The Austro-German Symphonic Tradition after Mahler

[Alan Howe]

...according to many critics there doesn't seem to be much of one. However, I'm fast coming to the conclusion that preoccupation with the concerns of the Second Viennese School have blinded them to reality. Perhaps friends can help me, but I have discovered over recent years the symphonies of composers such as Weingartner, Schmidt, Wellesz, Gal, Erdmann, Rathaus, Weigl, Hessenberg, Furtwängler, Korngold, Bohnke, Büttner, Graener, Weismann, Krenek, Pfitzner, Scherber, Schmidt-Kowalski, Tiessen, Tyberg, S. Wagner, Wetz, etc. and have yet to explore K. A. Hartmann and sundry others. So who have I forgotten?

[Alan Howe]

BTW, if you don't think that a great symphonic adagio has been written in that tradition since Mahler, try the finale of  Wellesz 1! (Or the slow movement of Schmidt 4, of course...)

[Amphissa]

As one who has tired of Mahler, I find many of the composers you list interesting and some of them very good.

BTW, I like the early symphonies of Wellesz, but find the late ones rather tough gristle. Maybe I need to revisit them. After all, if I can enjoy Lyatoshinsky and Diamond ....

[eschiss1]

While I like all of Wellesz' symphonies, my favorite among them is no.2 (whose slow movement isn't half-bad either.)  Have heard this in both a rather poorly-recorded performer-uncredited radio tape (possibly from December 4? April 12? 1951?) and from the more recent commercial cpo release; fine Bruckner-influenced 1948 symphony.

I remember the point being made that Bruckner's influence can be found in many a 20th-century symphony, but Mahler's influence, less often (Shostakovich and Weinberg, though... there, yes!) - and I tend to agree.  (Though actually the slow movement of Wellesz 2 keeps making me think of Shostakovich's 8th, I think - could he have heard it?)

[J.Z. Herrenberg]

There is the Brucknerian symphonist Johann Nepomuk David. I read about him a long time ago, but have never heard a note of his music...

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Johann_Nepomuk_David

[eschiss1]

I've skimmed some of JN David's work and heard a few of his symphonies- I think his style changed over time though not as much so as Wellesz's; the works I heard were later and seemed harmonically somewhat more astringent (but not nontonal) than the more tonal first few symphonies I scanned in score. One of them (the 5th symphony) was on LP, I think, along with other works.  Good stuff, anyway...

There's by the way a longstanding website for his music.

[alberto]

Suder we have already written about.
If Krenek is in the list, we could add  Gottfried von Einem.
Still different appears to me the case of Kurt Weill (author of two completely different symphonies: modernist (for its time) the early one, popular, "for the masses" the second).They received several recordings (very fine, according to me, the one by Gary Bertini).
Akin to the "second" Weill could be Paul Dessau and Hans Eisler.
A further case still: Hans Werner Henze, not completely far from (also) Mahler heritage since the Seventh Symphony onwards.

[J.Z. Herrenberg]

I've skimmed some of JN David's work and heard a few of his symphonies- I think his style changed over time though not as much so as Wellesz's; the works I heard were later and seemed harmonically somewhat more astringent (but not nontonal) than the more tonal first few symphonies I scanned in score. One of them (the 5th symphony) was on LP, I think, along with other works.  Good stuff, anyway...

There's by the way a longstanding website for his music.

I remember seeing that LP with the 5th at a music library in Amsterdam during the '80s, but didn't borrow it... I am aware of that Gesellschaft. The man responsible for the article I mentioned was my fellow Dutchman Cornelis van Zwol, who had made a name for himself as a Bruckner scholar, giving lectures at symposia of the Bruckner Society, in Austria.

[eschiss1]

to add to the original list, too, ... hrm!
I'd like to hear Kaun's 3rd symphony which seems to have received, to judge from contemporary issues of the NZM, a dozen or so performances in as many cities in the year after its first performance alone... though I have no idea how common that was.

[Alan Howe]

I'd forgotten about Weill and Henze. Their 2nd and 7th symphonies respectively certainly have a lot to say about the tradition...

[Hovite]

So who have I forgotten?

Bruno Walter and Otto Klemperer both wrote a couple of symphonies each.

[Alan Howe]

True. Not sure how much of a contribution to the tradition they are, though...

[Gareth Vaughan]

Klemperer's is one of the dullest things I've ever heard.

[britishcomposer]

Klemperer's is one of the dullest things I've ever heard.

Glad to find someone agreeing with me!

[Hovite]

So who have I forgotten?

Strauss
Hindemith
Marx
Dohnányi

I would suggest, however, that the tradition was continued in Finland (Sibelius) and Sweden (Atterberg).