effect that Lachner’s 5th Symphony was perhaps the most boring work he had ever heard.
The 6th Symphony was very well received and at first regarded as a masterwork. It was immediately published and performed several times in Germany but then, after 1840, silence. Lachner was no admirer of the symphonies of Mendelssohn or Schumann and his style could have been perceived as a little dated although the spirit of Beethoven, whom he might have met, seems to hover somewhere in his language. The first movement is the longest and is in sonata form with some attractive, if rather stern, ideas. Interestingly, the recapitulation is never fully completed, as after a dominant chord a rather academic fugue ensues which has two subjects both based on the earlier material. The ending includes an accelerando, which makes some kind of attempt at lifting the mood.
Lachner had been born into a Roman Catholic family but became Protestant when he took up an appointment as organist in Mannheim. He was also increasingly famed as a conductor. The second movement of this symphony, marked Andante, is mostly rather hymn-like but its pious character is mercifully broken up by some agitated sections in the key of F sharp minor. The largely string-orientated instrumentation is warm and sophisticated.
The booklet contains CPO’s usual, highly detailed analysis by Bert Hagels and is very well translated. Hagels describes the Scherzo and Trio as “shadowy” but I feel that is only partly true. The outer sections are often quite powerful and rhythmically driven and the Landler-like Trio section is open and outgoing, but the material in both sections is over-used and the movement seems to be practically twice as long as is necessary. The coda, however, offers a pleasingly surprising ending.
The jubilant finale is shorter than the scherzo and is in sonata form; Hagels describes it as a ‘triumphal toccata”. This is a very fine movement, quite the best of the four; it has a sense of direction and I might perhaps describe it as almost Beethovenian in its rhythmic drive.
The Evergreen Orchestra, founded in 2001, is based in Taiwan and we read that it is devoted to promoting young Asian musicians. They are finely recorded and presented. Despite my various caveats, this disc would perhaps represent a good introduction to a composer who is now little-known and even unfashionable.
Gary Higginson
