Ernst Rudorff (1840-1916) Symphony 3 etc. from cpo

[Alan Howe]

Oh, it'd be good to hear which other symphonists carried on the tradition beyond, say, WW1. I can't think of any off-hand (save for Röntgen).

[saxtromba]

"Weingartner - had moved way beyond Brahms by 1910 (Symphony No.3 is hyper-Straussian)."

That may be true of the third symphony, but would you really describe #4 (from 1916) as anything but Brahmsian (or, in the last movement, perhaps Beethovenian)?

The idea of the "last Romantic" rather reminds me of Mahler's response to Brahms when Brahms described himself as the last symphonist,. or something like that.  Mahler suddenly gasped and pointed at the stream they were passing.  "What is it?" Brahms asked.  "The last wave," Mahler replied.

[Alan Howe]

I'm not talking about the 'last Romantic' here. The subject of this thread is Rudorff, whose 3rd Symphony clearly stands in the tradition of Schumann and Brahms. My contention was simply that the Rudorff represents the last gasp of this particular narrower symphonic trajectory - to which one might add the roughly contemporary Parry 5 and Stanford 7.

Weingartner 4 certainly has elements of Brahms, but I'd respectfully suggest there's far more to its idiom than that: as Rob Barnett at MusicWeb says:

The Fourth Symphony was written in the midst of the Great War. All the same Weingartner stares determinedly towards the German countryside. The first of the four movements is dominated by a birdsong motif that aspires to more Olympian heights. Amidst this the shreds of a waltz obtrude. This is no rustic waltz but one with psychological fantasy - almost Ravel's La Valse. There is a gracious Andante con moto inflected by Brahms' Third and by Korngold. The third movement Comodo is hearty but not stodgy - recalling the bucolic quietude of Schubert's Great C major. The finale starts with some Mahlerian bubbling brass and a theme for the strings that dances and sings in equal measure. At times the music evokes a vision of children and farm animals kneeling in a country church bathed in morning light. The first movement's birdsong motif returns at the pinnacle to bring us full circle. The orchestration has the weightiness and density of Franz Schmidt without his psychological dimension. This is a symphony of rural grandeur.

[saxtromba]

Well, so as not to change the actual topic too drastically (though I did think I was responding to relevant comments: "Quite, although it's probably one of the last in the tradition of Schuman/Brahms (along with, for example, Röntgen's roughly contemporary C minor Symphony).")-- I'll just say that the comments you cite strike me as being extremely subjective ("a vision of children and farm animals kneeling in a country church bathed in morning light"), while leaving out objective elements (the Brahmsian strings in the second movement and the virtual quotation from Beethoven 6 heard at least twice in the last movement, e.g.).  I hear no Ravel here at all, and only the tiniest and briefest dusting of something akin to Mahler.  The sound of it strikes me as very much in the Schumann/Brahms tradition, more so than any other.  But I won't press the point.

[eschiss1]

Much as I like William Schuman's symphonies, I think the notion of a Schuman/Brahms tradition is a bit broad. Even the "Schumann/Brahms tradition" that you may mean is a handwave turn of phrase in the wrong ways, folding traditions into a tradition- but i repeat myself, and King Canute wants his crown back. So, wth.

[Alan Howe]

I take the points made about Weingartner 4, although I do think that its idiom is much more advanced than the Brahms-Rudorff-Stanford-Parry trajectory.

Any other candidates?

[eschiss1]

Re Brahms-Mahler anecdote- rather like it but when and where are they supposed to have met...
oh, I see. (Made [several] yearly visits to, and met with Brahms at, Bad Ischl, the last time in 1896...) got it...

[Alan Howe]

MusicWeb's Nick Barnard gets the Rudorff badly wrong:

The Third Symphony recorded here was first performed - by the Berlin Philharmonic - in 1911 but in all regards it could easily have been composed fifty years earlier.

http://www.musicweb-international.com/classrev/2015/Jan/Rudorff_sy3_7774582.htm

Really? In 1861? Prior to Brahms? Oh dear...

[Alan Howe]

...and even if it were true - which it isn't - why does it matter?

[Mark Thomas]

I'm afraid that Nick Barnard's review mirrors his utterly wrong-headed assessment of Rudorff's Third: superficially impressive, but lacking in substance and best left to gather dust.

[eschiss1]

still, worth making a brief reply to on their bulletin board, maybe... hrm.

[eschiss1]

Belatedly filling in that worklist slightly (sorry...!!)

Rudorff's Op.44 is 3 Lieder (for solo voice & piano), published by Stahl of Berlin in 1904. (HMB, which also lists the Op.37 5 Lieder, with text incipits for each.)