Franz Lachner Symphony No.3

[Alan Howe]

...forthcoming from cpo:
https://www.jpc.de/jpcng/cpo/detail/-/art/franz-lachner-symphonie-nr-3/hnum/6096032

[eschiss1]

Good news!!

[Mark Thomas]

Indeed. Maybe cpo are getting their teeth into Lachner, what with them finally releasing Catarina Cornaro as well. That would be no bad thing.

[eschiss1]

also a festival overture.
a complete recording of the symphonies could be good, I hope there are signs this is not a 1 off. maybe Schmalfuss' website has something.

[Mark Thomas]

He doesn't appear to have one and the Evergreen Symphony Orchestra site makes no mention of Lachner recordings.

[Alan Howe]

Excerpts are now available at jpc.

[Mark Thomas]

Judging by the very short sound bites, the Symphony sounds to be a vigorous work, Definitely a must buy for me.

[Gareth Vaughan]

That was very much my thought too, Mark. More immediately appealing, as far as one can tell from these very short excerpts, than the almost equally long 5th symphony. We shall see.

[Mark Thomas]

My order is in. Since seeing the blazing concert performance of Catarina Cornaro in Munich (now available on cpo), my opinion of Franz Lachner is much more positive. One always wonders whether those early Marco Polo CDs of some of the symphonies and suites did him something of a disservice.

[Gareth Vaughan]

Very possibly. A lacklustre performance can be very damaging if it is one's first (and possibly only) encounter with a work. I wonder if this CPO recording is the first of a Lachner series. That would be nice.

[Alan Howe]

I'm not sure that those MP performances were all that lacklustre, actually. No.1 is given a very vigorous rendition, for example. And according to the blurb, No.3 still lasts about 50 mins!

[Gareth Vaughan]

Maybe not. I never heard the MP disk of No. 1, but to my ears at least the "Preis Symphonie" was not without its longeurs. Whether that was due to a lacklustre performance or not I couldn't say, as there is no other recording with which to compare it. But, in general terms, what I wrote is largely true, I think. I am sure we can all think of performances which have opened our ears to the merits of a piece we previously thought was mediocre, or no more than pleasant.

[Alan Howe]

I think No.5 is too long for its material - I don't think the fault lies with the MP performance. However, it'd be good to hear an alternative recording.

[Mark Thomas]

In truth it's some time since I listened to any of the Marco Polo performances and it was probably the 5th Symphony when I did, so perhaps that's where I got the impression. Either way, JPC have just emailed to tell me that the new recording is in the post, and I'm looking forward to hearing it.

[Alan Howe]

It'll probably be some time before I listen to No.5 again: a real feat of stamina is required.