Natanael Berg - Symphonies 4, 5

[FBerwald]

Finally, a completion to the Natanael Berg Symphony Cycle.  No.s 4 & 5 by Norrköping Symphony Orchestra, Ari Rasilainen.
https://www.jpc.de/jpcng/cpo/detail/-/art/natanael-berg-symphonien-nr-4-5/hnum/4963362

[Alan Howe]

Recorded back in 2011 - and buried since...

[terry martyn]

You never know then, Alan.  Maybe there's still hope for the Gernsheim Piano Concerto!

[Gareth Vaughan]

It is amazing, isn't it? Why do CPO take so long to release some recordings? I really don't understand it - but I presume there is some reasonable explanation.

[Tapiola]

Does anyone know when this release will be available for streaming?

[Alan Howe]

What's the usual time-gap for cpo between physical release and other formats?

[Mark Thomas]

Seems to be settling down to three or four months delay before downloads are available - sometimes less.

[Ilja]

It probably depends on their agreement with the relevant broadcasting company or orchestra, but I have the impression it's becoming less. The Kaun symphony was available on Presto a week after the CD release.

[Mark Thomas]

British cpo CD releases often lag behind availability from jpc by a couple of months, of course.

[Justin]

Listed now on Presto: https://www.prestomusic.com/classical/products/9544212--natanael-berg-symphonies-nos-4-5

Release date of December 1st.

[Justin]

Album is now streaming on Spotify, Amazon Music and Qobuz.

[eschiss1]

Wonder if these works were ever commercially published. SMIC may have them though...

[Alan Howe]

For the publishers, follow the jpc link above to the CD and consult the image of the rear insert.

[eschiss1]

Thanks!
Also, I failed to look them up under their nicknames (Worldcat still lists nothing, B&H or otherwise, for symphony 5/"Trilogia", but it turns out that Fleisher has the score & parts of the 1918 Pezzo sinfonico- so listed by them- in a copy from the Philadelphia Orchestra...)
A slightly broader-based search may turn up something though at the moment mostly it's making me think questions like "I wonder if "Kantat till åminnelse av Karin Åhlin" is interesting"
Cheers!

[Ilja]

Berg's fourth symphony was the result of a bet with Kurt Atterberg to produce an "un-Scandinavian" symphony to counterweight the usual dark, lengthy, philosophizing fare (e.g. Stenhammar's 2nd, Atterberg's own 3rd and particularly Rangström's First); the timing (1918) probably played a role, too. Both attempted to produce more playful, lightweight (in every sense of the word) works, in both cases their 4th symphonies (although strictly speaking Berg's 5th*). For Berg it was this Pezzo Sinfonico, for Atterberg his Sinfonnia Piccola. But while the latter is arguably the more accomplished composer of the two, Berg stuck closer to the plan; Atterberg's 4th sounds monumental by comparison, and there's little piccolo about it apart from its length. Although even Berg's symphony gets more stereotypically Scandinavian as it gets closer to the finish.

As a composer Berg somewhat reminds me of Klenau. Despite some very superficial experimentation (particularly with chromaticism) he's still a romantic at heart, although less comfortably so than Atterberg or Lindberg. Very much an 'intermediary figure', on the way to a later generation of people like Hilding Rosenberg and Gösta Nystroem.

* The symphonic poem Varde Ljus (let there be light) from 1914 was originally presented as a symphony (his second) à la Antar, which led to some numbering misunderstandings.