Franz Krommer's symphonies nos. 4, 5 and 7 (https://www.jpc.de/jpcng/cpo/detail/-/art/franz-krommer-symphonien-nr-4-6/hnum/6100130) in C minor, E-flat major and G minor, volume 2 in what is hopefully still an ongoing series (symphonies 6 and 9 still to come, no.8 is lost), are coming out on cpo soon (later this week in Europe).
Another enticing release...
Yummy. Loved the first disc.
Yummy indeed. A quite superb disc of some magnificent music, magnificently conducted. I'd say Howard Griffiths was the leading conductor in this corner of the repertoire. More anon...
I'd say Howard Griffiths was a leading conductor in many corners of the repertoire. His Holbrooke is superb. His Jadassohn too.
I wanted more weight from his Jadassohn 4, but otherwise I entirely agree. And of course, I may simply be wrong about how that work should go...
This really is an absolutely indispensable CD for those interested in the development of the symphony in the Beethoven/Schubert era. The template is late-classical, but it's as if Krommer's aim in life was to see how hard that template could be pushed. The result is some very daring music indeed - constant harmonic and rhythmic surprises and wonderful orchestration. I have read some sniffy reviews of Krommer's music; these recordings should put that right - or I'll eat my woolly hat (which had its first outing this autumn the other day).
"This" meaning the disc with symphonies 1-3? I'll listen again (not putting it this way because I disagree - as I don't- but only because I've heard only part of it so far and only once or twice. Sounded like a very good disc, and my impression was that symphony no.3 didn't really deserve Wyn-Jones' somewhat negative comments.
(Which I may be misremembering, will go double-check later. Maybe he was just trying to explain why its reception wasn't what it might have been: he noted that Krommer released two symphonies in D major in a row, so to speak, and they weren't enough different from another for a picky Viennese public. Taken by themselves they're quite good of course.)
Re symphonies 4/5/7: MDT (https://www.mdt.co.uk/krommer-franz-symphonies-orchestra-della-svizzera-italiana-howard-griffiths-cpo.html) gives a release date (for MDT :) ) of December 1 2018. I hope this is a typo; one hates to wait a year and a month for this disc!!
(Unless they mean January 12 2018? 12-01-2018 confuses this reader.)
MDT being British most likely means January 12th, yeah.
Here's the issue: MDT has this as a '12-01-2018' release. To explain: we Brits put the day before the month in a numerical date. So over here '12-01-2018' means '12th January 2018'. In the USA it would mean 'December 1st 2018' because the first digit represents the month.
So '9/11' is confusing for us, because it looks like '9th November'. However, we know that that terrible event took place on Sept 11th.
Have interloaned symphony no.4 as collated and edited into a score by Bert Hagels (mostly very nicely typeset, though probably expensive so I'm glad Tufts University is willing to loan it to my library and through them to me) and published recently. Listening to Bamert's recording since the cpo recording is not readily available to me (I admit to being somewhat of a cheapskate, also, though I might buy it eventually :)) . Bamert: arguably too slow or at least sleepy in the 2nd movement adagio though it has its very good moments interpretatively and in other ways (and I don't think it's the composer's fault); the 3rd movement is maybe played way-too-fast for an Allegretto - what would it sound like played a bit more Minuet-like, gracefully, or did the composer actually intend as Bamert plays, I wonder (at least with the main part, I can imagine a bit of an argument for the latter, from the main theme itself as against the Minuetto/Allegretto markings, the theme arguing for fast hectic performance. The trio, though, I'm not as sure.)
Hopefully the cpo tries a different tack (and hopefully the problem in the Adagio was mine, insufficient awakeness, or else hopefully the new performance is more alertly played- well, one way the other ...)- hope to find out soon.
confusing with the dates :-\