Lachner Symphony No.6

[Alan Howe]

Fair enough. I find it academic and unnecessary in the extreme. In fact it simply holds up the symphonic argument.

[Gareth Vaughan]

I know what you mean about the fugue, Alan. While, however, I don't find it as otiose as you obviously do, I DO nevertheless think it would benefit, as Gerd says, from a brisker pace (but then, as we know, many pieces of music benefit from a being given a more animated tempo).

[eschiss1]

Thanks for being more specific!

[Alan Howe]

It's a major talking point with regard to this symphony which I think is Lachner's best. At all events, I think the cpo recording is splendid and I'm glad to have it.

[semloh]

At all events, I think the cpo recording is splendid and I'm glad to have it.

Agreed!

[Alan Howe]

Here's MusicWeb's review:
http://www.musicweb-international.com/classrev/2021/Sep/Lachner-sy6-5552102.htm

[terry martyn]

The reviewer greets this important work with modified rapture. Those few of us (maybe only myself!) that rank Lachner alongside Raff as two great composers, worthy of places alongside Brahms,Schumann,and Mendelssohn will be disappointed, but not surprised. Welcome as this recording of the Sixth is , repeated hearing leaves me a little flat. I am going to go out on a limb that I expect Alan in particular will want to cut off (and ,yes, I do agree with him about the fugue), when I say I think the conductor makes the music a bit rushed at times. I wouldn´t add this recording to my list of Desert Island Discs must-haves, unlike the Marco Polo recordings of the ethereal Eighth and the Fifth. Yes,I did say the Fifth, which I love and find the polar opposite of boring.   

[Alan Howe]

I wouldn't put Lachner in the same category as Raff at all. I don't think his music quite stacks up - and his influence was zero, unlike Raff. But that's just my opinion. Each to his own!

[tpaloj]

I've uploaded a Dorico/Noteperformer video of the 6th Symphony's original Andante movement on youtube.

It's impossible to say for certain why Lachner decided to revise and discard this Andante in favor of a new one in the course of the symphony's composition. Regardless, I thought having an opportunity to hear this original movement would not be entirely wasteful. Hope you enjoy it for what it is (keeping in mind obvious shortcomings due to the audio format etc!)

There were several penciled "vi-de" instructions added on top or bottom of the score, but I decided not to follow them so that the score could be heard in full. Played with no cuts and base tempo of the movement (q=72) throughout, performance time is just under 15 minutes. My highlights for the movement are the two poignantly scored, lugubrious passages starting from rehearsal letters B & G.

Youtube link

[Mark Thomas]

Thank you Tuomas, how interesting.

[Alan Howe]

I have now come to the conclusion that the finale of No.6 is worthy to stand alongside Schubert 9. Apologies for not 'getting' Lachner before...

[terry martyn]

I noticed, Alan, that you have been steeping yourself  recently in Lachner's musical background and his symphonies, and I wondered about the road to Damascus!!

The Secretary to the Community where I live in Spain is a German-speaking Italian from the South Tyrol, with an aristocratic background. Some years ago, I mentioned that I was awaiting the arrival of this symphony on CD.

"Ach,Lachner!!", she said, and her eyes lit up in pleasure.

[Alan Howe]

Here's an enthusiastic review:

Meeting Franz Lachner: the Sixth Symphony on cpo
Colin Clarke

The repertoire might be off the beaten track, but what delights await. A masterly order and clarity reigns in this symphony, a lightness and euphony, in a word, it is so mature and well-formed that we an readily award the composer a spot in the near vicinity of his preferred model, Franz Schubert.

So wrote one Robert Schumann of Franz Lachner's Sixth Symphony. Born on April 2, 1803, both of Lachner's parents were organists (although his father was a clock-maker by trade). He arrived in Vienna via Munich (he was appointed Kapellmeister there in 1836(, and it was in the Austrian capital he became part of the circle around Schubert himself.

The Sixth Symphony was completed in February 1837 (and premiered in Munich in April of that year, under the composer's baton). The first movement opens gently, easing itself in. Certainly it does so in this most affectionate performance:

Schubert's influence is immediately evident in the harmonies. Even the climaxes sound Schubertian. The real characteristic though is an easy and logical flow throughout. The Evergreen Symphony Orchestra (from Taiwan) under Gernot Schmalfuss give everything. High violins are tested in Lachner's score and come out on top; balance is superb throughout, as is the recording (made in the Keelung City Cultural Centre in Taiwan). So is linear clarity (there's a fair amount of counterpoint here). When the music demands rigour (as it does from time to time: a contrapuntal passage in the first movement that strides off determinedly: it turns out to be a good olf Handelian double fugue!) the Evergreens are right there, and there is an infectious enthusiasm that suffuses the performance.

Some critics have been disparaging of the slow movement, an Andante, but not me. It is a dream, static at heart and blissfully so. Texturally, Lachner's string writing is blissfully slight and transparent, his woodwind writing beautifully expressive (especially notable in this radiant performance):

The Scherzo is fascinating. It has something of the mechanistic about it (perhaps his father's clocks had a subliminal say in it!). The Taiwanese players dig in nicely; at other times they dance in an almost but not quite Mendelssohnian way. It is a fabulous movement:

The finale has moments of woodwind pastoral joy, a sort of Mendelssohn-Schumann cross-breed in feel; and yet at one point near the end it threatens to whirl off into a Brahms Hungarian Dance. It is all wonderful fun, and a stirling introduction to a composer we should all know more about (he also wrote an oratorio on Moses: that I should like to hear!)

A truly lovely disc. The repertoire might be off the beaten track, but what delights await!
https://www.classicalexplorer.com/estonian-premieres-on-alpha/     (edited)

[Alan Howe]

I noticed, Alan, that you have been steeping yourself  recently in Lachner's musical background and his symphonies, and I wondered about the road to Damascus!!

The key has been 'steeping myself' in the three cpo releases of the symphonies, i.e. Nos.3, 4 and 6. This has meant listening over and over again to 'get' the idiom which, I am now convinced, is masterly. Lachner isn't really like his contemporaries: there's something almost baroque/classical/objective about his musical processes - quite different from, say, Mendelssohn and Schumann, and looking ahead to other composers 'from the south', such as Netzer and (more distantly) Rufinatscha and Bruckner.

PS. Still don't much care for the fugue section at the end of 6/1.

[Ilja]

Full agree on the baroque/classical elements in Lacher. I've always regarded his symphonies as a sort of example of how Weber's might have sounded had he lived longer; they exude a similar energy and use of rather short melodic arcs. Meanwhile, Mozart and Gluck still audibly lurk somewhere in the background. But that does not mean that they're conservative for their time.

That said, I remain of the opinion that Lachner had real issues with pacing and timing; the symphonies often feel more like elaborate improvisations than that are consciously built up according to some underlying concept. Perhaps, this structural nonchalance is due to Lachner's focus on melodic development, which was arguably his greatest gift.