Hans Gal Symphony 4

[petershott@btinternet.com]

Hurrah! The new Avie disc (AV2231) of Gal's Symphony 4 is scheduled for release on 19 March.

I've found the exploration of Hans Gal over the last couple of years especially rewarding - we've been fortunate in having had a string of first class recordings, the symphonies, concertos, string quartets and all of the piano music.

As with Symphony 3, this one again is the Orchestra of the Swan / Kenneth Woods. If anyone doubts the credentials of this band try their recent Somm disc of the Schoenberg arrangement of Das Lied von der Erde. Stunning!

Symphony 4 is coupled with Schumann 2. There was extensive debate on the forum over the +'s and -'s of Avie's coupling the Gal symphonies with those of Schubert or Schumann. Fortunately I don't have the powers of a policeman on the site, but my suggestion here is that everything that could be said has been said already and there's no great point in extending that debate. For myself, of course I don't like having to buy double the number of CDs to get the four Gal symphonies. But then when they are coupled with such readings of Schubert or Schumann that we have here, then, heigh ho, my doubts disappear!

[Dundonnell]

It is interesting, in light of the thread about Berthold Goldschmidt, to see this recent revival of interest in the music of Hans Gal.

Gal's music was played not infrequently by the Reid Orchestra in Edinburgh because Gal was a much-loved teacher at the University of Edinburgh. I suspect that the recent crop of cds of his music is the result of the sort of sustained, effective advocacy which composers like him really do need.