Suppé's recently-discovered orchestral "Fantasia Symphonica" of 1859 receives it's world premiere recording here, coupled with more familiar fare as well as another premiere! https://www.jpc.de/jpcng/classic/detail/-/art/fantasia-symphonica/hnum/11689650 (https://www.jpc.de/jpcng/classic/detail/-/art/fantasia-symphonica/hnum/11689650)
Yes, I spotted this too. Just wondered whether the music's any good...
I will gladly take another recording of those two warhorses for the rest of it. Heh.
Aha! This must be the fabled "Symphony" by Suppé which, about 15 or so years ago, I was told by a record label owner was being zealously guarded by a conductor who wouldn't release the score to be recorded unless he was at the helm. Whatever the truth of that, it's good to see it surface at last. High art or not, Suppé never fails to be entertaining so it's a must buy for me.
Sound excerpts here (https://www.prestomusic.com/classical/products/9556988--suppe-fantasia-symphonica-orchestral-over), from which the work sounds to be in the vein of Bizet's or Gounod's attempts at the symphony.
At the moment,I am with your first thoughts,Alan. I love Suppe, but the orchestral excepts on Presto are not particularly encouraging.
So, Ola Rudner is the conductor concerned. Hmmm....I don't think the release will do much for his reputation. But (sigh) I suppose I'll have to buy the CD.
QuoteOla Rudner is the conductor concerned
I don't know whether what I was told is true, you understand, nor, if it is, whether he was the conductor in question.
Quite so. I was just expressing a certain incredulity that any conductor would keep an unrecorded piece of music to himself rather than releasing it for wider consideration.
Well, whatever the score's recent history, it's good to have a recording so that we can at least hear the music, be it good, indifferent or poor.
Again, quite so. We might even have two: the publisher, Edition Stringendo, states that a recording was made by cpo in 2022, featuring the Brandenburg State Orchestra, although the conductor is not named. Presumably it wasn't to be released until after the Naxos recording came out.
Interesting. I see the pdf Partitur (http://www.edition-stringendo.de/pdf_files/es2875-1.pdf) notes as part of the title that the work is "on themes by Ernst II", Duke of Saxe-Coburg & Gotha, brother of Queen Victoria's Prince Albert, amateur opera composer of musical benefactor of both Liszt and Raff.
I agree, by the way, that this sounds a bit like a brassier version of Bizet's Symphony in C (which is a minor masterpiece, of course - especially in Haitink's recording).
Having listened to it a couple of times I don't think Suppé's Fantasia Symphonica comes anywhere near Bizet's minor masterpiece. The opening movement certainly tries to exhibit some symphonic heft and has a certain busy seriousness but it's all a bit half-hearted. The other three are little more than dance movements with the finale returning to the portentous percussion-heavy opening of the work at the end. Clearly Suppé was a man of the theatre - this was not his finest hour.
Mark is spot-on. This is nothing more than a brassy pot-boiler that didn't really merit disinterment. One for the rejects pile, I'm afraid. When I think of all the worthwhile works that Mr Rudner could have turned his attention to...
Oh, and by the way: scrappy strings don't help either.
Duke Ernst's musical attempts to inspire composers into medley tributes continue to miss the mark. I wondered elsewhere whether Grutzmacher's cello fantasia based on Ernst's themes was "a match of mediocrity", but the Duke has worked his (lack of) magic on a far more formidable composer in von Suppe. This is not mediocre, but frankly dreadful, stuff. I,too,found the opening movement fairly promising,in a kind of extended overture style, but the work grew worse and worse as the deadly duo combined to produce a total lack of symphonic mastery. I am not going to buy this rubbish,much as I like Suppe.
I can't see this recording doing Ola Rudner's reputation any good. His CD of Sgambati symphonies was really worthwhile, but this is a dud.
He also recorded some Audite discs of music by Eduard Franck, I see. I haven't heard them yet (I intend to), so I can't judge his conducting...
The conducting's perfectly fine, but the music's just not worthy of his talents. IMHO, of course.
As far as I know Rudner has only made one CD of music by Eduard Franck for Audite.
You're probably right, I'm not sure why I wrote that. This one from 2012 and containing somewhat miscellaneous works- will still look into it :)
Presto has 81 recordings in his discography when one includes compilations some of the works in which are from recordings of his. And as you say, you're not criticizing his conducting here. I wasn't aware his discography was so large though, anycase (well, ok, medium-etc.) (The other big thing that's relevant to us may be his recording of Saint-Saëns' Le déluge.)
The scrappy strings are a bigger problem than the repertory as far as Mr. Rudner's reputation is concerned, I think.
I've finally been able to digest Suppé's Fantasia Symphonica and while it may be fantastic, it certainly doesn't appear to be particularly symphonic. "Awkward symphonies by representatives of other genres" is something of a subgenre in itself, it seems - one characterized by the composers' steadfast refusal to conjure up anything approaching a "symphonic argument". There's Bellini's symphony and Verdi's three Sinfonias", all of which wouldn't sound out of place as orchestral sinfonias in the middle of one of their operas (and in Verdi's case, were in at least one case). A particularly interesting parallel case is the Maltese Paolino Vassallo, a composer of predominantly sacral works whose single symphony always sounds as though the choir may come in any moment - but never like a symphony. But even set against all of those, Suppé's work mostly feels like a waste of three overtures.
I was hoping for something that would at least be entertaining, but this is just trash. Some music is best left undiscovered and unperformed.
I think it is partly entertaining trash, but trash nonetheless. It just baffles me that someone who is such a master in one musical genre can show such an utter lack of understanding of another. Set that against people like Bretón and Chapí, Zarzuela (similar to Operetta) composers who composed really worthwhile orchestral music.
Over a century's use of the word "fantastic" as a judgment of quality (as opposed to its varied musical history- English phantasies, Mozart fantasies, Schumann fantasiestücke, Berlioz symphonie fantastique ...) leads to weird puns...
Great observation: if someone includes both "fantastic" and "symphony" in the title, it's inevitable to draw comparisons with Berlioz, leaving poor Franz with little opportunity to shine.
To be fair, the number of fantastic symphonies/symphonic fantasias between Berlioz and Martinu is not small.
It's melodic enough -- and I suppose perhaps as a knock against it 'obvious' enough -- that I could actually hum along with it the first time. Honestly I really enjoy it. Melodic bombast is really up my ally.
"A genuine, sensational discovery", "Wonderful", "Great stuff", "One of the great, mid-century, Austro-German symphonies - no question about it, hands down" - these are David Hurwitz's verdicts on Suppé's Fantasia Symphonica in his latest YouTube post (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=11z_J4-Zcig)! Was he listening to the same work as the rest of us? Oh yes, he played the end of the finale. I'm utterly gobsmacked. Maybe he owed Naxos a favour....
I have managed to collect almost every nineteenth-century symphony that's been recorded. There's a few that I can't get to grips with (the Neukomm,for example) and one or two that I find utterly banal. If the Suppe was really a symphony (and I reckon it isn't),it would fall into the latter category for me. I can't fathom Hurwitz's comments,either.
Did he mean it ironically? That'd be his only get-out clause.
Did my ears deceive me,or did he say something left-field about Sullivan in that post (for good measure)?
I wondered about irony, but I don't think so. He really means what he says and what he says makes sense, except that it's about such a poor piece.
Hurwitz thinks Sullivan was the greatest British composer. The Savoy operas are fab, of course, but what else did he write that's great music? Answer: nothing. Hurwitz is welcome to his opinion, but the problem is that he does somewhat dominate the market in YouTube videos of classical recordings. And that's a bad thing for objectivity...
The Suppe is trash - I've just checked. IMHO, of course.
Quote from: Alan Howe on Sunday 19 May 2024, 16:59Hurwitz thinks Sullivan was the greatest British composer.
I always take that as an over-correction on the low status of comedic music
His aesthetics is peculiar from time to time. He thought Pfitzner's PC, and by extension, all of his compositions are extremely boring.
You are more willing than I to cut a critic slack.
This is the problem with paying attention to one critic who (inevitably) will have his own enthusiasms and blind spots. I mean, I think Draeseke is as great as Brahms and can't stand Sullivan's Savoy operas, so it's hardly surprising to find that Hurwitz, even with all his vast experience, has his own oddities. Listen to him, by all means (I do too), but read other opinions if at all possible - and make up your own mind!
I generally agree with what's being said here, but I do ask myself whether we - as a modern audience - are that well suited to judge this piece on its own merits. We simply lack experience with this subgenre of 19th-century theatrical music, which may sound very "trashy" to our ears. Hurwitz doesn't really help, because calling something "really a symphony" provokes comparison with what is a very different world of music; there was a very good reason why Suppé didn't want to do that and it goes well beyond the arguments mentioned by Hurwitz. Having said all that and liking Suppé's
Fantasia more than (apparently) most of you do I still think it's hard to make the case that it's a major re-discovery. However, I do think it's an
interesting piece
.Quote from: tuatara442442 on Monday 20 May 2024, 01:14His aesthetics is peculiar from time to time. He thought Pfitzner's PC, and by extension, all of his compositions are extremely boring.
Can't say I wholly disagree there, though.
Quote from: Alan Howe on Sunday 19 May 2024, 16:59The Suppe is trash - I've just checked. IMHO, of course.
I've just re-listened too and I think that's rather harsh. Hurwitz's verdict is ridiculous, of course, but this time around I could hear more clearly Suppé's attempts at symphonic writing - the first movement in particular, and the quasi-fugal passage in the last. The second, slow, movement also develops into something a little more serious towards the end. It is clearly an
attempt at a symphony but it's let down by Suppé's choice of thematic material (often trite, if melodic) which doesn't lend itself to development, just repetition. This, in conjunction with his colourful and sometimes bombastic orchestration, cheapens the whole thing. It's not trash, I did enjoy it more the third time around, but it's definitely
not "one of the great, mid-century, Austro-German symphonies".
No, it isn't trash - you're right. However, in a way one is forced into deciding that it is when a critic as high-profile as Hurwitz tells us that it's a major find (my summary of his assessment) - because that's just nonsense.
As I said before, I listened to it again and, apart from some fetching orchestration and a few decent tunes, it just didn't do anything for me. You only have to listen to some of the composer's exciting overtures to notice the difference in quality. IMHO, of course.
The themes derive from Duke Ernst's oeuvre. I think that's part of the problem.
Quote from: Alan Howe on Monday 20 May 2024, 12:49No, it isn't trash - you're right. However, in a way one is forced into deciding that it is when a critic as high-profile as Hurwitz tells us that it's a major find (my summary of his assessment) - because that's just nonsense.
As I said before, I listened to it again and, apart from some fetching orchestration and a few decent tunes, it just didn't do anything for me. You only have to listen to some of the composer's exciting overtures to notice the difference in quality. IMHO, of course.
Good point, I agree that the
Sinfonia can't really compete with those. Or some other works: I listened to
Il Ritorno del Marinaio a few weeks ago, and it seemed that a pretty good symphony was somehow stuck in there.
Quote from: Alan Howe on Monday 20 May 2024, 12:49As I said before, I listened to it again and, apart from some fetching orchestration and a few decent tunes, it just didn't do anything for me. You only have to listen to some of the composer's exciting overtures to notice the difference in quality. IMHO, of course.
Yes, indeed.
As for DH, he's excellent - when you happen to agree with him! ;D
Quote from: terry martyn on Monday 20 May 2024, 14:41The themes derive from Duke Ernst's oeuvre. I think that's part of the problem.
Yes, the basic material is definitely an issue but he did choose it. I suppose he might have wanted to curry favour with the duke, or owed him one, but he certainly showed better judgment by leaving the piece in manuscript.
Harsh, but spot-on. ;)