'Richard Wagner in Venice: A Symphony'

[Alan Howe]

Composed by Matthew King based on various sketches made by Wagner towards the end of his life:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xm2D1nmOQA4
https://www.edinburghmusicreview.com/reviews/richard-wagner-in-venice

Recording available as a CD or download here:
https://mahlerplayers.bandcamp.com/album/richard-wagner-in-venice

[Mark Thomas]

Hmm. Definitely one to sample on YouTube first.

[Mark Thomas]

After a couple of listens to this 21-minute single movement it still sounds all rather rambling and rhapsodic to me. One can, however, hear its kinship to the Siegfried Idyll which apparently Wagner was at one time going to call a symphony, thus, according to Matthew King, indicating the way in which he might have approached the composition of his projected purely instrumental symphonies had he lived. Maybe he was taking his father-in-law Liszt's symphonic poems as models? King has based this work on some thematic sketches left behind by Wagner but the material doesn't strike me as being as strongly memorable as one might expect from his pen but, at least to my non-Wagnerian ears, King has successfully imitated the late-Wagner sound world of Parsifal. I'm sure this is a sincere attempt to breathe life into Wagner's last thoughts and so is intriguing at least in prospect, but the result is inconsequential. Don't expect anything approaching the orchestral splendour of "bleeding chunks" from The Ring or even the melodic grace and fluidity of the Siegfried Idyll.

[Alan Howe]

I agree, Mark. I was rather disappointed. My main take-away was how close the world of early Schoenberg seemed to be. It's certainly worth listening to the music on YouTube first before deciding to purchase the recording. A curiosity.

[terry martyn]

Is it just me,or are we getting more than our fair share of ersatz  works recently?   First that Brahms mishmash, and now this.........

I was listening earlier to the Arte Nova recording of the Gernsheim Second Symphony with its invigorating,tuneful,finale and thinking how much I wished that was a staple of the concert-hall. Then,I listened to this,and this pales in comparison to the Gernsheim.

[Alan Howe]

Well, Gernsheim and Wagner are rather at opposite ends of the classical-radical spectrum, so I'm not suprised at your reaction. Nevertheless it'd be good to hear your reaction to, say, the glorious Siegfried Idyll composed roughly a decade earlier than the Gernsheim (i.e. proper Wagner, with tunes)?
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fInO14QIJJs

BTW I second your commendation of the Gernsheim - lovely stuff indeed.

[terry martyn]

I was introduced to "Siegfried's Rhine Journey" by my beloved parents when they bought me the Readers Digest Festival of Light Classical Music for my 13th birthday, and the Idyll contains a brief horn quotation from that work. I have the Idyll in my collection (and a fairly recent purchase too),but it's the first time that I have heard the Karajan, in a far more fullbodied rendition. I echo your words,Alan.  Glorious indeed!

[Alan Howe]

Here's the Karajan CD:
https://www.amazon.co.uk/Wagner-Tannh%C3%A4user-Overture-Siegfried-Liebestod/dp/B000001G9H/ref=sr_1_1?crid=30BU7HIQZ4VFI&keywords=wagner+siegfried+idyll+karajan&qid=1695832636&sprefix=wagner+siegfried+idyll+karajan%2Caps%2C88&sr=8-1

It's fabulous. One of his late recordings.

[Gareth Vaughan]

I will not mince my words. If this so-called Venice Symphony is an accurate indication of the path Wagner intended to explore after Parsifal then one can only be thankful he died when he did. I found it EXTREMELY boring.

[Alan Howe]

I agree. I wish I hadn't posted about it!

[Mark Thomas]

Gareth is uncharacteristically blunt but he's right. I listened to it again and still got nothing from it. It is boring.