Rott Symphony/Acousence

[Alan Howe]

I can't agree about Segerstam. He's simply far too slow. As I said before,  Järvi fils' interpretation is much more colourful and less portentous than Segerstam's and places the piece a stone's throw from Mahler 1, which is where it belongs. This review is spot-on:
http://www.arkivmusic.com/classical/album.jsp?album_id=754211

[Paul Barasi]

If Segerstam's 1992 CD with Norrkoping SO is too slow at over 10 minutes longer than Jarvi then what do we make of the opinion of the Internationale Hans Rott Gesellschaft secretary on Segerstam's 1994 live performance with Swedish RSO? He says it's even better (apart from the finale's tired fluffed brass) – and that's 2½ minutes longer than Segerstam's CD! And he says it's better, primarily, because of the tempo.

The arkivmusic suggestion that Segersam's is too Brucknerian is odd, given that the core theme of Rott's symphony is based on Bruckner 5. That being so, and given that Bruckner taught Rott (including while he was composing the first movement) and was one of Rott's heroes and Bruckner's music is one of the main quotes (repeatedly) in Rott's finale, then it would be surprising if this work didn't resemble Bruckner's symphonies.

Do Frankfurt sound good? Yes they do. Is theirs a populist rendition? Yes it is. Is it faithful to the score? No it isn't!

Now any of us is entitled to prefer Jarvi's interrpretation but it's not the real thing. Maybe you're thinking it's better than the real thing? Maybe we should commend improvements on Beethoven's work too?

Jarvi is completely on his own, right off the scale of all the other conductors, both in playing so fast and cleaning it up so much (a bit like the crappy restoration of Da Vinci's 'The Last Supper'). What Jarvi does exceeds the parameters of interpretation and it's especially disingenuous to do this with Rott's symphony. The work isn't well known and hasn't an established performing tradition. So, many who hear it will think that's how Rott wrote it and how it's supposed to be. Jarvi takes liberties that he wouldn't dare try with a Mahler symphony.  What makes it such a travesty is discarding the autobiographical narrative which is an essential part of Rott's composition. Jarvi simply has no storyline, no authenticity and (though he may well actually know better) delivers no understanding of Rott's music or personal world.

[Alan Howe]

Well, we'll just have to agree to disagree, I guess. Needless to say, I agree with the Fanfare reviewer quoted at ArkivMusic. I suggest we now move on...

[sdtom]

All  of this talk has made me want to hear all of the recordings of it at least once.
Tom

[Alan Howe]

...which is the fruit of good, robust discussion. Go for them, Tom!

[Paul Barasi]

I'm not sure of the value of hearing them all, quite apart from the difficulty of obtaining them. Four recordings are hard to get (van Steen, Layer, Campestrini, Piehlmayer) and doubtfully worth the effort of doing so.

Of the live non-CD recordings, two were members-only Hans Rott society: the Segerstam 1994 being remarkable but ultimately wrecked by the brass in the finale and Sammuel 1993 with Baden-Baden, which suffers from an odd pitch and was nothing to get very excited about anyway. Jarvi's 2010 Cincinnati SO is very similar to his Frankfurt CD, Meister's 2011 Orf RSO isn't especially distinctive and Gilbert's 2003 Houston SO has disappeared.

The Russell Davies and Weigle CDs have always been readily available and though some rave about them, they are disappointingly wooden. Different but of value is Erwin Horn's 2007 organ transcription of the first two movements, given that Rott composed his symphony on this instrument.

So whilst there seems to be a quite a range of listening choice the practical field, without really missing anything of quality, boils down to the first two issued - Sammuel/Cincinnati PO and Segerstam/Norrkoping PO, the Rückwardt and the Jarvi/Frankfurt.

[Alan Howe]

A useful summary, thanks!

[petershott@btinternet.com]

And "good, robust discussion" seems to have squashed flat a rather fine quartet that does not deserve to be consigned to oblivion. I sign off in a huff.

[eschiss1]

We do have a recording of the quartet in downloads (though missing a movement I think- was it revised, does it exist in two versions?) and it might be good to start a thread on the work itself.

Mr. Barasi, funny you should mention improvements on Beethoven's work.  Rott had this friend named Gustav Mahler.

[Alan Howe]

After all, the thread lurched from 'Raff' to 'Rott' since Tom's claims about Raff and Acousence ran into a brick wall...

And "good, robust discussion" seems to have squashed flat a rather fine quartet that does not deserve to be consigned to oblivion. I sign off in a huff.

Tom mistakenly typed Raff instead of Rott - but he launched the thread on the topic of the Symphony. The thread was never about Raff, nor about Rott in general, but about Rott's Symphony.

I have now started a new thread on Rott's Quartet. If it doesn't attract a discussion, I'm going to be extreeeeemely upset 

[sdtom]

I'm looking around now for a good price on the Jarvi recording.
Tom

[Paul Barasi]

improvements on Beethoven's work.  Rott had this friend named Gustav Mahler.

I'm not convinced Mahler was attempting to improve on Beethoven. He had a thing about fitting music to concert hall, even for his own works. He also had a thing about adapting Schumann and Beethoven to fit the orchestra of his own time. I don't recall thinking when I heard his editing that he had really messed with their symphonies.

But perhaps Mahler would have messed with Rott's symphony, which he studied again in 1900, with a view to a performance in Vienna. This of course never happened and some have suggested that the reason was not because he felt it missed the mark but that his frequent lifting of quotes from Rott's symphony (done as a memorial and to preserve Rott's music as a legacy within his own) would have exposed him to false accusations of plagiarism.

I think the reason why Mahler didn't perform Rott's symphony is that he had improved on it in so many places it would have been odd for him to go backwards to the original and it would be wrong to re-write it. Also, he couldn't just get it performed. The 1989 premiere required a lot of work on the score by Paul Banks, just as Mahler's 1889 Symphonic Poem took a lot of work to construct a performable score before New England Conservatory Philharmonia could play it in 2011. It was in that work Mahler began his use of Rott's music and those bits remained unchanged when revised into the Mahler 1st symphony we know today.

It must be recognised that Rott's symphony is a work in its own right and not just of interest in how Mahler recycled the music in his own symphonies, or the ideas (such as the ghost waltz in his 5th). Mahler hardly ever used a straight Rott quote. The clearest exception isn't from Rott's symphony at all but the core theme from his Suite in E which Mahler used for the Chorale right at the end of his first symphony (adding just 1 intro note) but Rott completely missed that this made for a great finish.

Mahler invariably enhanced what he quarried from Rott, so it was more than cut and paste or just tweaking or sprucing it up but it was developed, Mahlerised, into so much more. Mahler's approach was like genetic engineering, like cutting up and altering a string of DNA. Mahler messed with Rott's music in all kinds of ways, which make some of these quotes hard to spot in Mahler's symphonies. It can be a key change, alteration of a note, change in orchestration, running two tunes together – either with one of his own or even joining up two bits from different movements in Rott's symphony, then adding his own intro to it as a build-up and running it with another tune of his own at the same time, as in the three-fold climax builds in the opening movement of his third symphony.

When Mahler drew on Rott's symphony in and around the resurrection theme in his 2nd Symphony, fifth movement, it was completely out of context of Rott's biographical narrative, Mahler having an altogether bigger theme. Whereas Rott's biographical narrative is introspective and envisages his own end, Mahler's reaches out to all humanity and brings them to eternity. Also significant to Mahler's 2nd Symphony is analysis by James Zychowicz on Rott's third movement being the predecessor to Mahler using the same 'Ewig war ich' quote from Siegfried Act 3.

[eschiss1]

I'm aware Mahler wasn't attempting to improve on Beethoven's symphonies (except in the sense perhaps that a literalist with little sense of the history of orchestration might see any attempt to deviate from the written score as a dubious attempt to improve upon them, rather than an attempt to adapt them to the changes in the nature of instruments (modern oboes, bassoons, having different qualities in different ranges than those of the early 1800s, if I recall Forsyth right and if he was right, etc. ...) and, as you say, to concert halls. But I think you miss my point... I'll think about how to make it clearer.

Hrm. That's the second time I've seen a Mahler/Wagner direct (quote) connection that I remember exactly (of course I'm sure there are many, I'm just not aware of them offhand). The other was in a review by Martin Anderson (*waves*) in Fanfare in which he mentioned the relationship between two works, Mahler's Das Lied and Parsifal, both of which use briefly (but not all that briefly) the same music at the words "Der Lenz ist da!" (a observation Mr. Anderson attributed to Hans Gál, I think? - but regarded as probably an accidental quote inspired by Mahler's having conducted the opera and having heard it so often- which explanation I can well accept. Some relations, when one becomes very familiar with music, do saturate the mind...)

[sdtom]

I think we can say that Mahler learned a lot from Rott. It is such a shame he died so young.
Tom

[sdtom]

http://sdtom.wordpress.com/2013/10/24/symphony-in-f-majorrott/]

My take on the new Rott. Since the only other recording I've heard is the Samuel I found this new recording to be a breath of fresh air.
Tom