Wilhelm Berger - Symphony No.1 Op.71

[Gareth Vaughan]

Amen to that.

[John Boyer]

Since I live in the States and happy with the digital format, I'll wait for Presto to put the MP3s on sale.

JPC's shipping charges to the United States are quite low. On a typical 2 CD order from them the charge is just over $4.00.  And on a recent 15 CD order it was $9.31.  That's better than I can get domestic. 

[Justin]

Album can be purchased for immediate download on Presto Music:

https://www.prestomusic.com/classical/products/9473403--konzertstuck-op-43a-symphony-op-71

John, yes the shipping price is quite reasonable. I've purchased from JPC before but have forgotten how low it was.

[Mark Thomas]

Download already available? That's annoying! Too late now to cancel my order for the CD.

[Alan Howe]

Timings:
Symphony No.1: 46:24 (Reverie's realisation - 46:58!)
Konzertstück: 30:16 (definitely a substantial piece!)

[Mark Thomas]

Indeed, the Konzertstück is a real bonus.

[hyperdanny]

Actually, the sample 1 was a jolt to me..wonderfully dark and dramatic

[Alan Howe]

Oliver Triendl has kindly replied to my email. This is what he says about the Konzertstück:

<<The Concert Piece is quite on the long side (for a concert piece) with some 30 minutes of duration - good piece!! As far as I know the piece was never published. The manuscript was found in Meiningen and cpo engraved the music specially for this recording.>>

Gareth: I have asked him about Straesser, Gernsheim and Ansorge.

[Justin]

Having listened to the whole album, I can say that the most accessible part is the Andante from the Symphony. Berger is very skilled at providing melancholy to his slow movement just like his second symphony, and although the initial theme is a bit repetitive, he covers it with different textures each iteration to keep it fresh. With the pizzicato of the lower strings, it reminds me of a murky cloudy day with soft raindrops.

The Concert Piece features the piano and unfortunately it didn't grab me at first listen, mainly because it sounds unstructured in my opinion. There are many ideas in it and perhaps I need to listen several times to fully grasp it. The introduction is a great setting of things to come, with somber yet atmospheric strings. "Atmosphere above all," as George Templeton Strong wrote on his later compositions!

The rest of the symphony is pleasant but it is constantly evolving that it cannot be fully comprehended in one setting. Looking forward to future listenings.

[Alan Howe]

Apart from the qualities of the Symphony itself, I think the wider question that this marvellous work poses is what happened to the symphonic tradition in the broad Austro-German tradition in the wake of Mahler.

To be frank, I am heartily sick of the 'Mahler phenomenon' in the recording industry. There are far too many unnecessary recordings being made - and all this does is to add ever more pages of reviews, thereby squeezing out any proper reflection on the wider symphonic repertoire. Of course, it was ever thus, but there must come a point when we must cry: "No more!"

And so to this superb Symphony by Berger...

[Alan Howe]

The Symphony might perhaps be described as post-Brahmsian, i.e. composed in the more conservative classical tradition, but we need to be careful because initially Berger regarded Wagner as the pre-eminent composer of the 19th century (calling him the 'greatest genius currently alive') rather than Brahms, so it would seem that 'post-Brahmsian' is actually an insufficient characterisation. The impish scherzo here, for example, doesn't sound like anything Brahms would have written. (It must, however, be made clear that Berger later warmed to Brahms, considering the latter's 4th Symphony the greatest since Beethoven.)

Berger was certainly not as radical as his almost exact contemporary Mahler, but is his music any less valuable? For me, after years of being assaulted by the Mahler phenomenon as if there's no other worthwhile music in the broad Austro-German symphonic tradition in the period 1888-1911, it's balm to the ears to discover a composer who proceeds compositionally in a less confrontational, more subtle manner every bit as masterfully as his great contemporary. So, when he 'hits' you, as he does in the slow movement, it's all the more powerful for emerging from a more restrained emotional musical setting.

Our culture today probably responds to a composer who 'lets it all hang out', but count me out!

[terry martyn]

Just finished my first playthrough.  There is a lot of meat to the bones, and it will require several more hearings before I can form a definite opinion.

[Alan Howe]

The contrast with Symphony No.2 is pretty extreme. The latter is a much richer, more chromatic, more 'Wagnerian' work than No.1. On this evidence it can hadly be said that Berger repeated himself - he most certainly did not. The mark, surely, of a composer of the first rank.

[terry martyn]

This is a very fine work indeed.

You have to sit down somewhere, without distractions, and listen very carefully. You will be rewarded, as this symphony will grow on you.  It is easier,first of all, to say what this is not. Not Brahmsian,Brucknerian,or Wagnerian. Not Leipzig School. Berger is his own man and this is not a derivative symphony, although I doubt whether he would have composed the second and third movements without a thorough knowledge of Mendelssohn.

I am not sure that this work would go down  comfortably with the paying public in the concert hall. It seems to me to be a work to provoke thought in solitude. Not that it is without melody: far from that, as one of the themes of the finale has stuck in my head. It is simply a work by someone who rises above the superficial and the merely well-crafted, and speaks to the soul.

[Alan Howe]

Here's my take:

Name a composer from the period who wrote two equally masterful but very different symphonies within a couple of years of each other. I can only think of.................Elgar.