Chris Fifield's new book...

[Alan Howe]

BACK TO THE BOOK....

[sdtom]

I'll await your evaluation of it Alan.
Tom

[Alan Howe]

I haven't received my copy yet. But I know roughly what's in it - and it contains a major surprise...

[giles.enders]

The point of this book for me is this:.  When one listens to mainstream composers, Beethoven, Tchaikovsky etc one eventually must ask, are these the only pieces worth hearing and why are they so frequently performed and by exploring their contemporaries one forms a judgement.  Some times one is pleasantly surprised.  Likewise with this book, it will help in highlighting works many of us have never heard and puts them in to context. 

[Alan Howe]

I have now received my copy and hope to pen a review here soon.

[Mark Thomas]

Now available for pre-order from amazon.co.uk (and my order is in).

[giles.enders]

I have just finished reading Chris's book which I have thoroughly enjoyed.  If I have a criticism, it needed to be more comprehensive, which would make the cost prohibitive. What it has given me is a greater insight about some of the composers featured. This is a book to keep for life and refer to after the first read. I commend it to all those who have hesitated in purchasing it so far. 

[Alan Howe]

Thanks, Giles.
As a matter of interest, in what way - or in what direction - would you have liked it to be more comprehensive?

[giles.enders]

I give two examples;
Where there are several symphonies by one composer, it singles out just one. This leaves me wondering about the others and if and how the composer progressed. The second is that a work by Fesca for example, is mentioned but there is no follow through.  I know he was a fine composer of chamber music so what happened to the symphony(s)
I do emphasise these are just niggles

[Alan Howe]

Review Article: The German Symphony between Beethoven and Brahms: the Fall and Rise of a Genre by Christopher Fifield (Ashgate Publishing, 2015)

This book, although relatively expensive at £70, is nevertheless a must-buy for all those interested in 19th century music, specifically the German classical (not programme) symphony as it developed in the half-century between the appearance of Beethoven's 9th in 1824 and Brahms' 1st in 1876.

Students of this period will no doubt know the German symphonies which have since become part of the standard repertoire, e.g. those by Mendelssohn and Schumann. Beyond these works, however, there are many by unfamiliar names which are barely known - if at all. And so Brahms' first essay in the form, published half a century after the death of Beethoven and a quarter of a century after Schumann's 4th , appears to arrive on the scene like lightning from a clear blue sky. And in some ways it did. Brahms' 1st was a clear attempt by the leading composer of the classical school to don the symphonic mantle of Beethoven – and, according to many (including Mr Fifield), the first wholly to succeed in doing so. Yet the reality is that the metaphorical clear blue sky was in fact not clear at all, for there were many composers working in the symphonic field during this period. Many have probably been justly forgotten. But some are at the very least worthy of investigation and performance. Others produced very fine symphonies – near-misses, as it were, when judged by the very highest standards, and even one or two which may be regarded as masterpieces in their own right. And so we discover that Brahms, whose 1st Symphony enjoyed a particularly long gestation period, was composing not in isolation, but in a context in which the symphony remained the high-point of musical endeavour and attempts at scaling this particular artistic Everest were frequent and often praiseworthy.

Fifield begins by proposing three criteria by which to judge the unfamiliar symphonies which he describes. They are: originality, development and influence – to which one might add the solving of the 'finale problem' in the wake of Beethoven 9. He then takes us on a decade-by-decade investigation of the lesser-known symphonies written thereafter, i.e:

•   The 1830s - principally "some fine works" by Louis Spohr, Johann Kalliwoda and Norbert Burgmüller.
•   The 1840s, which saw further symphonies by Spohr, Kalliwoda, Franz Lachner and also Franz Xaver Schnyder von Wartensee, as well as those by the "honorary German symphonists" Johannes Verhulst and Niels Gade.
•   Fifield's treatment of the 1850s is preceded by an important chapter on the dominant position of Leipzig which now became "part of the problem" in relation to the development of the symphony because the ethos there looked backwards to Mendelssohnian classicism. The decade also saw the growing divide between these conservatives and the progressives of the Weimar school, led by Liszt. Important symphonists such as Schumann and Spohr died and overall, despite some interesting contributions from, for example, Eduard Franck, Ferdinand Hiller, Julius Rietz and Carl Reinecke, the "green shoots of symphonic change" lay in the decade and half to come.
•   With the 1860s come four symphonists who "stand head and shoulders above the rest", i.e. Robert Volkmann (whose 1st Symphony is described as "undoubtedly a persuasive work"), Max Bruch, Joachim Raff and Albert Dietrich (the "rest" being represented here by Johann Abert, Woldemar Bargiel, Georg Vierling and Carl Reinthaler). Raff, quite rightly in the view of the present writer, is assessed as being "too reactionary" for the progressives and "too revolutionary" for the conservatives; nevertheless Fifield sums him up as "the best of the symphonists" in the period between Schumann and Brahms. Bruch's 2nd Symphony is then seen as a significant contribution, particularly on account of the 'big tune' which occurs in the finale and may have had some influence upon the similar passage in the last movement of Brahms 1. The chapter closes with a consideration of the D minor Symphony by Dietrich, whose "three far finer movements" are followed by a weaker finale, and the first two symphonies of the highly original Felix Draeseke. "As the unacknowledged leading symphonist of his day, in the late 1860s to mid-1870s, Draeseke cuts a very solitary figure", writes Fifield. In making such an assessment the author is breaking new critical ground – justifiably so in the opinion of the present writer.
•   In the period 1870-1876 the symphonic momentum continues to gather pace. Friedrich Gernsheim's 1st Symphony has its "Brahms moments", as does Hermann Goetz's Symphony in F, and finally we alight on the (as yet unrecorded) Symphony in D minor by Julius Otto Grimm, whose second movement closes in a manner suggestive of the introduction to the opening movement of Brahms' 1st. The time was indeed right for the emergence of Brahms' masterpiece. But it hadn't come as lightning from a clear blue sky at all; Brahms had first "watched, listened and waited" before attempting to don the mantle of Beethoven.

This book began life as a PhD thesis, but reads like a musicological detective story. It is an extremely important contribution to the understanding of the development of the Symphony in the nineteenth century.

Perhaps the author might now be persuaded to attempt an examination of the development of the Symphony in Austria in the wake of Beethoven, starting with Schubert and taking in Johann Rufinatscha before considering how Anton Bruckner donned the mantle of Beethoven in his own way. After all, culturally speaking Vienna – where Schubert, Rufinatscha and Bruckner lived and worked - was essentially in continuity with what later became the German Empire; and Brahms settled there in 1868, as Beethoven had done for considerable periods of his life. It would make a fascinating pendant to an already indispensable volume.

[sdtom]

I just can't afford the price at this time. I've requested that the library puts it into our system. In the meantime I'll wait for the two Raff books.
Tom

[Mark Thomas]

Thanks for that very thorough review, Alan. I'll look forward to reading my copy...

[sdtom]

My library came through for me and ordered a copy!
Tom

[Alan Howe]

That's good news, Tom.

[Mark Thomas]

My copy has arrived. I might be quiet for a little while....