Emánuel Moór - Symphony No.5

[Reverie]

Here is my realisation of Emánuel Moór's 5th symphony in A minor, Op.53B (1901)

The work is unpublished and obviously unperformed.

The movements are as follows:

1. Allegro moderato (Maestoso)

2. Adagio

3. Scherzo - presto

4. Allegro moderato

The last page has this note after the final bar: Hotel Fürstenhof, Frankfurt 10th January 1901


LINK:  https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EMZ-oD9OLPk

[Alan Howe]

Marvellous, Martin! All work on Moór's music is to be very warmly welcomed. Please excuse my minor adjustment to the spelling of the composer's name.

[Gareth Vaughan]

Many thanks indeed for this work, Martin. I enjoyed your realisation very much. It is an accomplished work, though not IMHO a particularly distinguished one. It has some attractive orchestration, but is short on memorable melodic content. Nevertheless, as I said, a most enjoyable listen - and I have a feeling my initial impression may improve on further hearings. I am extremely grateful to have been given, through you, an opportunity to hear this symphony. As Alan says, all work on Moor's music is always exceedingly welcome.

[Alan Howe]

As usual with Moór's music there's a lot 'going on', which I find fascinating. I echo Gareth's comments about the ultimate memorability of the material, but then I'm only on my first listen and I'm sure more will be revealed on subsequent auditions. My suspicion is that Moór's style became more austere with time, but that may just be a feature of this symphony.

Just to recap, these are the composer's symphonies:

No.1 in E minor, no opus no. (1893) - MS
No.2 in C major 'In Memoriam Ludwig Kossuth', no opus no. (1895) - Simrock
No.3 in D minor, Op.44B (1895) - pub. Rozsavölgyi
No.4 in B flat, no opus no. (1898) - Schmid
No.5 in A minor, Op.53B (1901) - unpub.
No.6 in E minor, Op.65 (1906) - pub. Siegel
No.7 in C major, Op.67 (1906) - pub. Siegel
Pensées Symphoniques, Op.75 (1908) - pub. Mathot
No.8 in A minor, Op.92 (1910) - unpub.

[eschiss1]

Opening is promising, will hear the whole thing hopefully this evening- looking forward to it. Is anyone willing to make mp3s available, does Rêverie have issues with that though? What he does have is my thanks as a fan...

[Ilja]

This symphony, marked Op. 53b, follows a Cello Sonata Op. 53, also in A minor. I have not compared them extensively, but they obviously share some material (and some movement titles). That original may also go some way to explain the austerity that Alan speaks of.

Around 1900, a very active period of composition started for Móor, particularly of orchestral works, with four further symphonies (when including Pensées Symphoniques, 1906-1910), the 2nd Cello Concerto in C sharp minor (1906), the 3rd Violin Concerto in E minor (1906), the Cello Double Concerto in D major (1907), and the Triple Concerto in E minor (1907). No fewer than 39 opus numbers separate the 5th symphony of 1901 from the 8th of 1910. While that's an impressive rate of production, many of the works from this period feel eerily similar. Moór's range of orchestral expression wasn't the broadest, I'd say (he's a bit like Smetana in that regard), and while it's always solid I feel myself drawn more to his earlier repertoire, which seems not quite as routine as the pieces from this period.

[eschiss1]

Looking again at that worklist, I'm suddenly intrigued by the question of whether or not any of his operas will ever receive modern production, and what they're like (including a 2-act setting of Sawitri, WoO 160, that I am going to guess is not much like Holst's- assuming the subject's even the same.)

[Alan Howe]

I'd say that was a fairly distant possibility. We don't even have a commercial recording of any of his symphonies.