Criticism and Rufinatscha

[petershott@btinternet.com]

One has better things to do with time than consult Classics Today. Nonetheless, just like Faust, the desire for just a trifle more knowledge leads a chap to an occasional glance at that site.

I happened to take a glance this morning. Heavens! The first thing I encounter is Hurwitz's response to Rufinatscha. Utterly no need to make comment on the thoughtless dribble produced.

However it is a perfect example of that occasional tendency to ill considered rudeness of which I complained recently. There is, to my mind, a very clear difference between, e.g. 'X is drivel / boring / far too long / unmemorable' and 'X produced in me feelings of boredom / irritation / or whatever'. The latter is simply reporting a subjective personal reaction. Nothing wrong with that, but there is no particular point in telling others of your own subjective state unless they happen to be your psychologist, wife, or someone interested in your own particular consciousness.

However the former kind of statement isn't so much reporting a private state: it is attributing to X some quite objective characteristic. In other words someone who says it is, in effect, saying that any other sensitive, well qualified, and rational person ought to think the same.

And that's where I take issue with another who says 'Rufinatscha (or Walter) is dull, boring, unmemorable or whatever'. If you don't happen to like a work then by far the best thing is to keep silent. Withdraw your support, as it were, and see how the piece fares in the market place. If it is any good then it will prosper. If it really is incompetent, insincere, silly, merely fashionable or whatever, then it will soon fade away.

But Mr Hurwitz has clearly made up his mind, said some rather hurtful things about Rufinatscha, and worst of all, thinks he is right and that other right minded folk should agree with him. End of debate, and no need for further comment.

[Mark Thomas]

If you don't happen to like a work then by far the best thing is to keep silent.

Sorry Peter, but I can't agree with this. Why shouldn't someone who has a negative feeling about a work be denied the right to express it? The result would be that only positive views are heard and that would be a gross distortion. I entirely take your point that "I found it boring, dull etc" is preferable to "the work is boring, dull etc." but to treat unsung music as if it was so precious that we must molly coddle it and avoid criticism is doing the "cause" no favours at all. If everything is praised, or at least not criticised, then the value of praising a really knock-out piece is negated.

[JimL]

Rufi has already garnered enough praise from other corners that it was becoming almost worrisome that nobody didn't like him.  Harsh criticism from Hurwitz is a badge of honor.  There are some people you would rather not have liking you.

[thalbergmad]

If you don't happen to like a work then by far the best thing is to keep silent.

I guess this would be difficult if one wanted a career as a critic, but as amatuer, I try to avoid venting my spleen at works I dislike.

It is very difficult to do though.

Thal

[Alan Howe]

The problem here is not negative criticism as such, but superficial and lazy journalism. I have lived with Rufinatscha 6 for the best part of five years and find it intensely memorable - but, of course, I have taken the time and the trouble to get to know the work properly, as have others such as the team at Chandos, the BBC Philharmonic and conductor Gianandrea Noseda. I doubt very much whether Hurwitz has given anything like enough attention to this enormously demanding work.

For those of you that haven't read the 'review', here it is:

Johann Rufinatscha (1812-93) is best known as an FOB (Friend of Brahms). This does not make him a good composer. Competent, certainly, but memorable? Certainly not. His Sixth Symphony lasts 56 minutes and hasn't a single original thought. The form is textbook straight down the line, and the scoring is skillful, with some particularly free writing for the trumpets here and there. The result, nevertheless, is overlong and wholly forgettable. Although this performance appears to be a good one, with sensible tempos and no quarrels about the playing, it can't make the music anything more than bland. The same holds true of The Bride of Messina overture. You want to like this stuff, but even if you have great enthusiasm for second-tier German composers such as Raff or Bruch, this one's a stretch.

Compare this hatchet-job to Brian Reinhart's much more thoughtful assessment at MusicWeb;

"Who was Johann Rufinatscha?" You'll be asking that question looking at the CD cover, probably in mystified curiosity. You'll be asking it again after hearing the music offered here, but with a much different tone of voice: respect, surprise, and that same curiosity renewed.

As best we can ascertain, for the facts are surprisingly elusive, Johann Rufinatscha was a fairly significant figure in Vienna's musical scene from 1835 until his apparent retirement in the 1860s. During that time he made an exciting initial splash on the scene with five symphonies and some considerable chamber music. Brahms sought Rufinatscha's approval when he arrived in Vienna - the future legend was 29, the older man 50 - and included Rufinatscha in his musical circle thereafter. But Rufinatscha had already begun to fall silent: he produced only one symphony, No 6, between 1850 and his death in 1893, to go with a piano sonata and not much else.

For whatever reason, the composer opted to spend the last forty-odd years of his life in semi-retirement. His career as a teacher, however, continued unabated. Playing connect-the-dots with Rufinatscha's pupils is fascinating: his composition student Julius Epstein accepted Gustav Mahler into the Vienna Conservatory and taught Mahler piano for two years; another student was Ignaz Brüll, friend of Brahms and Goldmark. One of the other leading teachers in Vienna, Simon Sechter, considered Bruckner his best, most dedicated student, and though there is no direct link yet established between Rufinatscha and Sechter, the sound-world of Bruckner's Symphony No 00 (the "Study Symphony") is, in light of this disc, recognizably and powerfully in the Rufinatscha vein. Perhaps he did, indeed, study the older symphonist, who also hailed from rural Austria.

The two works offered here are among Rufinatscha's last, even though they date from his middle age. The Bride of Messina overture is from 1850, his last truly productive year, and the Symphony No. 6 from some time in the early 1860s, at about the same time as Bruckner was set to write the 00 by his new teacher, the conductor Otto Kitzler. Rufinatscha's significance, as heard here, is as a "missing link" between Beethoven and Schubert, on one side, and Brahms and Bruckner on the other.

This is especially clear in the symphony: though Schubert's Ninth was still unknown at the time it was being composed, the Rufinatscha work sounds uncannily like that masterpiece, especially in the first movement, which (after a fairly solemn introduction) is flecked with Schubertian wit, colors and tunes. Alan Howe, an advocate of the composer who originally forwarded rare Austrian recordings of the music to Chandos and to several online message boards (where I first heard it several years ago), told me that "If Schubert 9 was the 'Great C major', surely this was the 'Great D major'!" Stylistically, the point does stand. We've got a massive first movement, predominantly in a lyrical-heroic vein, then a nearly-as-long scherzo with an opening theme in which - do we hear snatches of the ländler?

The scherzo is catchy and Rufinatscha's lyrical trio material contrasts nicely with the elegant - maybe a little too staid - dance of the opening. The slow movement seems to creep in from another world: it only hints at melody, the narrative slipping by in easy lyricism and seeking out darker corners. It's unsettling, to be sure, a tough movement to crack, a bit like if Schumann was tasked with scoring Sibelius' Fourth. The finale is a bit of a let-down, though, chopped into several sections and lacking the big tune and/or flashy orchestration which such an epic symphony (an hour long!) really calls for.

The Bride of Messina overture begins promisingly, with an introduction that starts on a very big scale before exploring some chamber-like textures involving solo string players. The main body of the movement, though, is rather haphazardly organized around some not-too-distinguished tunes.

Unfortunately, I don't have a particularly hard time imagining the performances here being bettered: no-one can fault the technical excellence of the BBC Philharmonic, which we should not take for granted in such big, complicated scores, but there's sometimes a certain lack of inspiration or commitment in the phrasing. Gianandrea Noseda seems content to let Rufinatscha's odder ideas pass by unhighlighted, the way that Rufinatscha's own contemporaries were fond of glossing over Schubert's often-quirky scoring. Even the first movement's main theme is an example. Parts of the overture, especially, would have benefited from an extra jolt of energy and incisiveness; too many sharp edges are rounded off. And, though I know it's important to treat this symphony right in its premiere performance, did we really need every single repeat observed in the scherzo?

The value of this release is primarily musicological: Johann Rufinatscha is fairly clearly a figure who somehow got lost in the historical shuffle despite absorbing the influence of Schubert, composing music which did not imitate Beethoven at any point, and leaving his minor mark on Brahms and (very probably) a young Bruckner. Schubert and Schumann are never very far away, and Bruckner's early work is just about next-door. Brahms waited another decade before attempting to conquer the symphonic form, but the Sixth does sound rather like a hypothetical Grand Symphony composed in the manner of the Brahms serenades. I suspect the Sixth Symphony is not Rufinatscha's masterwork - based on excerpts I've heard in the past, that would be the Fifth, which is up next in the Chandos series and which I anticipate very eagerly - but this is still mandatory listening for the German romantic aficionado.

Recording projects by the likes of Chandos, CPO, Tudor, and Naxos have revealed a really fascinating landscape in 1830s-1860s Europe: Jeanne-Louise Farrenc's three fantastic symphonies from France, in a sterner and more Beethovenian language than Mendelssohn managed; Jan Kalliwoda's vividly colorful cycle, by turns Mozartean and distinctively Czech, his masterful Symphony No. 5 a moving tragedy with a considerable third-movement surprise; Niels W. Gade's fresh Northern approach to short, charming symphonies of classical proportions; Joachim Raff's enormous contributions to nearly every field as a sort of clearing-house for all the styles and ideas circulating at the time. Antonín Dvořák's first five symphonies also predate Brahms' first. Bruckner's 00, and No 1, like Dvořák's works are a beginning-point on an unprecedented journey. Now we will need to add Johann Rufinatscha to the portrait. Where he fits in is not clear yet, but - though he may not be as original or memorable, on the present evidence, as contemporaries like Kalliwoda or Dvořák - he may be a good deal closer to the center of the portrait than you may have guessed.

[Dundonnell]

I have some sympathy for professional music critics

I know from having spoken many times with one that they are sometimes sent a considerable number of cds to review with a defined deadline for their critical review to be submitted. Many of them have other jobs as well and they are therefore under pressure of time. They cannot 'live with' the work or works as would be preferable. In the nature of things they write their review based on an assumption that the reader will view that review as a personal assessment of the music by the critic and they therefore avoid repeatedly stating that the piece or aspects of the piece are x ".....in my opinion....".

That does not mean that I am not frequently enraged by the opinion expressed or infuriated by what Alan correctly identies as "superficial and lazy journalism"

[Ilja]

So Classics Today doesn't like it. Go figure. I must say that I find the reaction here maybe a bit too partizan.

The cause of that is, I think, that to many of us Rufinatscha has become the token example of a composer justly saved from oblivion. To Hurwitz, it's just another unknown composer that he's probably heard for the first time. Judging from personal experience, Rufinatscha is a composer that needs multiple hearings to make everything 'click' - and many critics regretfully simply don't have (or give themselves) the time for that.

I fully agree with Mark, in that we should not fall into the trap of lauding just every composer because they're unknown, rather than on the merit of their work.

[Alan Howe]

The reaction here isn't partisan, but based on long acquaintance with the music - far longer than that evinced by Hurwitz. It's not Hurwitz's opinion that bothers me, but his BBC Music Magazine-style 'musicology lite'...

In any case, how is it that I can vividly remember every movement of Rufinatscha 6 and Hurwitz apparently cannot? He says: "Memorable? Certainly not!" I say: "Listen properly!" 

[TerraEpon]

Hurwitz has some very odd views. Sometimes I find myself agreeing with him completely when he 'goes against the grain' of what is commonly liked and disliked, and other times I completely boggle. He recently reviewed the BIS Sibelius Symphony 2/5 disc and said "Doesn't conductor Osmo Vänskä have anything better to do?"....yet when he reviewed the same conductor and orchestra in the Beethoven symphonies, every disc got a 10/10 (except one that got a 9/10) and some of them he considered as a "reference" recording.

[Amphissa]

It is unfortunate, perhaps, that Hurwitz's first exposure to Rufinatscha comes with the 6th. I personally find the 5th to be far superior beginning to end, much more engaging and more memorable (to me). With the 6th, one might legitimately wonder why Rufi would have been such a major force in Vienna and why he would be considered the missing link between Beethoven/Schubert and Brahms/Bruckner. To me, the answer lies, not in the 6th, but in the 5th. I'm not sure I would consider the 6th drab and colorless, but it clearly (to me) lacks the inspiration and force of conviction that the 5th does.

That's MY opinion, and I'm sticking to it.

And one must wonder whether, had Hurwitz listened to the 5th rather than the 6th, his opinion of Rufinatscha might have been different.

[JimL]

One must never forget that these modern performances of the 6th are the first times that the symphony has ever been performed.  If I recall correctly it was rejected by the conductor of the Vienna Philharmonic (Dessoff at the time?) and went unheard for almost a century and a half.  I believe the piano four-hands version was the only version that was ever published.

[Alan Howe]

Of course, both the 5th and 6th are memorable works. It's not a question of 'either...or', but 'both...and'. The 5th is more accessible and easier to grasp; the 6th, being on a more epic scale, requires more effort.

[Gareth Vaughan]

In any case, how is it that I can vividly remember every movement of Rufinatscha 6 and Hurwitz apparently cannot? He says: "Memorable? Certainly not!" I say: "Listen properly!" 

I think this remark of Alan's is very pertinent. I must admit that the first time I listened to Rufinatscha's 6th (on the Tyrolean CD), I did what I rarely do: I had some (albeit fairly mechanical) work to do on my PC, so I listened with, perhaps not half an ear but no more than three quarters. Result? I was distinctly underwhelmed. However, the second time, I listened to it "properly" and came away with a very different impression.
I appreciate that music critics may be overwhelmed with CDs to be reviewed and have deadlines to meet. That's unfortunate, but you can't judge a work properly unless you give it your undivided attention at least once.

[Alan Howe]

Quite so, Gareth. That's a prerequisite for responsible journalism.

[jerfilm]

Ah criticism.......I was once hired (without pay, of course) to write reviews of a local concert series.  (In a town of 8000).  I was fired when I refused to write nothing but glowing reviews of every performance.....

J