Lachner's music should be given a chance. I think we'd be missing something important without it, even if his fate as a composer was to be overshadowed by his contemporaries.
Maybe you'd enjoy the 4th that I created some time ago, in case you hadn't already heard it?
https://youtu.be/5UYqVd0OBRw (https://youtu.be/5UYqVd0OBRw)
As discussion of L4 seems to have got lost in the thread where it was originally posted, I thought it might be worth re-starting it here...
It might be a good idea to get the materials to Gernot Schmalfuss...
Likewise, I agree with Alan's suggestion.
Thank you... just now listening to this.
This is the kind of releases I expect: fresh and interesting music, not pieces that have been recorded already.
https://www.eclassical.com/labels/cpo/franz-lachner-symphony-no-4.html
As a filler, CPO included the Andante for brass instruments in A-flat major.
In addition, the webpage includes the booklet.
Ooh, I was wondering if a commercial recording of this work, memorably synthesized by one of our members a little while ago, was on its way. Good good news.
The effort of some members to render music via specialized software is rather admirable, but I prefer to wait for proper recordings of the piece in question to appreciate the work in all its glory like in this case.
This is great news, excellent work, CPO! Can't wait to hear it.
I can't believe it's already been 5 years since I created my rendition of the symphony with Dorico & Noteperformer sounds. The discussions on Lachner's symphonies here at the time led me to attempt the undertaking. Though, upon reflection, many of the tempi in my rendition were on the slower side: I do wish I had done a few things differently. In comparison, the times on the CPO record look about right.
Back when I used software-more-like-Finale :) I enjoyed putting together MIDIs myself especially of works that hadn't yet been recorded (e.g. a string quartet by Robert Fuchs.) Anyhow, always assuming the performance is good enough on the new release
- oh, it's already available, has been since 31 January, and is streaming on Amazon Music unlimited - no waiting needed, actually, hrm! :) -- well...
The new recording can be heard here:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RFrPZxRUlxM&list=OLAK5uy_lf2YY442UK3UvR_WPNGP4qBfhoA-MsO2Y
Quote from: tpaloj on Wednesday 05 February 2025, 06:24Though, upon reflection, many of the tempi in my rendition were on the slower side: I do wish I had done a few things differently.
You are too modest, Tuomas. Your excellent realisation has stood us in very good stead until this commercial recording came along. Many thanks for your great work.
Agreed, Mark. Well said.
You've got to love Lachner's ambition. If only he had had a pair of musical pruning shears handy; there's a 30-minute symphony trying to get out of the thicket of repetitions here.
My question: how does Schubert get away with it in his 9th? By virtue of genius?
When I excise all direct, consecutive repetitions I'm left with 35 minutes of music. But that still leaves two big repeated sections in the first two movements so Alan's estimate of half an hour of original music checks out.
Interestingly, both this symphony and the third contain a massive amount of such copy-paste work. The 5th is different, though; here, Lachner does a lot more with the material. much is still basically the same music, but there's more modulation and re-phrasing going on.
I do rather like the first movement, especially the brief section from 4:09.
Schubert would have, if he'd omitted the 2nd movement. Optimal heavenly length of 0 for that...
Who fancies the task of excising Lachner's repetitions...?
btw re eclassical including cpo's booklet: Chandos no longer does (except with purchase), and since cpo's booklets are often helpful in a number of ways (e.g. research purposes), I'm glad someone still does...
I personally don't mind the repeats - The material is so interesting and handled so beautifully.
BTW, this has apparently been sitting in the "can" since 2019. Not so unusual (and to be fair, not only with cpo)-- that said, though, -especially- if symphonies 2 and 7 are on the way (and who knows, maybe a new recording of symphonies 1 & 8 would not be taken amiss, either), and maybe even at least the overtures to some of his cantatas etc., I think I can restrain my indignation this -once-... :)
Grats again to cpo for releasing premieres of a rather good composer.
I absolutely love the repeats. I can't wait to order on jpc.
BTW, it looks like the Evergreen Symphony's conductor will now be Jaap van Zweden. I hope this doesn't mean Schmalfuss will no longer be conducting with them - they make a good team, I think (e.g. the three Lachner discs recorded and released so far...)
I will, of course, be ordering this as soon as it becomes available on CD, but I have to say that to go from Lachner 4 to, say, Schubert 9, is to swap musical repetitions and non-sequitors for a symphonic argument that one can follow from beginning to end.
Here's the download:
https://www.prestomusic.com/classical/products/9757870--franz-lachner-symphony-no-4
Quote from: eschiss1 on Thursday 06 February 2025, 14:56BTW, it looks like the Evergreen Symphony's conductor will now be Jaap van Zweden. I hope this doesn't mean Schmalfuss will no longer be conducting with them
Schmalfuss was born in 1943 (and so is 81-82 years old); late last year he was appointed 'Chief Artistic Adviser and Conductor Laureate' of the Evergreen Symphony Orchestra:
https://www.evergreensymphony.org/en/about/director
The appointment of van Zweden (born 1960) is likely to be designed to ensure the future health and development of the orchestra while retaining Schmalfuss in an advisory capacity.
Let me nail my colours to the Lachner mast, once again.
His use of repetitions has a soothing,hypnotic,effect on me. His Fifth and his Eighth are up there in my pantheon of favourite symphonies.
But I recognise that the majority opinion thinks otherwise.
Whilst waiting to order the CD of the Fourth, I have just listened to the download excerpts on Presto. Aren't the tempi a bit fast to take me to a state of Nirvana, I wonder?
It's not that I don't like Lachner; I do. I just don't rate him very highly.
You and Ludwig II, Alan!
Among (many) others!
Let me explain a little further. Lachner's ideas are often short-winded and fail the test of symphonic development; in other words his movements come across as a series of episodes, one after another, some of them more interesting than others. I often enjoy the journey, as it were, but I have little sense of the intended destination. Repetition, however subtly developed, doesn't really take the listener anywhere. It really is very instructive to compare Lachner with, say, his younger contemporary Rufinatscha because the latter seems to me to have a much greater ability to convey the sense of travel required for a symphony, especially one taking over 50 minutes: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=c50CIbtOT30&t=1167s
I rate Lachner quite high!
Well, I'm with Dave Hurwitz (for once). Know which review I mean?
Quote from: Alan Howe on Friday 07 February 2025, 19:10Well, I'm with Dave Hurwitz (for once). Know which review I mean?
No ;D
https://www.classicstoday.com/review/lachners-third-symphony-its-about-timing/?search=1
I decided this afternoon that I needed to give Lachner 4 a proper listen and so downloaded it from Presto's website. What is immediately obvious is the polish of the orchestral playing which is a testament to the care expended on this recording by conductor Gernot Schmalfuss. Tempi are also lively throughout, textures nicely clear and well-balanced, and overall discipline pretty well exemplary. So, all in all this is as perfect a presentation of the music as we have any right to expect, beautifully recorded. The problem, though, isn't the performance, because Hurwitz is right: Lachner had no sense of timing whatsoever. It's the music which, judged by the highest standards of its day, simply goes on too long.
Nevertheless, there is plenty of enjoyment to be had from this Symphony. Memorable passages abound and there is attractive orchestration and an overall 'busyness' which does its best to keep the musical argument tripping along. And I think one knows what sort of symphony Lachner is aiming at writing here: not for him the lithe athleticism of Mendelssohn or the occasional neuroticism of Schumann - no, he's seeking to extend the grander vision of, say, Schubert 9 into a new era beyond that great master's death in 1828 (Lachner's 4th dates from 1834). Does he succeed? I'll leave that up to members to decide; I personally think that Rufinatscha is a better candidate for that honour, but he wasn't as prolific as Lachner. And, as I said, there's much to enjoy here.
By my reckoning we now have commercial recordings of Symphonies 1, 3, 4, 5, 6 and 8. Who'd've thought it?
I will need to listen to the CD before making up my mind about the tempi, but Alan makes a perfectly reasonable point about Lachner's intent. In my opinion, he succeeded -in his Eighth (just listen to the flutes in the finale - heavenly music) ,and I suspect he also thought that he did,because thenceforward he eschewed the art of the symphony and concentrated on his famous Suites for the rest of his life.
Friends may find this assessment of Lachner's style helpful - I certainly did!
To understand the unfamiliar music of a forgotten composer, we would be well-advised not to take the most obvious step and play him off against such well-known luminaries as Beethoven and Schumann. Any such approach is doomed to failure, just as it is meaningless and unfruitful to grasp Bruckner's symphonies with the aid of Hanslick and Brahms. Like any musical culture, the music of the Biedermeier period – indeed the early and high romantic music in the entire region of southern Germany and Austria – must be viewed in its historical context. There we discover a more or less vague North-South rift, aggravated by increasing tensions within the German Federation, which, as we all know, culminated in the Austro-Prussian War of 1866. Many critics were at pains to turn this rift into a cliché and to propound an adherence to the Schubert style, and to naturalness in music, as being typically "southern German" qualities.
Lachner was unquestionably the most prominent and successful representative of this "southern German style." His symphonies are characterized by compressed thematic-motivic workmanship combined with an increased emphasis on counterpoint. The cultivation of counterpoint to a degree "verging on an end in itself" remained intact in Austrian art music throughout the whole of the nineteenth century. This "elegant type of counterpoint [was] rooted in sound" and frequently stood in "only seeming opposition" to the often deliberate simplicity of the chosen devices. In a certain sense it can be said that a synthesis of Baroque and Classical thought emerged on a new ground of Romantic lyricism. The frequently heard accusation of monotony in Lachner's thematic-motivic development is not to be found in a supposedly prima facie nonexistent opposition of musical themes so much as in the fact that his themes, though often enough motivically related, are presented as musical material of maximum contrast and combined and brought closer together with the aid of thematic-motivic variation, combination, and contrapuntal superposition, during which head motifs often assume a commanding position. A sense of monotony can soon arise, especially when this combinatorial game is maintained at great length, making it difficult or impossible to trace a line of evolution in the development. Yet it is precisely the abandonment of classical linear development in favor of a trend toward the "pendular prolongation of a single motif" that leads to an "unbridled flow of thematic material" – an important element in the Schubert style that Lachner adopted for his own large-scale compositions. That said, the listener's interest in this reiteration and prolongation of motifs does not reside in a zealous search for their mere recurrence, but rather in retracing the manner in which they are manipulated, the way the components of the material are combined, in conjunction with the contrasting emotions conveyed by these devices. It was precisely here that a change of paradigms took place during the first half of the century, a change that led above all to the distinction between a "southern German style" that adhered to this taste, and a "northern German style" that added new impulses of its own. This fact is crucial for the study and assessment of Lachner's music.
This manner of dealing with musical material, a characteristic of the "southern German style" as a whole, accords essential importance to form. Not only are form and content – technique and expression – of equivalent importance, they are meant to unite in a Romantic afflatus. Lachner is frequently accused of having been so intent on satisfying the idealized, overblown aesthetic demands placed on the symphony from the late 1820s on that it kept him from surmounting and transcending his merely technical talent with the convincing creative urgency of true genius. Regarding this criticism there is, however, no overlooking the fact that it was precisely not his concern to unleash his creative genius to the extent that it ineluctably led him to burst the bounds of formal design. His rejection of musical subjectivity, rather than being grounded in a lack of talent, was deeply rooted in a Classical tradition of thought. Southern German composers were far less subjective than Beethoven; on the contrary, they remained beholden to an ideal of objectivity rooted in the Classical period and probed various strategies for its solution, up to and including Bruckner's symphonic mysticism.
To quote one reviewer: "The motifs from which [Lachner] created his symphony are original, characteristic, fresh, and noble. [...] True to his themes, he spurns any ingredient alien to them; nor does he need such ingredients. [...] And how manifold and rich, how unaffected and lucid are his contrapuntal combinations! How many gradations of passion and feeling he depicts with a single melody! How distinct and well-formed are his periods! And how elevated everything is by his splendid instrumentation! Only in this way is it possible for unity and clarity to reign supreme throughout an entire work, when the themes chosen for each individual piece are maintained and developed consistently and exhaustively, and when the same aesthetic idea informs every section of the tone-poem." Remarkably, the focus of attention falls precisely on Lachner's insistent hold on his existing material, which is developed in changing affects and various combinations. Here clarity in the presentation of relationships is clearly preferred to an emphasis on complexity of devices. The listener takes delight in the variegated richness in his presentation of a fixed set of ideas, whose flexible manipulation is accorded greater value than their emotive content. Accordingly, in this view of music, the notion of formal unity is marked by extreme rigor.
Among the formative influences on Lachner – besides Schubert, with whom he formed a deep friendship – were Beethoven and Spohr. In contrast, traces of Mendelssohn or even Schumann can be dismissed, if only because Lachner came into contact with the Leipzig school too late for it to have a large impact on his musical thought. Asked whether he was a "Mendelssohnian" or a "Schumannian," he is said to have replied, with an amusing but untranslatable pun, "Let's just say I'm myself."
https://repertoire-explorer.musikmph.de/wp-content/uploads/vorworte_prefaces/1145.html (scroll down)
Written by Dominik Šedivý, translated by Bradford Robinson.
Thanks, Eric.
CD now available from jpc:
https://www.jpc.de/jpcng/cpo/detail/-/art/franz-lachner-symphonie-nr-4/hnum/8977558
GREAT - finally it has been performed and recorded by Gernot Schmalfuss... !! Fantastic, especially the 1st movement, but also the other are just wonderful!
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RFrPZxRUlxM
Now how about No.2?
I'd be surprised if nos. 2 & 7 weren't at least one of them already in the can, as quite a few of these discs were for several years...
Several listens later...
...I am slowly changing my mind about Lachner's 4th. For one thing, I find the themes here more convincing than in his other symphonies, and for another, Schmalfuss seems to be really hitting his stride in this particular recording. He encompasses both the music's breadth (all 52 minutes of it - this is Schubert 9 territory) and also its boundless energy. And he has his Taiwanese orchestra playing on top form.
We should also remember that Lachner 4 was composed in 1834; this is less than a decade after Bethoven's death and Schubert's 9th had yet to be published (in 1849).
Doesn't mean Lachner didn't know Schubert 9* back to front and top to bottom, assuming he and Schubert were still friends at the time it was composed. Are there, I wonder, letters in which Schubert discusses loaning out a copy of the work to friends, or something... or other letters in which a friend mentions playing a new symphony by and with his friend Franz (well, probably François) in manuscript in piano duet, from around that time (1824, I think?)... Probably not known ones, I guess. :(
*I prefer calling it 8 or even 7, considering that counting the E major and B minor is a bit arbitrary considering all the other torsos, but "rationality" in that sense doesn't figure in, it gets named by historical tradition and major complete edition &c...
Also, Schubert 9 had yet to be published, but it was published in 1840 (in instrumental parts.)
Quote from: eschiss1 on Wednesday 26 February 2025, 15:55Doesn't mean Lachner didn't know Schubert 9
Of course not. However, Lachner doesn't really ape Schubert's processes. The scale's the same, but Schubert is more goal-oriented where Lachner thinks sectionally (please excuse the crudely worded distinction).
Agreed. Though it's Lachner's symphony 6, actually, makes me think of Schubert 9- not syntactically/formally but in other ways- so it did lead to this line of thought for me.
I need to listen harder - and to more Lachner. I do find that familiarity with his idiom helps to understand him better, but I'm still not sure of his stature.
Quote from: Mark Thomas on Wednesday 05 February 2025, 12:17Quote from: tpaloj on Wednesday 05 February 2025, 06:24Though, upon reflection, many of the tempi in my rendition were on the slower side: I do wish I had done a few things differently.
You are too modest, Tuomas. Your excellent realisation has stood us in very good stead until this commercial recording came along. Many thanks for your great work.
Thank you and once again too kind of you, Mark :)
Well, it was great to finally hear a recorded performance of Lachner's 4th. From one "Lachner-ite" to another: my thanks to Mr. Schmalfuss and the Evergreen SO, excellent work!
After a few listens, I'm enthusiastic in general about the recording (with a few hesitations here and there). In the first movement the development section is played most excellently, but for some reason there are places in the other sections the playing felt somehow lifeless and off to me. It could have been the choice of tempi, or just the rendering of certain phrases I remembered being written differently in the manuscript that happened to irk me, but it's minor stuff in any case.
The fast sections of the scherzo were very fine and full of energy and contrasts, perfect!
Now, the only real interesting divergence to me in this recording is the choice of the Scherzo's trio. Lachner's manuscript actually contains two completely different versions of it: it's unfortunate that the sleeve notes fail to discuss this fact at all.
The version heard in the recording is the one which in Lachner's manuscript has the words "gilt nicht" written on the first page of the section. In my Noteperformer transcription, I naturally assumed Lachner did not want this version played and instead there you can hear the second version. There might of course be other facts that I had failed to consider but as I see it, I think the conductor (or perhaps rather the editor of the sheet music) has made a mistake here in using this version.
Also slightly puzzling is the sleeve notes' mentioning the Scherzo trio's tempo indication as "meno mosso": no matter which version, I fail to find it in Lachner's manuscript.
The third movement is very heartfelt and true to the composer's intentions, I felt. The same applies to the finale which with its varying moods mustn't have been easy to pull off. The orchestra handled the movement brilliantly, while only in a few places I thought a broaded sound would have helped it.
Hats off to Schmalfuss and the Evergreen Symphony Orchestra!
That's a great review - very detailed and knowledgeable. Thanks!
With nos. 1, 3, 4, 5, 6 and 8 now commercially recorded, I was wondering whether you had any opinion as to the relative merits of Lachner's symphonies...
I find the even-numbered symphonies his best, though Lachner curiously appears to have chosen to promote the odd-numbered ones the most in expense of the others. In all honesty musically I find #1 and #5 by miles the least important of the cycle (but the importance of #5 also lies in part in its controversy as pointed out earlier in this thread). The transformation of #7 into a suite is a great lesson in itself of the public's tastes changing over time throughout the romantic period. I'm supposing if #2 would have been published in Lachner's time, it'd have been among his most fondly remembered today.
Thanks - that's very interesting. I'm also of the opinion that No.5 is something of a bore, but I'm slowly coming to appreciate Nos.3, 4 and 6 more than previously. So, here's the question: how much of this is due to the distinctly superior cpo performances conducted by the vastly underrated Gernot Schmalfuss? Wouldn't Schmalfuss make a more convincing job of Lachner's 5th, for example?
Quote from: Alan Howe on Monday 03 March 2025, 13:32Wouldn't Schmalfuss make a more convincing job of Lachner's 5th, for example?
I'm sure he would, but I want to hear #2 from him first! :)
Yes, agreed!
Comparing Lachner's symphonic slow movements (in the three cpo recordings), it's No.4 that really stands out for its lyrical beauty. What do members think?
Here's the slow movement - sounds absolutely sublime to me:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ME03UaEXaTE
I hear links with Beethoven 9 and Bruckner 7 - does anyone hear a similar process of elaboration at work here?
What a glorious symphony this is, in my opinion!
It makes me immediately alert and engaged and to imagine that I am listening to something of stature. I feel that Lachner, at his best, was a front-rank composer.
Agreed. It has become a great favourite of mine too. It always lifts my spirits.
Quote from: Alan Howe on Wednesday 05 February 2025, 19:58I do rather like the first movement, especially the brief section from 4:09.
I agree, it is lovely. Pastoral.
Quote from: FBerwald on Thursday 06 February 2025, 14:21I personally don't mind the repeats - The material is so interesting and handled so beautifully.
Yes if a melodic idea is strong enough, I don't mind it being repeated. Another example is Kalinnikov's first symphony.
Quote from: Justin on Wednesday 09 April 2025, 15:14Quote from: FBerwald on Thursday 06 February 2025, 14:21I personally don't mind the repeats - The material is so interesting and handled so beautifully.
Yes if a melodic idea is strong enough, I don't mind it being repeated. Another example is Kalinnikov's first symphony.
Up to a point, yes. I do find that Lachner rather overindulges in repetition at times, which can take the momentum - and structure - out of a movement as a whole. The scherzo of the 3rd is a good example. The guy had a real knack for catchy, Rossini-esque melodies, but whichever way you look at it, conciseness was not his strong suit.
On the 3rd symphony I agree. 45 minutes is a long time for that kind of material.
Quote from: Justin on Thursday 10 April 2025, 16:4545 minutes is a long time for that kind of material
It's actually nearly 48! However, although we have to acknowledge that Lachner's method is repetitious, it
is possible to 'tune in' to his way of working. In particular, what I have done is to gather together the three cpo/Schmalfuss recordings and give his music time to sink in, to the exclusion (on some days) of music by other composers.
That's very interesting, Alan, as it was exactly what I did with the music of Lachner during Spain's very very long lockdown. I immersed myself in it, and grew to admire it.
You have to do the same with, say, Bruckner. Is this heresy?
Quote from: terry martyn on Friday 11 April 2025, 08:53That's very interesting, Alan, as it was exactly what I did with the music of Lachner during Spain's very very long lockdown. I immersed myself in it, and grew to admire it.
This comes close to Stockholm Syndrome, it seems.
Sorry, couldn't resist.
Count me guilty!
For some of us this even works for other music quite entirely, including modern works premiered in Stockholm... (the year before I was born)
Anyhow, as to Lachner, cpo has been issuing these at what is for them quite a clip. Maybe symphony no.2 will be out -before- the recording industry implodes at this rate!... (kein ayin hara etc.) ...
To fill out my recent JPC order of Hiller and Grimm I decided to give the Lachner 4 a chance based on Alan's description of it here, even though what I've heard of Lachner's early symphonies (as opposed to his later chamber music) didn't strike me as my cup of tea.
To my great surprise, it's turned out to be my favorite, by a wide margin, of the three discs that I ordered. It's happily free from the Sturm-und-Drang melodrama that plagues some of Lachner's other symphonies, while being possessed of a sort of leisurely grandeur and dignity that we associate with the mature Schubert.
In any case, if I'm only going to own one Lachner Symphony, it's going to be this one.
It's also my favourite of the three Lachner symphonies on cpo, John. Glad you like it.
The Lachner and the Hiller also came to me in the same package,John, and it was the Lachner that stood out for me too.
Much as I love the old Marco Polo recordings, I have now come to appreciate the manner in which the conductor and the orchestra on the cpo recordings approach the music. I hope that they complete the cycle - not just the 2nd and the 7th,but the 5th and the 8th as well
I have little hope that his First will stand out from the crowd, but it will be both interesting and,I reckon, refreshing to hear them in the weighty 5th and 8th. I expect that there will be much more verve and sparkle.
The Hiller symphonies aren't really comparable with Lachner: they're much more concise works.
Concise is a mild way to put it Alan, haha. My opinion is that if you shrink Lachner's large symphonies (especially the 5th) by 20%, you won't miss much. The 4th does work best because I feel the melodic content is stronger, especially in the first movement.
Quote from: Alan Howe on Tuesday 20 May 2025, 14:39The Hiller symphonies aren't really comparable with Lachner: they're much more concise works.
I don't think anyone was actually comparing them, it was just a matter of the degree of expected enjoyment. I approached the purchase thinking the Hiller would be more enjoyable than the Lachner, but my experience was the opposite.
It could easily have been a purchase of completely unrelated things, say one disc of 18th century keyboard music and the other of 20th century opera. I generally like the latter but am cool to the former, so I would expect to come away enjoying the 20th century opera more than the 18th century keyboard music, but would find myself pleasantly surprised if it were the reverse, as it was with Hiller and Lachner.
I couldn't agree more,John
Quote from: John Boyer on Wednesday 21 May 2025, 01:59it was just a matter of the degree of expected enjoyment
That's fair comment. It's just that I liked them both, for different reasons, i.e Hiller for his fire and concision and Lachner for his breadth and generosity of spirit. Actually I played Lachner 4 last evening and was once again really moved, so I do completely understand your reaction, John.