Hermann Graedener Violin Concertos 1 & 2

[Alan Howe]

Members are welcome to start another thread (or two) on these other topics; please let's stick to Graedener's VCs here.

[brendangcarroll]

I am really looking forward to this release. Graedener briefly taught Korngold after Zemlinsky left Vienna for Prague. Apparently, when Zemlinsky hard that Graedener had been teaching his former pupil he sent the precocious young Korngold a postcard saying: "I hear you are studying with Graedener now. Is he making any progress?" Such a perfect example of Viennese wit.

[Alan Howe]

VC1 is very much 'son of Brahms', but none the worse for that. Toskey describes it as 'more passionate' than Brahms' VC, which is about right. It's an extremely beautiful work which should be played and enjoyed today. Kudos to all involved.

[Alan Howe]

...and VC2 is rather more of the same - in an ever-so-slightly more advanced idiom. Toskey is quite right in stating that the work is less chromatic than Reger. So, if VC1 is Brahms+, VC2 is Brahms++. Lovely music, though, but not really very original or individual, if that matters to you. It doesn't to me.

[brendangcarroll]

I just wish to draw your attention to the splendid new recording of  the two violin concerti by the lamentably forgotten Hermann Grädener (1844–1929) released at the end of 2019 by the enterprising label Toccata and which I received in my Christmas stocking! It does not appear to have been noted anywhere on this forum.

What lovely music!! A sort of cross between Brahms and Sibelius but with a very distinct stamp and a gorgeous melodic gift.

Well worth exploring. Fine performances and splendid booklet notes.

https://toccataclassics.com/product/hermann-gradener-orchestral-music-volume-one/

[Alan Howe]

I've merged the last post with the existing thread on this topic.

It does not appear to have been noted anywhere on this forum

Brendan: if you look at earlier posts in this original thread, you'll find that you actually made a contribution back in October!

Just a gentle reminder: it would save the moderators extra work if members checked first whether a particular topic was already being discussed. Thanks! (In this particular case, of course, the problem lies in the spelling of the composer's surname - Graedener or Grädener.)

[Alan Howe]

...by the way: can't hear any Sibelius at all here. Probably my cloth ears, but...

[brendangcarroll]

Dear Alan

Before I posted, I put Hermann Grädener into the SEARCH box for "ALL" and  for "RECORDINGS" and none of this thread appeared, otherwise I would not have posted . I wonder why it did not show up? Sorry for the duplication.

[eschiss1]

Because the title is Graedener, not Grädener, and the search function hasn't been coded to figure things like that out (there are searches that I've used that are savvy about such things, actually...)

[brendangcarroll]

ohhhhhhhhh.......I see.

[Alan Howe]

Anyway, back to the music...

[semloh]

Well, I think both concertos are very beautiful - which is enough for me! 

[Jonathan]

I've been listening to these via a streaming service recently and I thoroughly enjoy both works!

[Alan Howe]

Those who haven't heard this recording may find this extended interview with the soloist Karen Bentley Pollick of interest:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vW_PaHGdDnk&list=PLH2A1ztLa5E77e1wr0DDzQq0-0a3AN4Y1

[Alan Howe]

Here's the Fanfare review by Jerry Dubins, posted at Amazon (US):

At first glance, I thought I'd happened upon a recording of violin concertos by German composer Paul Graener (1872–1948), of whose music CPO has already released three volumes of orchestral works, including concertos for violin, cello, and piano, all reviewed in prior issues. But no, this is German-born, Vienna-based composer Hermann Grädener (1844–1929), "whose music, esteemed in its own time, has since slipped between the floorboards of history. Yet this first recording of his two violin concertos—substantial works both, downstream from Brahms, and with a hint of Sibelius—prove him to have been one of the more important Romantics, with a strong sense of drama, a sure hand for musical architecture, and a natural flair for extended melody." So says the album's promo blurb. By the end of this review, I should be able to tell you whether I agree with that assessment or not.
Meanwhile, this Toccata release documents not only first recordings of Grädener's violin concertos, but his first appearance in the pages of Fanfare as well. Also making her Fanfare debut is violinist Karen Bentley Pollick. Her career résumé is long, impressive, and star-studded, but here's the abbreviated version. A native of Palo Alto, California, she began piano lessons at age five with Armenian pianist Rusana Sysoyev, studied with Camilla Wicks in San Francisco, and with Yuval Yaron, Josef Gingold, and Rostislav Dubinsky at Indiana University, where she received both Bachelor's and Master's of Music Degrees in Violin Performance with a cognate in Choral Conducting. She performed in masterclasses of Nathan Milstein in Zurich, Jean-Jacques Kantorow in Victoria, B.C., and Glenn Dicterow in Carmel, CA. Most of Pollick's performing and recording efforts have focused on contemporary music genres, such as electro-acoustic, hardanger fiddle, and various crossover fields that are not exactly in the domain of this magazine. That probably accounts for why we're hearing from her here for the first time in mainstream Romantic repertoire, albeit in works—Grädener's violin concertos—that have been keeping company with the dust bunnies under the floorboards for over 100 years.
Grädener was born in Kiel, Germany. He was educated by his father, Karl, also a composer. Son Hermann then studied at the Vienna Conservatory. From 1862, he was organist at the Lutheran City Church in Vienna, and from 1864, violinist in the court's orchestra. He taught at the Vienna Conservatory from 1877 to 1913. Between 1892 and 1896, he was director of the Wiener Singakademie.
Grädener's compositions, which are said to be heavily influenced by Brahms, number approximately 50 with opus numbers and another 10 or so without in his work catalog. Among them are two symphonies, two each of concertos for piano, for cello, and for violin, two each of string quartets, piano trios, and piano quintets, plus a string quintet with two cellos, a violin sonata, and a sonata for two pianos. Much of the rest of his catalog is made up of sets of Lieder, though one entry in the no-opus appendix lists an opera, Richter von Zalamea. Obviously, there is no shortage of material here for Toccata and/or other enterprising record labels to explore.
Now to the music. The Violin Concerto No. 1 dates from 1905, coincidentally the same year as Sibelius's Violin Concerto, which the album note suggests there is a hint of in Grädener's concerto. Sorry, but I just don't hear it, and with over 50 recordings of the Sibelius (my favorite violin concerto) in my collection, I don't know anyone more familiar with the work than I am.
One of the main reasons I find no hint of Sibelius in Grädener's concerto is that its temperature and tone are warmer, more amiable, and more hospitable than the great Finnish composer's. There's none of the austere, icy exterior sitting atop a volcanic chamber of molten lava below that characterizes much of Sibelius's music. Make no mistake though, Grädener's concerto beguiles the listener with a spellbinding beauty all its own; and yet, it's easy to understand why it never achieved a place as a repertoire staple. If anything, it's too congenial, projecting a rather modest profile and eschewing much of the virtuosic razzle-dazzle of other violin concertos composed around the turn of the century, a poster child for which is the death-defying, 1898 Concerto in E Minor by Julius Conus.
Grädener's First Concerto begins at a fairly moderate tempo, with intoning of the brass choir that has an almost Wagnerian feel to it. As the tempo picks up, the lengthy first movement (almost 20 minutes in duration) unfolds at a fairly leisurely pace, the score's content a long, lyrical outpouring of continuous melodic material, though absent the preparation for a self-contained, clear-cut theme with a distinct start and cadential conclusion. It's more like an entwining of two lovers, solo violin and orchestra, in a rhapsody of song and rapturous embrace. Along the way, there are a few passages calling for double-stopping and more vigorous passagework, but they're not of a flashy, "see-what-I-can-do" nature. Only at movement's end does Grädener give the soloist an extended and—from the sound of it—technically taxing cadenza. The style and vocabulary of the music speak with an unmistakably Austro-German accent, but the effect and affect—the spell that Grädener spins—remind me a bit of Chausson's Poème for violin and orchestra, composed in 1896.
We now come to the second movement, which in both mood and method strike me as rather similar to the first movement, just at a slower tempo. I want to emphasize that this is music of real beauty, once again rhapsodic and rapturous. So far, however, I haven't heard anything that resembles or even suggests Brahms, the composer who is supposed to have been such a strong influence on Grädener. The music is more free-flowing and fluid than Brahms's more structured musical sentences and paragraphs, and the emotional/expressive makeup of Grädener's music is different too. It's also nowhere near as rhythmically complex. This second movement sounds closer to Bruch's manner of writing for violin and orchestra.
After two movements that could just as easily have been titled "Serenade" or "Romance," the third movement takes off lickety-split, with the solo violin launching into a rapid moto perpetuo passage. That peters out, to be overtaken by a virtual parade of violin acrobatics—double-stopping, rocking-across-the-strings arpeggios (like in the Mendelssohn Violin Concerto cadenza), flighty, flute-y trills, veering chromatic runs resembling a Paganini caprice, and a host of other technical tricks of the trade. It's as if Grädener decided to make up for the shortage of virtuosic exhibitionism in the first two movements, and now does so by parodying every stunt in the book, from Paganini to Ernst, Lipiński, Wieniawski, Sarasate, and Saint-Saëns. It's hard to believe that after such two gloriously beautiful movements Grädener didn't intend this finale to be both a musical joke and perhaps even a cynical sendup, as if to say to the audience, "Here's what you musical Neanderthals want and what you think makes for a great concerto."
Personally, I find this finale a piece of rubbish. It's a jumble of jigsaw puzzle pieces, none of which fits together, bringing into question the promo blurb about Grädener's "sure hand for musical architecture." The movement leaps wildly from one act of sleight of hand to another, as disjointed, spasmodic, and discontinuous in its progress as the first two movements were the opposite. For the finale of this concerto to have any redeeming value, one would have to consider it a burlesque.
Grädener's Violin Concerto No. 2 in D Minor, composed in 1914, is cut from an entirely different cloth. First, it's more like what we've come to expect of a late Romantic concerto dating from the first decade or so of the 20th century. It's highly virtuosic—practically the entire first movement is written in unrelenting double-stops, as if Grädener wanted to make the solo part as brilliant and as difficult to play as he possibly could. Second, the Brahms influence now makes itself felt in the harmony and, in a generalized sort of way, in the shape of the melodies as well. But there also seems to be a touch of Dvořák (which could also be a Brahms trait) in a bit of a Gypsy and/or Slavic tinge to both melody and harmony. And third, there is now the preparation we expect for a self-contained, clear-cut theme—the big tune, if you will—with a distinct start and cadential conclusion. The setup or lead-in begins at the three-minute mark, ushering in the Romantic melody we've been waiting for in the hope of it making us shed a tear. It finally steals in at 3:22, and in its Bruch-like way, it's pretty darn good, but to get the tears flowing you may need to rely on eyedrops.
With all of the heavy-duty double-stopping throughout the first movement, a cadenza seems superfluous, but Grädener doesn't see it that way. To the contrary, he now composes a cadenza of a viciousness and vengeance the likes of which I don't think I've ever heard in any other concerto. As if to make child's play of all the foregoing technical difficulties, Grädener raids the gift shop of the grotesque for every gargoyle he can find with which to ornament his cadenza. And it goes on for over three and a half minutes. Not even Karen Bentley Pollick's formidable technique is an entirely effective weapon against this assault, but though she struggles, I doubt there's anyone else who could do any better.
The second movement is a return, and a grateful one, to the Grädener we encountered in the slow movement of his First Violin Concerto. The opening and closing sections are of a sweetness and tenderness that are quite touching, while the contrasting middle section conjures the atmosphere of a Gypsy camp. Upon hearing the finale to Grädener's Second Concerto, I think I understand the reference the album note makes to Sibelius. The movement is a driving, sometimes stomping, rhythmically charged dance with a feeling of the ritualistic or primitive about it. But Grädener's dance finale is the music of happy Hungarian peasants inviting the listener to join in the celebration. In contrast, the finale to Sibelius's Violin Concerto is of a dark and brooding mien, barely veiling an aura of menace or threat—a pre-Stravinskian Rite of Spring. If you will.
In Grädener's music of Romantic rhapsodizing, violinist Pollick plays with rare purity and radiance of tone, and with deep concentration of emotional expression. Now that she has made her Fanfare debut here with these two concertos, I hope she can be persuaded to record some of the more mainstream repertoire for violin and orchestra. She has both the technique and the temperament for it; there's no doubt of that. It would be unfair and ungracious of me to observe that in Grädener's fevered cadenzas and beyond demandingly difficult passagework, Pollick's tone is not as refined as I might like, but that may be asking for the impossible. In the end, I think it has to be said that Pollick acquits herself magnificently.
Grädener gives the orchestra much to do as well. His writing is not mere accompaniment; it has real symphonic weight and substance, which makes me curious to hear his symphonies. Gottfried Rabl and the Ukraine National Symphony Orchestra are a significant presence throughout these two scores.
I am not going to pass judgment on Grädener based on my hearing of his two violin concertos. For all we know of his music, they may be typical and characteristic of his output as a whole, or they may not be. I don't know. But I will say this: Many composers—perhaps more than not—have "slipped between the floorboards of history," as the album note puts it. It's always interesting, and sometimes revelatory, to hear what they had to say, and we should definitely make the time and effort to listen to them. But it's the rare exception rather than the rule that a composer who's dug up from under those floorboards turns out to have been interred there unjustly. That doesn't mean we can't take pleasure in their music and find it rewarding; it just means that the odds of a Grädener turning out to be a long-lost Brahms are very slim.