Franz Lachner Symphony No.3

[Alan Howe]

Ps Is Mr Hurwitz ever enthusiastic about music?

Yes, but he has his opinions. I agree with him on the issue of HIP performances, but not with all his views on unsung composers. Hardly surprising.

[eschiss1]

For starters I do intend to compare the recording with the downloadable score, looking for specifically cut sections, for myself if no one else is interested in hearing about it - not today (busy!!) but soon...

[Alan Howe]

I'm certainly interested, Eric.

[Hector]

Me too Eric!

Thank you.

[Gareth Vaughan]

I also, Eric. Thank you very much.

[Mark Thomas]

Go for it Eric, and we'll all be grateful.

[Alan Howe]

The CD is (appreciatively) reviewed here:
http://www.musicweb-international.com/classrev/2018/Aug/Lachner_sy3_5550812.htm

[eschiss1]

Just listened to the first 3 movements of the cpo with the score to hand and found nothing cut that I can tell. The 3rd movement is taken at a clip, but "Andante con moto quasi Allegretto" is what it says and that's what it sounds like the performers do (which may end up being faster than the written eighth=88, will check ). About what -- approximate -- average metronome is the other/MIDI performance at in the 3rd movement if I may ask?

[Alan Howe]

There's a real puzzle here: the cpo 3rd movement takes 11:55, yet our friend John White says it should last over half an hour. There's something very wrong...

[JeremyMHolmes]

For what it's worth, I have done some 'sums' here based on the IMSLP score for the slow movement:
- it runs from page 133 to page 179
- there are no repeats marked
- there is only one metronome tempo indication at the beginning, quaver = 88
- I have counted 420 bars (I may not be spot on, I did this fairly quickly)
- that means effectively 1260 quaver beats
- divide this by 88 to get the time in minutes
- that works out to 14.3 minutes, i.e 14 mins 18 secs
- so the time taken of nearly 12 minutes on this CD is not so alarmingly brisk as we might have thought (more of a Jarvi-does-Raff approach)

If there is a flaw in my maths, please do shout out, I am as fallible as anyone else here, and my maths O Level was over 40 years ago!

[Mark Thomas]

Looks pretty conclusive to me, but not doubt John will put us right.

[eschiss1]

Scores and scans of scores from the 1830s are not optimally readable by modern standards, I've made some really silly mistakes in reading metronome marks and plate numbers in the past with more recent scores than these....

[JeremyMHolmes]

Listening to the opening of the third movement online, the tempo sounds fairly brisk, more like quaver = 100 than quaver = 88.

If you put that speed into my sums above, then it comes up with an estimated length of the movement at...... 12 minutes 

[Alan Howe]

Problem solved, I think. Well done, chaps!

[Gareth Vaughan]

Well, not really, Alan. We still don't know how John came up with the unrealistic 34 minutes for the length of the slow movt.