Felix Draeseke's other Symphonies

[GoranTch]

Yes, I have all his symphonies in my collection.  I am going to give numbers 1 and 2 another spin,in the light of your strong recommendation.

I fear that the Third will never be for me,and I listened to Alan's YouTube recommendation the other day. I was shaken,but not stirred.

Especially if you are in for some wonderful slow Draeseke, no better place to start than the Adagio of the 1st Symphony... but I would go with Hanson's recording for this one (I find it "softer" and more thoughtfully paced, Weigle is sometimes too rushed for me, though I very much enjoy the panache with which he executes e.g. the Finale).

[GoranTch]

The Violin Concerto only exists in a violin & piano reduction - the original orchestration is lost, but a replacement was produced about a decade ago by Draeseke expert and pianist, Wolfgang Müller-Steinbach.
Please refer to this webpage: https://www.draeseke.org/news/IDG2009VC/index.htm

Christus is, I am afraid, a monumental bore. The only available recording probably doesn't help, but, on this occasion, I agree with that rather damning verdict.

Thank you for that information on the Violin Concerto.

Christus - I presume you have that only available recording, is it this one?

[Alan Howe]

Yes, I've had it for years. All I can say is: don't bother. It's an interminable bore. And I'm a Draeseke fan!

[Alan Howe]

no better place to start than the Adagio of the 1st Symphony... but I would go with Hanson's recording for this one

Yes, unequivocally. The slow movement's far too rushed in Weigle's performance.

[eschiss1]

... if you're in for some wonderful slow Draeseke and have a range beyond the symphonies that are the topic of this thread, find a recording (there's only one commercially, but I think there may be another on YouTube) of the viola alta sonatas and hear the slow movement of the 1st (C minor). Or... well, there's quite a few, really (that I, anyway, rate above any of those of the symphonies. He had a knack for melting chamber slow movements.)

[Alan Howe]

From memory the commercial recording on AK Coburg features a rather wiry-toned soloist; I'd choose an alternative, if you can find it...

[Alan Howe]

...actually, two points:
1. I know of an alternative (private) recording of Viola Sonata No.2, but not of No.1. Can you shed any light, Eric?
2. The slow central movement of Viola Sonata No.1 is exactly as Eric describes it. Utterly typical of Draeseke, it simply couldn't be by anyone else. But it needs a better recording, with a better violist.

[eschiss1]

No, because I don't either. I think I know of two alternate recordings of no.2 - one from a Draeseke Society thing and the other made for KUHF-FM (I've heard the latter), using viola alta unlike the recording with viola-tout-court from AK-Coburg that I have, glad to hear both. I'm no purist and am happy to hear a good performance of either sonata on either instrument, though the prices I suspect the publisher charges (as with the string quintet in A major) may encourage performers away from them, frankly...

[eschiss1]

Regarding the violin concerto, when I heard the AKCoburg recording of Draeseke's scene for violin concerto (the notes to which mention thematic connections with one of the composer's operas), I heard familiar motives : the violin concerto, whose reduction I had then first heard recently, had music that sounded very much right out of the (later, actually- 1899 as against 1881) Scene. The sort of thing a composer understandably does, maybe, when he has no further expectation of hearing a work again? (As with Prokofiev and a major opera of his that's more often heard in orchestral "suite" form as his 3rd symphony, just for example...)

(The dedicatee of the Scene was also, btw, the dedicatee of Urspruch's violin sonata.)

[eschiss1]

One other thing, says Co.. er.. .
The 2nd viola sonata (1902) is really good, has the advantage of having a recording available (from draeseke.org for free, as I recall, and another on YouTube), and is in a way just a little bit Schubertian- maybe

[Alan Howe]

Keep posting, Eric! You're almost cheering me up! (New Draeseke recordings seem to have dried up completely.)

[Ilja]

I've uploaded a recording of the Viola Alta sonata No. 2 to the Downloads board. Not sure whether it's the recording Alan referred to, although given the scratchy violist it probably is. Its rarity in performance may also be due to the rarity of the instrument it's written for, even if you can play it with a "normal" viola. The recording here uses a Viola Alta built by Hermann Ritter himself.

[Alan Howe]

Thanks, Ilja. Very good of you. That's the one I have and, from memory, I thought it was superior to the recording on AK Coburg.

[eschiss1]

Unfortunately the Draeseke.org essay which contains some nice music examples from the Wollenweber scores from the 2 viola sonatas contains none from the Larghetto of the first sonata (the music example "example 4" meant to be the beginning of the Larghetto is actually example 1 - the opening of the first movement - duplicated, for some reason. At least the opening of the cheeky finale of the 2nd sonata is excerpted   (example 7) (https://draeseke.org/essays/violaalta_sciannameo_ex.htm)