Van Gilse Symphony No.4 from cpo

[Dundonnell]

Disappointingly mixed reactions to the van Gilse 4th. I shall just have to wait to find out for myself

To tell the truth....I cannot stop playing the van Gilse 3rd. I have absolutely fallen in love with the music and the idiom

[Peter1953]

After a few times listening I'm still absolutely positive about the 4th. The opening and especially last movements are not the strongest parts of the symphony. They show strong fluctuations of moods. Beautiful melodies are alternated by unexpected passages. The core of the symphony is the slow 3rd movement, which is really gorgeous to my ears. Thus Van Gilse's last symphony features diverse elements, but that doesn't make this work uninteresting. According to the booklet notes this symphony, premiered in November 1915, has become one of his most performed works.

But the CD offers more. His Funeral Music on the Death of Uilenspiegel (I wonder how not Dutch speaking members would pronounce this word  ) dating from 1941, develops from easygoing to Mahlerian proportions.

Totally different is the Concert Overture in C minor (1900). A lovely piece, but in a quite conservative idiom, almost Mendelssohnian. Never mind, it's beautiful music.

Colin, I'm very pleased that you are so enthusiastic about Van Gilse's 3rd.

[ewk]

Has anyone compared these performances (apologies for keeping this thread 'off tack'!!)?

The odd thing about Botstein's performance is that it's only about 59 minutes long, so either he's much faster than Swierczewski (who takes 73 mins) or he makes some cuts. No idea which, though!

...Follow up: from the brief audio clips available, I'd say Botstein is much quicker!

Some years ago I had some e-mail corresondance with Berkant Haydin, the head of the Joseph Marx Society. He said that Botstein both shortened it and played it way to fast. For those who speak German:

Botsteins Version ist die gekürzte Fassung (um ca. 5 Min.; die
Kürzungsvorschläge des Komponisten stehen in der Partitur) und außerdem
extrem rasch gespielt, meines Erachtens viiiiiel zu schnell. Es gibt nur
einige wenige Stellen, wo Botsteins Version die Grazer Aufnahme
musikalisch übertrifft.
[...]

Liebe Grüße
Berkant Haydin

Please excuse that this is a further off-topic post, I found this thread via googling for van gilse's 4th and was quite happy that some more people were aware of the difference between the recordings. As Berkant Haydin said that the Botstein version wasn't so good I didn't buy it but I'm quite happy with the Graz recording.

[Alan Howe]

The Graz recording is indeed superb.

[semloh]

The Graz recording is indeed superb.

Oh no - another 'must buy'! My 'wants' list is bursting at the seams - hopeless, unless I win the lottery. 

I think I'll have to be satisfied with the ex-radio performance by NetherlandsSO/Porcelijn which was uploaded to UC. How do they compare?

[Alan Howe]

We were referring to Marx's Herbstsymphonie - many apologies for going off-topic.

[Gauk]

Actually, this is a problem in general with unsung music when there is no performing tradition and when there is maybe only a single recorded performance available.

So true ...