Non-operatic Suppé world premiere recording

[Martin Eastick]

Suppé's recently-discovered orchestral "Fantasia Symphonica" of 1859 receives it's world premiere recording here, coupled with more familiar fare as well as another premiere! https://www.jpc.de/jpcng/classic/detail/-/art/fantasia-symphonica/hnum/11689650

[Alan Howe]

Yes, I spotted this too. Just wondered whether the music's any good...

[TerraEpon]

I will gladly take another recording of those two warhorses for the rest of it. Heh.

[Mark Thomas]

Aha! This must be the fabled "Symphony" by Suppé which, about 15 or so years ago, I was told by a record label owner was being zealously guarded by a conductor who wouldn't release the score to be recorded unless he was at the helm. Whatever the truth of that, it's good to see it surface at last. High art or not, Suppé never fails to be entertaining so it's a must buy for me.

Sound excerpts here, from which the work sounds to be in the vein of Bizet's or Gounod's attempts at the symphony.

[terry martyn]

At the moment,I am with your  first thoughts,Alan.  I love Suppe, but the orchestral excepts on Presto are not particularly encouraging.

[Alan Howe]

So, Ola Rudner is the conductor concerned. Hmmm....I don't think the release will do much for his reputation. But (sigh) I suppose I'll have to buy the CD.

[Mark Thomas]

Ola Rudner is the conductor concerned

I don't know whether what I was told is true, you understand, nor, if it is, whether he was the conductor in question.

[Alan Howe]

Quite so. I was just expressing a certain incredulity that any conductor would keep an unrecorded piece of music to himself rather than releasing it for wider consideration.

[Mark Thomas]

Well, whatever the score's recent history, it's good to have a recording so that we can at least hear the music, be it good, indifferent or poor.

[Alan Howe]

Again, quite so. We might even have two: the publisher, Edition Stringendo, states that a recording was made by cpo in 2022, featuring the Brandenburg State Orchestra, although the conductor is not named. Presumably it wasn't to be released until after the Naxos recording came out.

[Mark Thomas]

Interesting. I see the pdf Partitur notes as part of the title that the work is "on themes by Ernst II", Duke of Saxe-Coburg & Gotha, brother of Queen Victoria's Prince Albert, amateur opera composer of musical benefactor of both Liszt and Raff. 

[Alan Howe]

I agree, by the way, that this sounds a bit like a brassier version of Bizet's Symphony in C (which is a minor masterpiece, of course - especially in Haitink's recording).

[Mark Thomas]

Having listened to it a couple of times I don't think Suppé's Fantasia Symphonica comes anywhere near Bizet's minor masterpiece. The opening movement certainly tries to exhibit some symphonic heft and has a certain busy seriousness but it's all a bit half-hearted. The other three are little more than dance movements with the finale returning to the portentous percussion-heavy opening of the work at the end. Clearly Suppé was a man of the theatre - this was not his finest hour.

[Alan Howe]

Mark is spot-on. This is nothing more than a brassy pot-boiler that didn't really merit disinterment. One for the rejects pile, I'm afraid. When I think of all the worthwhile works that Mr Rudner could have turned his attention to...

Oh, and by the way: scrappy strings don't help either.

[terry martyn]

Duke Ernst's musical attempts to inspire composers into medley tributes  continue to miss the mark. I wondered elsewhere whether Grutzmacher's cello fantasia based on Ernst's themes was "a match of mediocrity", but the Duke has worked his (lack of) magic on a far more formidable composer in von Suppe. This is not mediocre, but frankly dreadful, stuff. I,too,found the opening movement fairly promising,in a kind of extended overture style, but the work grew worse and worse as the deadly duo combined to produce a  total lack of symphonic mastery.  I am not going to buy this rubbish,much as I like Suppe.