Marx Autumn Symphony in London

[ewk]

This email was sent to me today:

Thank you for booking for An Autumn Symphony on Wednesday 29 November 2017. We look forward to welcoming you to the concert. Below is some information regarding the concert night.

Chausson Poème  
Respighi Autumn Poem 
Marx An Autumn Symphony (UK premiere)  

Vladimir Jurowski conductor
Julia Fischer violin  
London Philharmonic Orchestra 

View the concert programme ahead of the concert. 

[...]

Please be aware that this concert will be recorded.

Let's hope they'll publish the recording!

Best wishes, ewk

[Alan Howe]

Now that's excellent news. Thanks!

[Alan Howe]

...and the concert isn't being broadcast (yet), so the chances are that this will be a recording intended for commercial release.

[semloh]

Now you've been to the concert, ewk, can you tell us if it was as wonderful as the programme suggests? I am definitely jealous!

[matesic]

I hadn't heard about this concert until reading this thread yesterday morning. I checked out the availability to find the hall still half empty and plenty of very cheap (£10) seats available. At about 4.30pm I tried to book online but came to grief over the issue of whether or not I was a human being, so contacted a real one on the phone and reserved my seat that way. The train was on time and the RFH is only 5 minutes from Waterloo Station so I arrived nicely on the time limit of 7.15 to pick up my ticket. On approaching the back entrance to the stalls another human being offered to upgrade me from row UU to CC, and I may as well admit I finished up in row N. So far, so very good!

Whose idea was this programme I wonder? First the Chausson, a late romantic masterpiece, second Respighi's even later romantic violin piece that happens to share one word in its title with the first but seems to have little else going for it, then a late late romantic behemoth that happens to share one word in its title with the second. Brilliant thinking but not good for musical digestion. Fans of Marx had better stop reading now!

I stuck it out to the end, only because in order to escape any earlier I'd have had to disturb Julia Fischer, her entourage and her Strad who nobly stayed to hear the second half rather than go for a good meal. What a colossal waste of a vast orchestra - almost 120 of them! The first movement went round and round in undifferentiated triple-time circles, reached an artificial climax and stopped. The second movement started with a lush string tune, continued with a nice clarinet solo (the only really quiet music in the entire symphony), thrashed around for a while and then stopped. After a bit of faux-folkery with gratuitous percussion the finale thrashed around, became very loud, then quiet and then stopped. At no point did did the tempo seem to rise above moderato, nor did any sound resembling a musical idea lodge itself in my ear. Of course the acoustic didn't help. It's ages since I sat in the RFH and I'd forgotten just how harsh it is without even much compensatory clarity although Marx may have been to blame for that.

Finally I missed my train home by a matter of inches. Never mind, it's good to get out of an evening!

[Alan Howe]

I can understand that reaction to Marx's behemoth. It certainly takes stamina to listen to - in fact I can't remember how many times I've actually listened to the whole thing at one sitting. So my own hugely enthusiastic assessment of the piece may have been skewed by not auditioning it as it was intended.

Still, I'll be buying the recording...

[Mark Thomas]

Oh dear. I must admit to being totally immune to the Herbstsinfonie's charms myself, so I sympathise with Matesic's reaction, but sometimes a work's true worth doesn't come across in recordings, and one does need a good live performance to effect the Pauline conversion. That was certainly my experience with Brian's Gothic Symphony in the Albert Hall, which is perhaps nowadays a warmer venue than the brutalist RFH. Perhaps ewk had a more positive experience?

[Templeton]

Sorry but a slightly alternative view of the performance, from my perspective, at least.

An incredibly rare opportunity to hear the Austrian composer, Joseph Marx's immense 1921 work. In fact, so rare that it was its first UK performance and the only recording of which I am aware is the (incomplete?) live 2008 one by the American Symphony Orchestra, conducted by Leon Botstein.

It's a complex work, apparently classed as from the school of 'romantic impressionism'. It reminds me, in parts, of Franz Schmidt, Richard Strauss and Korngold, although other reviewers make comparisons with Zemlinsky, von Hausseger and even Mahler and Vaughan Williams. Whilst there may be some similarities, the overall work is unique, at least in terms of anything else that I have heard.

As its title suggests, it provides a 'huge, sumptuous musical panorama of the world in autumn, written for an enormous orchestra, and bathed in radiant colours and lush romantic melodies'. The structure of the piece is unusual in terms of 'superimposing yearning melodies and bi-tonal effects, and by unexpectedly changing keys'.

Like many of these nature symphonies, the logistics of performing such works is challenging, due to the size of the orchestra required, particularly within the percussion, horn and woodwind sections. As a live experience, however, it is breathtaking and the sole recording pales in comparison. The Chausson and Respighi performances also sounded far superior to the recordings that I had listened to, prior to attending, the soloist, orchestra and conductor translating the somewhat turgid experience of the recordings into bright, stimulating and uplifting performances.

Whilst the performance of Marx's symphony was not flawless, inevitable I suppose, given its complexity and the fact that none of the musicians will have had previous experience of performing it, the overall experience was magnificent. Vladimir Jurowski and the London Philharmonic management deserve enormous credit for having brought it to these shores for the first time. Hopefully, we won't need to wait another century, before hearing it performed here again.

I drove down to London and back, from the North of England, a nine hour drive, in total, so it was a long day. I am happy to report, however, that it was well worth it. Bravo to Maestro Jurowski and the LPO!

[ewk]

Dear all,

First of all, I really enjoyed the concert.

However, if it the autumn Symphony and people have divided opinions about that piece. It is of course an enormous piece requiring 9 percussionists, quadruple winds, 6 (7, they doubles the first) Horns and an entire army of Strings (18-16-14-12-10 (!!) were present on stage yesterday) plus the "autumn mood schreker-impressionism" group consisting of piano, celesta, 2 harps). Personally, I think that most of this enormous forces are intelligently used throughout the work (although I admit that many of the effects would probably be achievable with a smaller orchestra). I certainly love the work, but I know that there are lengthy sections which I also find lengthy myself (especially 2d movement which is composed as a continuous movement with the first movement). For me, the enormous flow of melody, the luxurious sound, the climaxes of the 4th movement etc. outweigh this deficit.

The playing itself was very good as far as I can tell. Some minor errors mostly only noticeable when knowing the score well (the full score can be downloaded as a perusal score from universal edition btw). The string playing was mostly very good, more secure than at the Graz recording. Sometimes even the enormous string forces struggled to be heared (but only sometimes).
But the qualities of the piece named above were very well displayed.

The performance was a quick one, 62 mins of pure music without cuts as far as I noticed. The higher pace worked well in many passages (it helps against the lengthy passages) but sometimes it was quite a rush were the melodies should have time to "breathe".  However, in the final movement, some passages were really slow (e.g. the big xylophone solo) which made them more interesting than what you can hear from both existing recordings.

The balance was mostly quite good. Sometimes the piano-celesta-harp-group was a little too loud and their notes did not blend together so well but for the majority of the time, this worked very well as well. Also the percussion was a little too dominant at certain passages. Moreover I personally did not like the way the cymbal player played, some of the cymbal notes (a kind of rubbing the cymbals instead of crashing them together softly). But these are details.

Concerning the pieces chosen for the concert, it would indeed have been better to choose more different pieces. I loved them all separately, but indeed there is not that much contrast. Julia Fischer's playing was outstanding as far as I can tell as an amateur violinist.

As for the recording, I heard the LPO's  manager say when he talked to others that the recording was done for their own lpo live label but it depends on Mr Jurowski whether he deems the quality of the playing publishable. They recorded some corrections after (!) the concert. So we will see whether they will publish what they recorded.

The hall was indeed rather empty. I heared someone say 700 listeners while the hall is big enough for 3000. I don't know whether these numbers are accurate.

Rob Barnett (musicweb) was also present as were many other critics, so we will probably able to read some reviews of the concert in the following days.

Best wishes,
Ewk

Edit: Here they are the first two reviews:

https://bachtrack.com/fr_FR/review-marx-autumn-jurowski-fischer-london-philharmonic-november-2017 (positive)


https://www.theguardian.com/music/2017/nov/30/lpo-jurowski-review-marx-autumn-symphony-london-philharmonic (mostly negative about the symphony)

[eschiss1]

There is also a portable reprint of the 1925 score published (don't know the price) in 2006 by Musikproduktion Höflich. (Of course, a search on Worldcat for Herbstsymphonie also turns up another, not _quite_ as large symphony- by Vitezslav Novák, his Op.62 - published in 1937 )

[JP]

Might I also add that V. Novak's Pan symphonic suite op.43, also revolving around the hedonisitically epicurean theme of nature worship, will also make an ideal 2-CD recording when coupled alongside J. Marx's Autumn Symphony even though the latter has received a somewhat mixed bag of press reviews judging from music critics's responses to the LPO concert performance.

https://www.ft.com/content/390de03e-d5cc-11e7-8c9a-d9c0a5c8d5c9

https://www.thetimes.co.uk/article/concert-review-lpo-jurowski-at-the-royal-festival-hall-rctxnnwgn

https://www.theguardian.com/music/2017/nov/30/lpo-jurowski-review-marx-autumn-symphony-london-philharmonic

https://bachtrack.com/fr_FR/review-marx-autumn-jurowski-fischer-london-philharmonic-november-2017

Meantime, you can hear a live concert rendition of this work performed in an abbreviated version with some cuts dating some years back given by the American Symphony Orchestra under the direction of Leon Botstein:

< https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0Ug0YmxUaoA&t=217s >

It is fervently hoped that Maestro Jurowski will follow up by premiering and recording the un(der)performed Novak works cited above as well.

[semloh]

Thank you so much for your generous and expert review of the concert, Ewk. 

[matesic]

Ah well, I have to remind myself that the likers are always the winners and the dislikers the losers! Thanks Templeton and ewk for the necessary corrective opinion. But I still much prefer the Gothic...

[Alan Howe]

I'll take both. They're so different.

[gnicholls]

I will take them both too, and I support Templeton's comments though unlike him I wasn't at the London performance of Joseph Marx's Eine Herbstsymphonie. I certainly hope there is a recording released of the LPO/Jurowski performance, because after eight hearings of the ASO/Botstein version the sections and motifs are clear and the work strikes me as a masterpiece.  I love the final five minutes (climax and denouement) and suggest that bit as a starting point for understanding.