JADASSOHN Symphony No.4 in C minor

[semloh]

Many thanks to vicharris for uploading this beautiful symphony!

An incomplete version exists on YT, but here we finally have a complete performance by a top rate orchestra. Its engaging melodies and sprightly dynamics have got my day off to a splendid start. There are so many musical ideas packed into the work, and - for me at least - it is going to withstand/reward repeated listening!  So, thank you again.

[Gareth Vaughan]

It is indeed a very beautiful work and I am extremely grateful to hear this pleasing performance.

[Alan Howe]

I completely agree. Marvellous, memorable stuff. Come on cpo - let's have your recordings of all four symphonies under Israel Yinon!  (FWIW, I think Yinon is rather more dynamic in this score than Bruns, thoroughly grateful though I am to have a recording of the whole Symphony!)

[matesic]

I'm sincerely examining my musical and critical values here. Not all late romantic symphonies can be a world which embraces everything, but to get my juices running a number of attributes are essential: tunefulness certainly, but also formal and melodic inventiveness, dramatic projection, structural cohesion, harmonic tension and release, rhythmic dynamism, variation in instrumental colour. Which of these would you say Jadassohn 4 possesses?

[adriano]

Jadassohn's Fourth is really great music. Long long ago I tried to convince Klaus Heymann to let me record Jadassohn's Symphonies, but he never wanted this.
Of the Fourth and the Third I have original scores (first prints); of the 3rd all instrumental parts...
This morning I also gave a new look to the full score of Moszkowski's E major Concerto (first print of 1898) and to Niels Gade' s Concert Overture "Michelangelo" (undated first print, probably around 1865)...
So much music in my archive which, alas, I will never be allowed to perform in this life...

[matesic]

Ah, but what in your view are its qualities? Can you point to specific features in the score that are noteworthy? My loss I know, but to me it sounds pretty run-of-the-mill in both recordings, distinctly backward looking for its date.

[adriano]

You are right, matesic, it's still run-out-of-the mill, compared to other works by other composers, but there are possibilities for avert and intelligent conductors and good orchestras to make them sound alive and interesting. I never compare music to its "dates", but to its substance, build-up and intrumentation.

[Alan Howe]

I'd pick out two features:

1. Orchestration. Wonderful solo writing in particular for oboe and French horn. Haunting, beautiful.
2. Melodies. The work is full of them. I can remember almost all of them. Real ear-worms.

True, it's conservative for its date (son of Schumann rather than son of Brahms) - but who cares from the perspective of 2014? I don't.

[eschiss1]

BTW I think it was premiered in December 1888 (perhaps earlier) (it was given in that month in a concert in Leipzig.) Are its composition dates known?

Edit: 6 December 1888, Gewandhaus, according to the NZM (1888, p.552. Not sure if future or past tense is being used, though, so that may be predictive and may not have happened as scheduled exactly, etc.)

[matesic]

Of itself, musical conservatism or "backward-lookingness" shouldn't prejudice our judgement, particularly (as Alan says) from the perspective of more than a hundred years, but with very few exceptions the composers we consider "great" were all forward-looking, mould-breaking, expanding the frontiers of musical experience. For some reason even decent music composed in the style of a previous generation is generally branded as "derivative", hardly better than "worthless". I'm sure in many cases that's an unfair judgement which should be corrected, but we also attach great value to the possession of an individually distinctive "voice" - another quality I currently fail to detect in Jadassohn. Could be due to my ignorance of the rest of his oeuvre, of course, but I wonder?

[Alan Howe]

I'm not sure how far this particular part of the thread is going to get us. Jadassohn was one of the many fine symphonists writing within the broad, conservative Austro-German tradition in the 19th century: others include Reinecke, Volkmann, Dietrich, Bargiel, Gernsheim, Fuchs, Franck (E.), Goetz, Brüll, Bruch, Hiller, Abert, Rheinberger, Rudorff. This idiom was effectively a sort of musical lingua franca.
So, can I always distinguish their works? No. But then I'd have the same problem distinguishing something obscure by Mendelssohn from something obscure by Schumann and nobody denies their greatness. Can I tell one composer's symphony from another's? Answer: yes! Why? Because I've spent years getting to know them - and now that I do know them, I can hear all sorts of distinguishing features which amount to individual variations on this musical lingua franca. So, I simply don't accept the premise of this argument. It's a matter of familiarity, not distinctiveness.

[matesic]

I disagree entirely! As you say most perceptively (!), many minor composers of this and any other period speak a similar "out of the conservatoire" language which doesn't allow for easy differentiation on grounds of harmonic idiom, formal manipulation, dramatic contrast, orchestration and so on - exactly the qualities which DO distinguish the major figures. In addition, there are those difficult-to-define quirks of utterance which shout out "Bruckner" or whoever. I don't know whether it's intentional or not, but I suspect they really can't help being themselves. It seems pretty clear to me that this is a major reason why some composers enjoy the light while many more are stuck in the shadows

[Alan Howe]

I understand your position; the problem I have is with your statement that Jadassohn doesn't have an 'individually distinctive "voice"'. I think one simply has to listen harder to discern it.
And I still think that it is possible to confuse the more obscure pieces by the recognised greats - especially in the field of chamber music where the range of colours available is much more restricted. So familiarity is a big factor here.

[semloh]

Hmm.... debate over the quality of compositions is familiar territory at UC. The outcome is usually an agreement to respect differences of opinion and taste. 

[Mark Thomas]

Let's take that outcome as read, please, and move on...