Karl Weigl - Symphony No. 3

[Alan Howe]

That's fine. Don't worry. It's just that mp3 files are easiest for most people. And please accept our sincere thanks for your upload - the music is wonderful.

[Mark Thomas]

I've just added mp3s of mjkFenrich's recording to his post in the Downloads Board.

[Alan Howe]

Great. Symphony No.3 is heavily indebted to Mahler to my ears, although it's more athletic and less inclined to agonised introspection. If and when it appears on cpo, it'll make a fine addition to the recorded repertoire.

[eschiss1]

Wonder tangentially if there's a large-scale published study of Weigl's music that puts each work in context of the others, noting related themes between works among other things. I've skimmed the work catalog that was published some years back but not the same thing...

[Alan Howe]

There's this website...
http://karlweigl.org/

[minacciosa]

Weigl was as self-referential a composer as Strauss, Mahler or Korngold. Particularly in melodic shapes, there is an intervallic motive that occurs in nearly all of his mature music. It is comprised of a falling forth followed by a whole step. It can appear anywhere in a melodic statement; it famously begins the 5th Symphony.

[tuatara442442]

https://www.prestomusic.com/classical/products/9666688--karl-weigl-symphony-no-3
Here's a new recording on Capriccio slated for the next January, coupled with a Symphonic Prelude to a Tragedy.
Looks like the probable CPO release will be overtaken.

[Alan Howe]

Thanks - excellent news.

[eschiss1]

This is now listed as being scheduled for release on January 3 2025, and audio samples are available at Presto. The symphonic prelude of 1933 was according to the link inspired by "Miracles around Verdun" (Wunder um Verdun) by Hans Chlumberg (1897-1930) (they have his name spelled so very wrong it took me awhile to figure that out.)

[Alan Howe]

Symphony No.3 in B flat is a 46-minute three-movement work which, if it had been in four movements, may well have ended up as a one-hour monster. I'd say that the orchestration is more like Mahler than Strauss or Schmidt, so this is yet another fine example of the way late-romanticism in music actually extended well into the twentieth century (the Symphony was written in 1930/1).
We are now in a position to chart the progress in central Europe of a broad tradition of symphonic writing post-Bruckner/Mahler that includes Büttner, Schmidt, Weigl, Petersen and Stöhr. And in Weigl's Symphony No.3 we have, I believe, one of his finest contributions to this tradition.
Oh, and as usual, this recording is yet another tribute to the excellence of German regional orchestras, in this case the Deutsche Staatsphilharmonie Rheinland-Pflalz of Ludwigshafen am Rhein in the south-west of the country, under conductor Jürgen Bruns who has already given us Weigl's 1st, 4th and 6th Symphonies. Congratulations to Capriccio and all the artists involved.

[Ilja]

Somewhat typically, Capriccio managed to release Bruns' recording of this symphony before cpo did the same with the older Gaudenz recording (which was the reason to start this thread). That was excellent, and I'm really curious to compare the two.

Also, I hope that someone will take on Weigl's 2nd; Karlweigl.org lists it as 45 minutes in length, but considering that the 3rd and 4th movement combined are close to 40 minutes already, this suggests that the other three are either very short indeed or that someone made an error. 

[Alan Howe]

Somewhat typically, Capriccio managed to release Bruns' recording of this symphony before cpo

As you say, this is a typical cpo problem. Still waiting for Weismann VC1...