Szymanowski symphony 1 in F minor

[eschiss1]

Probably as sung as it's going to get with two or three recordings that have been made (Botstein has performed it and may have recorded it, I think there has been one on Marco Polo and one on Naxos too - different ones) - but Gergiev is going to conduct it apparently , 22 September this year at the Barbican in London, with Szymanowski's first violin concerto and Brahms 1st. (In a series containing several Szymanowski works, that I am guessing will be broadcast on Radio 3.)

To be charitable, the Marco Polo recording does not make a good case for this work (assuming there is a case to be made), but even if I am much more enthusiastic about other works by him I still give it a listen occasionally and enjoy it. Planning to listen to the broadcast if I can, anyway. (It's been published as part of the Szymanowski complete edition - as recently as 2009 I think, so I don't know if I ever saw the score when browsing through the library, since I haven't been to the uni library so often in the last three years , though they do subscribe to that edition among others - I'll have to give a listen with score sometime, now I see that.  There are things to like about the symphony definitely in my honest opinion- the joyful penultimate gesture of the first movement (inspired by the end of Don Juan - Strauss' I mean? ... ) - and other things... - but overall, well... erm...

As so often (though not always), I do plan to give it another go - not (to clarify something I once said in the same vein) necessarily because it's calling me back compellingly but more on principle so as not to rob myself of a pleasant and repeatable surprise, of having been wrong all along (in the best way )

[Delicious Manager]

Szymanowski's First Symphony is one of his odder pieces. His Concert Overture, Op 12, written shortly before this symphony, sounds almost like a re-write of Strauss's Don Juan. However, the First Symphony, which still displays a strong Strauss influence, is also influenced heavily by Wagner and (to my ears) early Schoenberg. Its short length (19 minutes) and two-movement structure don't help its cause either.

I enjoy listening to it, but I can't pretend it is one of Szymanowski's works to which I return most often. The relatively recent Naxos recording by the Warsaw Philharmonic Orchestra under Antoni Wit is superb to my ears. I am not familiar with the Botstein recording, but would say that Wit's performance would take a lot of beating in my opinion.

[eschiss1]

I don't know there is a Botstein recording, I should have checked- I just recall that seeing an announcement that Botstein was going to perform it and other works by Szymanowski (perhaps it circulates on tape. I haven't heard the performance). (Ah. He did record the 2nd symphony, concert overture and some vocal works for Telarc, though, possibly from around the same time.) Ah. It was performed in a concert February 26 1993 here. Other later concerts of the American Symphony Orchestra/Botstein had the other three symphonies in one concert, the Stabat Mater in another.

[ahinton]

It languished in an obscurity largely of the composer's own making for many years, of course. It's of historic interest now that we can hear it but its immaturity and clumsiness are the inherent part of it of which the composer accused it. Yes, the Schönberg influence is perhaps more prevalent here than anywhere else in Szymanowski's output, but what that tells me is that it represents a kind of "road not travelled". It's a beter piece than the composer said it was, but it's arguably the least of his orchestral works and displays little of the skill and assurance of the Concert Overture composed just before it, the latter work being not merely pale imitation of Richard Strauss but real Richard Strauss, to my ears - in fact, over the years, I've played recordings of it or of parts of it to dozens of people who didn't know it and not one questioned that it was Richard Strauss! If only there were a recording of Strauss conducting it!

The extraordinary third symphony gets a fair few outings these days - and well it deserves them - but the real Cinderella among his symphonies is now the second, which seems to receive very few public performances; in this, the Strauss influence is still present but has been tamed and diluted to accommodate the additional influences of Max Reger and the composer's friend Joseph Marx.

[Mark Thomas]

Not quite what you intended, I know, but many thanks for the Concert Overture "recommendation". Right up my street! 

[JimL]

The extraordinary third symphony gets a fair few outings these days - and well it deserves them - but the real Cinderella among his symphonies is not the second, which seems to receive very few public performances; in this, the Strauss influence is still present but has been tamed and diluted to accommodate the additional influences of Max Reger and the composer's friend Joseph Marx.

Something about this paragraph begs modification.   

[eschiss1]

hrm. yes. to specify which one of the 4 symphonies does brodel the Asches; it would be only Abt.

Er, let -me- rephrase that...

[ahinton]

The extraordinary third symphony gets a fair few outings these days - and well it deserves them - but the real Cinderella among his symphonies is now the second, which seems to receive very few public performances; in this, the Strauss influence is still present but has been tamed and diluted to accommodate the additional influences of Max Reger and the composer's friend Joseph Marx.

Something about this paragraph begs modification.   

It does indeed! "Not" should have read "now" (as indeed "now" it does). Thanks for that.

[markniew]

I am not an expert in such musicological analysis. yes, the 1st sounds Straussian but, to my ears, not Wagnerian. Anyhow it announces Overture and the 2nd in its orchestral structure and sound type. All are from the so called German-like phase of the Szymanowski's carreer. But what is for me completely astonishing: that music in no degree announces his 1st Violin Concerto, piece completely unearthly! breaking with traditions of then commonly composed music, piece so beautiful and incomparable with music of other composers of that time - 1916! Look, only 10 years elapsed from the 1st symphony (1906-7) to the Concerto! I cannot recall any piece being so ahead of its time. First Prokofiev's concertos? by their Barbarism? Perhaps - to some extent. But they do not possess such ethereal beauty.
OK, that is slightly beside the subject

[eschiss1]

One violinist who recorded, I think, both the Szymanowski first and Bloch concertos died just recently (Roman Totenberg). Hrm. Anyway... Thanks

[eschiss1]

I'd forgotten that Szymanowski planned a middle movement to the first, which never materialized. More history here.

I got to know (sort of) Dorati's recording of symphony 2 back in college, though not well at the time, but anyhow have had the misapprehension that it has long been fortunate in interpreters and recordings (even though the composer withdrew the 2nd symphony for revision and it did not see the light of day until publication in the 1930s, if I recall correctly- and the published score I've seen, outside of the complete edition, is in the Very Large Book section of the music library usually reserved for much more recent scores and, for some reason, Schnabel's symphonies )