Carl Loewe: Symphonies in D minor & E minor

[M. Yaskovsky]

For those who're interested: https://www.jpc.de/jpcng/cpo/detail/-/art/carl-loewe-symphonien-nr-1-2/hnum/9730025

[terry martyn]

That is a must-buy for me!

[Alan Howe]

And for me too. Thanks for pointing it out. Duly ordered!

[Mark Thomas]

Oh, excellent, we could do with a modern recording of the D minor, and I think it's the first commercial recording of the E minor.

[hyperdanny]

Great news thank you! I absolutely love the D minor and even if judging from what's on youtube the other one is not quite on the same level, it's still a lovely piece, so far shamefully unrecorded. Another surefire purchase.

[Alan Howe]

Audio excerpts are now available at jpc - link as in the first post of this thread.

[Alan Howe]

It's always a problem when one has had only one recording to go on. The Koch (D minor) was recorded in a big, rather blowsy acoustic, so I think the cpo is bound to sound rather different. The tempo of the first movement is also considerably quicker in the new recording. Sounds rather like comparing apples and pears - or Furtwängler and Toscanini...

[Alan Howe]

After about three weeks my copy's finally arrived from Germany. I have to say that I think the new performance of the D minor is superior to the one on Koch - it positively bursts out of the loudspeakers (or headphones!)

It's interesting to speculate why such a fine symphony as Loewe's D minor never really established itself in the repertoire. I suppose the answer is that it was soon overtaken in terms of modernity by the likes of Mendelssohn and Schumann - which is a pity because it's both powerful and thematically memorable.

A word on the style of the performances here: they're what I would describe as 'modestly HIP', i.e. there's little string vibrato, but it's certainly not extreme. The major gains, quite appropriate in this music, are in clarity and sheer punch (great timpani!)

A major release.

[Alan Howe]

Now advertised at Presto:
https://www.prestomusic.com/classical/products/9367215--carl-loewe-symphonies-no-1-in-d-minor-no-2-in-e-minor

[Alan Howe]

An appreciative review here:
http://www.musicweb-international.com/classrev/2022/Sep/Loewe-syms-5553192-NB.htm

[eschiss1]

I gather that the third work on the disc is not a stand-alone overture but belongs to the composer's incidental music to Raupach's "Themisto" (hence perhaps the brevity which Barnett mentions in the other review), but I might be mistaken. (Actually, the title of Noetzel's 2018 edition of the overture, "Themisto : Ouvertüre der Schauspielmusik zur Tragödie von Ernst Raupach", seems to confirm this.)

[gprengel]

Today I discovered 2 symphonies by Carl Loewe from the early 1830s. Of course I love his songs but didn't realize that he also wrote symphonies:

I. symphony no. 1, d-minor:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WExua_qEWKY

Here I love the great ending of the 1st movement, starting at 6:00. Also the Scherzo theme is nice, but repeated a bit too much, I think.
A special treasure is the most tender Adagio espressivo in the beginning of the Finale - actually the whole Finale I like very much!

II. symphony no. 2, e-minor:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2EQ_Onp4XZk

Also a remarkable 1st movement with a beautiful Allegro main theme (1:20) and a wonderful Coda ( 8:10 ff.)
Furthermore I like the Finale also very much...

[Alan Howe]

As you can see, Gerd, we already have a thread on Loewe's symphonies...

Glad you like them.