Albert Dietrich: symphony, violin concerto and overture, forthcoming from Naxos

[Alan Howe]

The new Naxos CD is a fine addition to the catalogue, with a 'middleweight' orchestra playing well under conductor Christoph König (I count 45 players in the photo on the back of the rather flimsy liner notes).
  I noted from the excerpts available online that the timps (and bass line in general) are particularly well defined, but I still have the feeling that the Symphony benefits from the richer sonority of the Oldenburg State Orchestra on cpo. Interestingly, the German notes are rather fuller than the English and state that it isn't difficult to hear the influence of the first movement of Dietrich's symphony upon Brahms' 1st. Maybe this new recording, with Naxos' famed wide distribution, will finally bring the work to a wider audience.

Incidentally, jpc are selling off their 2-CD set containing the Symphony and Violin Concerto (plus the Introduction and Romance for Horn and Orchestra, Op.27) for EUR 7.99, which is a terrific bargain. Buy it before it disappears!
https://www.jpc.de/jpcng/cpo/detail/-/art/Albert-Dietrich-1829-1908-Symphonie-d-moll-op-20/hnum/1448906

[Alan Howe]

The Overture in C major, published in 1882, is quite a heavyweight piece, extremely well done on this new Naxos CD. Of course, our friend Reverie, had already alerted us to its quality. 

[Mark Thomas]

Having sampled this new recording on YouTube I shan't be duplicating the cpo recording of the Symphony or Violin Concerto but the Overture is a welcome bonus. At under nine minutes this upbeat work is impressive and an object lesson: a composer with strong material maximising it's impact by resisting the urge to pad it out.  Contrast that with the way Erdmannsdörfer fatally diluted his Prinzessin Ilse Overture, as demonstrated by Reverie's drastic (but successful) surgery.

[Alan Howe]

I'm hoping the Violin Concerto will be the 'star turn' of the CD. More anon...

[Ilja]

Having now listened to the album, I hope I'm forgiven for voicing some slight disagreement with the consensus here thus far. For me, the König recording of the symphony is an interesting addition to the existing one under Rumpf, and the comparison doesn't end up in favour of the latter on all counts. König's tempi, but also the leaner orchestra and the somewhat more spacious recording, gives it a greater urgency than the older cpo recording. 
Because of Rumpf's larger forces and because it seems to have been much more closely miked, that recording therefore sounds more dense, which I'm not sure is all that fitting for a work from 1869. Rather, the soundscape is more late Brahms. This is particularly noticeable in the first movement. Having listened to König's scherzo, Rumpf also sounds a bit plodding, and the overall feel is less energetic. 
In the latter's favor, is a superior orchestra, but in hindsight I would argue that König comes closer to what Dietrich himself would have heard at the premiere (the Oldenburg Theatre orchestra was a smallish one, after all). To be sure, these are not huge differences, and the case for duplication is perhaps not very strong. But for those making their first purchase the choice is not all that obvious to me.

[Alan Howe]

I'm glad I bought the Naxos CD. The performance of the Symphony is sufficiently different from that on cpo to make comparisons interesting and worthwhile. However, I have always felt that the work is poised deliciously between Schumann and Brahms and that a greater weight of utterance actually suits the music - but this is a matter of personal preference. (I am not always convinced by the argument that a historically authentic-sized orchestra is necessary as the composer might actually have been visualising something beyond that which was available to him at the time in terms of orchestral resources.)

As I said before, it is my hope that the greater 'reach' of the Naxos empire will lead to public performances of this deserving symphony.

I haven't yet listened to the VC, so that pleasure now awaits...

[Ilja]

(I am not always convinced by the argument that a historically authentic-sized orchestra is necessary as the composer might actually have been imagining something beyond that which was available to him at the time in terms of orchestral resources.)

I don't think it necessary per se, but in this case I feel that the smaller size benefits the performance. This greater sense of nimbleness is helped by the way it was recorded and the resultant, more transparent sound. I find the cpo recording a bit dark.

[eschiss1]

When one speaks of the work as between the violin concertos of Schumann and Brahms (I assume? or just between their styles?) - if the former, did Brahms ever hear that work even in reduction, beyond perhaps seeing the manuscript? (Heck, did Dietrich?)

[Alan Howe]

I meant that the Symphony falls somewhere between Schumann and Brahms - it's darker in tone overall than any of Schumann's Symphonies and rather less 'athletic' in feel. I rather like the darker sonority on cpo,

Dietrich's VC is another matter - it's not really comparable in scope with Brahms' VC. I'd say it comes closer in idiom and ambition to either of Bruch's first two VCs and deserves the sort of attention now given to that of Schumann. The Naxos recording is, I think, outstanding: the orchestra doesn't sound at all underpowered (quite the opposite, in fact) and the soloist, Klaidi Sahatçi from Albania, is as splendid in the display passages as he is in the more lyrical moments. Overall, I prefer his performance to the ones on Schwann (deleted) and cpo.

[John Boyer]

did Brahms ever hear that work even in reduction, beyond perhaps seeing the manuscript? (Heck, did Dietrich?)

Joachim performed the work in rehearsal with the Hanover orchestra.  I also read that he performed the work in reduction with Clara Schumann.  Finally, there is a letter from Clara to Brahms asking him to revise the finale.  Whether or not he heard it, I think he was familiar with the score. 

[Alan Howe]

That's fascinating, John. I'm sure Brahms knew Dietrich's music as they moved in the same circles. However, Brahms intention, as with his two PCs, was clearly to write a more symphonic VC to put alongside Beethoven's.

Dietrich's VC, though, really should be played by all self-respecting virtuosos. A case could certainly be made for counting it the composer's finest composition.

[eschiss1]

Not did Brahms know Dietrich's music- that's obviously not what I meant (!?!)- did Dietrich know Schumann's concerto, obviously- but there's no way to answer that question without access to his correspondence or a worthy scholarly biography of him, neither of which seems to be available at this time, I believe...

Edit: ok, no edited collection of his correspondence that I know of, maybe, though actually, maybe?... hrmm - "Brief von Dietrich, Albert Hermann an Otto Wigand <Leipzig> in Leipzig" seems to be a book that has been uploaded, for example... - so...

[John Boyer]

We forget how close Dietrich was to the Schumann family. The Schumann Concerto was written in September and October 1853. There is a letter from Dietrich to Joachim from November 1853 in which he says he wishes he could join Brahms and Joachim in Hanover but cannot because of important family matters with the Schumanns that require him to remain in Düsseldorf with them. And it was Dietrich who wrote the letter in February 1854 informing Joachim and Brahms of Schumann's suicide attempt. It was Dietrich, then, who was closest to the Schumanns during the months following the concerto's composition. 

There is also a letter from Schumann to Joachim from November 1854 in which he writes, "If I could only hear my D minor Concerto played by you; Clara wrote so enthusiastically about it." So the Concerto was hardly a secret. I don't see how Dietrich could not have known about it.

In the August 2021 issue of the 19th Century Music Review there is an article titled "D-Minor Concertos and Symphonies of the Brahms–Schumann Circle in the 1850s: Cross-Relationships and the Influence of Beethoven" that discusses the mutual influences of the Schumann circle, including Dietrich's concerto.  Perhaps there are clues there.

[John Boyer]

Dietrich's VC, though, really should be played by all self-respecting virtuosos. A case could certainly be made for counting it the composer's finest composition.

Couldn't agree more!  It's a winner from beginning to end.

[Alan Howe]

All I was trying to say was that Dietrich's Symphony, in tone and scale, seems to look forward to Brahms, whereas the Violin Concerto, at least in terms of ambition, is more akin to the VCs of Schumann and Bruch (Nos.1 and 2). As for the exact relationship between Schumann's VC and Dietrich's, that's a different question: they're both in the same key, but are separated, of course, by some twenty years. There's also the rather disjointed performance history of Schumann's VC - as Wikipedia reports:

Composition
Schumann wrote it in Düsseldorf between 11 September and 3 October 1853 for the violinist Joseph Joachim. He had just previously completed another work for Joachim, the Fantasie in C major, Op. 131. On 1 October, the young Johannes Brahms entered Schumann's life. It appears that Schumann composed the finale of the Concerto in three days: 1–3 October, after making Brahms's acquaintance. Later in October, he collaborated with his new friend Brahms and his pupil Albert Dietrich in the 'F-A-E' Sonata for violin and piano, also written for Joachim.

Subsequent history and conflicting opinions
Though Joachim performed Schumann's Fantasie, he never performed the Violin Concerto. After playing it through with the Hannover Court Orchestra (of which Joachim was the concertmaster) for Schumann in October 1853, Joachim retained the manuscript for the rest of his life. After Schumann's attempted suicide in February 1854 and subsequent decline and death in a sanatorium in Endenich, Joachim evidently suspected the Concerto was a product of Schumann's madness and thought of the music as morbid. Joachim's biographer Andreas Moser reproduced a letter in which Joachim discussed Schumann's Concerto as showing 'a certain exhaustion, which attempts to wring out the last resources of spiritual energy', though 'certain individual passages bear witness to the deep feelings of the creative artist'.
  Joachim's opinion prevailed on the composer's widow Clara and on Brahms, and the work was not published in the Complete Edition of Schumann's works and was in effect kept secret throughout the 19th century. Brahms did however publish, in a supplementary volume of the Schumann Edition, 'Schumann's last musical thought', a theme on which Schumann had begun to compose variations in early 1854. Schumann had thought the theme had been dictated to him by the spirits of Mendelssohn and Schubert, no longer recognizing that it was a melody he had used in the slow movement of the Violin Concerto. Brahms also wrote a set of piano-duet variations on this theme, his Opus 23.

Spirit voices
Joachim deposited the manuscript of the concerto with the Prussian State Library in Berlin, and stated in his will (he died in 1907) that the work should be neither played nor published until 100 years after the composer's death, i.e. until 1956. However in March 1933, during a spiritualist séance in London attended by Joachim's two great-nieces, the sister violinists Jelly d'Arányi and Adila Fachiri, a spirit-voice identifying himself as Robert Schumann requested Miss d'Aranyi to recover an unpublished work of his (of which she claimed to have no knowledge) and to perform it. In a second message, this time from the spirit of Joachim, they were directed to the Prussian State Library.

Menuhin's involvement
Yet no more was heard for four years, until in 1937 Schott Music, the music-publisher in Mainz, sent a copy of the score to Yehudi Menuhin asking for an opinion. He played it through with Hephzibah Menuhin, and reported to the conductor Vladimir Golschmann in July 1937 that it was the historically missing link of the violin literature. Menuhin planned to deliver the world premiere at San Francisco, and announced it for 3 October, but was interrupted by the appearance of Jelly d'Aranyi, who claimed the right of first performance for herself on the basis of the spiritualist messages.

First performances and recording
However, all of this was to no avail, for the world copyright to the concerto was held in Germany, and the German government insisted on the world premiere being given by a German. Georg Kulenkampff had worked on the score in some detail to render it playable, with Paul Hindemith (who, though his own works were now prohibited from performance in Germany, prepared the violin-piano reduction) and with Georg Schünemann, and it was Kulenkampff who gave the first performance, on 26 November 1937, with the Berlin Philharmonic. Kulenkampff recorded it soon after the first performance. Menuhin gave the second performance, in the piano version, accompanied by Ferguson Webster, at Carnegie Hall, New York, on 6 December 1937, and repeated this with the St Louis Symphony Orchestra under Golschmann on 23 December. Jelly d'Aranyi gave the first London performance, with the BBC Symphony Orchestra at the Queen's Hall.
  The concerto slowly made its way into the concert repertoire and is now recognized as an important work of the composer.

Dietrich's concerto
Albert Dietrich, who must certainly have seen Schumann's Violin Concerto in the month of its completion, composed a Violin Concerto of his own in 1874, intended for Joachim, which is in the same key (D minor); Dietrich's finale however uses polka rather than polonaise rhythms. It is possible that it was influenced by his private knowledge of the unperformed work (though Brahms's influence is easier to detect).
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Violin_Concerto_(Schumann)