Brahms Symphony No.2 & Symphony No.4
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SignumClassics PHILHARMONIA ORCHESTRA 2 CDs SignumClassics THE PHILHARMONIA ORCHESTRA SIGCD133 S I G C D 1 3 2 CHRISTOPH VON DOHNÁNYI SIR CHARLES MACKERRAS BRAHMS SYMPHONY No.2 & SYMPHONY No.4 S I G C D 1 3 5 VLADIMIR ASHKENAZY SIR CHARLES MACKERRAS SCHUBERT SHOSTAKOVICH FESTIVE OVERTURE SYMPHONY No.9 SYMPHONY No.5 SCHUBERT SYMPHONY No.9 www.signumrecords.com www.philharmonia.co.uk Available through most record stores and at www.signumrecords.com For more information call +44 (0) 20 8997 4000 SignumClassics PHILHARMONIA ORCHESTRA SIGCD168 S I G C D 1 3 2 SCHUBERT CHRISTOPH VON DOHNÁNYI BRAHMS SIR ANDREW DAVIS BRAHMS SYMPHONY No.2 & SYMPHONY No.4 S I G C D 1 3 3 BRAHMS SIR CHARLES MACKERRAS SCHUBERT SCHUBERT SYMPHONY No.9 SIR ANDREW DAVIS S I G C D 1 4 8 BRAHMS ELGAR CHRISTOPH VON DOHNÁNYI SCHUBERT STRAUSS ELGAR ENIGMA VARIATIONS STRAUSS TILL EULENSPIEGELS LUSTIGE STREICHE EIN HELDENLEBEN ENIGMA VARIATIONS IN THE SOUTH (ALASSIO) IN THE SOUTH (ALASSIO) www.signumrecords.com www.philharmonia.co.uk SERENADE FOR STRINGS Available through record stores and at www.signumrecords.com For more information call +44 (0) 20 8997 4000 SERENADE FOR STRINGS SIR ANDREW DAVIS SignumClassics PHILHARMONIA ORCHESTRA 2 CDs SIGCD132 S I G C D 1 3 3 BRAHMS SIR CHARLES MACKERRAS CHRISTOPH VON DOHNÁNYI SIR CHARLES MACKERRAS SCHUBERT SHOSTAKOVICH SCHUBERT SYMPHONY No.9 S I G C D 1 3 5 VLADIMIR ASHKENAZY CHRISTOPH VON DOHNÁNYI SHOSTAKOVICH FESTIVE OVERTURE SYMPHONY No.5 BRAHMS ELGAR BRAHMS SYMPHONY No.2 & SYMPHONY No.4 SYMPHONY No.2 & SYMPHONY No.4 www.signumrecords.com www.philharmonia.co.uk SYMPHONY NO.1 Available through record stores and at www.signumrecords.com For more information call +44 (0) 20 8997 4000 SYMPHONY NO.2 www.signumrecords.com www.philharmonia.co.uk OVERTURE, FROISSART Available through record stores and at www.signumrecords.com For more information call +44 (0) 20 8997 4000 FROISSART•SYMPHONY NO.1 ELGAR ELGAR SYMPHONY NO.2 FROISSART•SYMPHONY No.1•SYMPHONY No.2 Elgar: Symphonies 1 and 2 and Overture, Froissart Edward Elgar (1857-1934) In the monumental Victorian era, with Britain Germans, Britain was ‘Das Land ohne Musik’ CD 1 1 Overture, Froissart, Op.19 15.01 ruling the waves and at the zenith of its (‘the country without music’) in the Nineteenth economic, military, industrial and imperial Century, and the island certainly comes up Symphony No.1 in A flat major, Op.55 power, artists, architects, poets and polymaths short when musical luminaries are the name of 2 I. Andante nobilmente e semplice - allegro 7.32 seemed to be ten-a-penny. The likes of Paxton, the game. This is hardly to say that the British 3 II. Allegro 7.53 Alfred Waterhouse and George Gilbert Scott Isles were not awash with great music – they 4 III. Adagio 11.45 were erecting the grandest or most innovative certainly were, but little of it was indigenous. 5 IV. Allegro - lento - allegro molto 12.11 structures, from sophisticated private residences, While Haydn, Mozart and Beethoven had rapidly places of worship and on to Whitehall and the become staples of the orchestral, chamber Total timings 54.23 Crystal Palace. Alma-Tadema, Burne-Jones, and instrumental classical canon, music Millais and co. visited classical poise, pre- for religious purposes had been somewhat CD 2 Symphony No.2 in E flat major, Op.63 Raphaelite beauty and artistic controversy stifled ever since the Puritan tirades against 1 I. Allegro vivace e nobilmente 18.54 on the Royal Academy, while Dickens, Wilde, liturgical and theatrical music. The oratorios 2 II. Larghetto 13.56 Tennyson, Lewis Carroll and the Brownings of Handel neatly side-stepped these issues by 3 III. Rondo - presto 8.38 measured conservatism with outright scandal, being neither liturgical in initiation nor purely 4 IV. Moderato e maestoso 15.56 either on the stage or in published volumes. theatrical in conception. Instead they were And then there were others, such as John regarded as merely sacred and dramatic, Total timings 57.23 Ruskin and William Morris whose brilliance which seemed to please everyone, even many shone over numerous arts and disciplines. a hard-line Nonconformist. This template was set before Victoria became monarch and PHILHARMONIA ORCHESTRA While Great Britain was making the running Handelian oratorio, rather than opera, was SIR ANDREW DAVIS CONDUCTOR in most of the arts and crafts, music seemed setting the musical pulse of the nation. By barely to be on the agenda – at least so far the time Victoria and Albert were Queen and www.signumrecords.com as home-grown talent was concerned. To the Prince Consort, Mendelssohn was already 2 3 well known in Britain, having edited a few of composition until later in life. His first major Hall. Elgar’s close friend and musical confidante, theme while the third continues to develop it Handel’s oratorios for publication in London work for orchestra was the concert overture August Jaeger wrote of the London performance: in one of the most beautiful slow movements and was busily breathing Bach’s St Matthew Froissart, Op.19 which was premièred to that Elgar composed. The Finale resumes Passion back to life again in the public excellent reviews in 1890 at the Three Choirs The Hall was packed … I saw [Hubert] Parry, the musical argument and the struggles of consciousness. His oratorio, Elijah, composed Festival in Elgar’s own heartland of Worcester. E[dward] German … After the first movement the opening movement before ending in a for the Birmingham Festival in 1846, and now By turns rip-roaring, noble and romantic, the [Elgar] was called out; again, several times resplendent restatement of the ‘great beautiful with an English text, further endeared him to overture is a splendid evocation of the life after the third, and then came the great tune’ with which the symphony commenced, the British public and helped re-invigorate and events described by the famous medieval moment. After that superb Coda the audience now in fully resplendent orchestral garb. English composers into moving toward the chronicler Jean Froissart. With the success seemed to rise at E[lgar] when he appeared. European mainstream. As to orchestral of a lengthy orchestral piece behind him, Never heard such frantic applause after any Attempts have been made to give the music, the fascination with the Viennese Elgar initially attempted to write a symphony novelty, nor such shouting. Five times he had symphony an extra-musical programme, to appear before they were pacified. People School of Haydn, Mozart and Beethoven was based on the life of the military hero, General but Elgar himself saw none but the ‘wide stood up and even on their seats to get a view. gradually picking up on the later Romantic Gordon of Khartoum. The press carried notices experience of human life, a great charity (love) symphonists and increasingly Schubert, to the effect that Elgar was working on it in and a massive hope in the future’. Further, The great Austrian conductor Hans Richter Schumann, Brahms and others were being 1899, the same year as the highly successful in a lecture given in 1905 Elgar appears to not only wielded the baton at the symphony’s played by groups such as the Crystal Palace première of the Enigma Variations. This ‘Gordon presage his own emergence as a symphonist: early performances but was also the work’s Orchestra and, by the turn of the century, Symphony’ seems not to have amounted to dedicatee. He was thrilled by the piece, calling even Richard Strauss’s orchestral works were a great deal in terms of a remotely finished I hold that the symphony without a programme it, ‘The greatest symphony of modern times’. receiving fine notices in the United Kingdom. product, and indeed his Symphony No.1 in A is the highest development of art ... It seems Jaeger himself considered the work’s third In England, the likes of William Sterndale flat major, Op.55 did not appear until almost to me that because the greatest genius of movement, ‘not only one of the very greatest Bennett, Edward German, Arthur Sullivan a decade later, in 1908. He was not to be our days, Richard Strauss, recognises the slow movements since Beethoven, but I consider and Hubert Parry were not quite taking the hurried into producing a sub-standard work symphonic-poem as a fit vehicle for his it worthy of that master’. Praise indeed. splendid achievements, some writers are symphonic bull by the horns with the gusto and even accepted and subsequently refused a inclined to be positive that the symphony that their continental counterparts managed. commission for a symphony in 1904 from the The work opens with what Elgar’s wife Alice, is dead ... but when the looked-for genius Leeds Festival Committee. The Symphony proved noted in her diary as, ‘E … Playing great comes, it may be absolutely revived. For the first great British symphonies of well worth the wait and was spectacularly well- beautiful tune – ie the tune of the Symphony, the modern times which have stood the test of received at its world première at the Free Trade one which opens and closes it and influences Was Elgar really referring to himself? Who time and can lay claim to admission to the Hall, Manchester on 3 December 1908 and many musical happenings along the way’. This knows, but if so then he was certainly not far symphonic canon, we must turn to Edward almost riotously cheered to the rafters on its expansive, noble melody does indeed infuse the off the mark. Much encouraged by the success Elgar, who, like Brahms, left symphonic London première four days later at the Queen’s symphony.