Bendix Symphonies 1 & 3

[eschiss1]

Well, if one has YouTube premium, it's one thing. I do subscribe to Amazon unlimited, but listening to things with YouTube means ads randomly placed everywhere (and not just for copyrighted works, and performances there without permission. Mind, I suppose there's a question whether the video I was listening to of a recital performance of Draeseke's clarinet sonata a couple of days ago- one of his most performed and uploaded works- was using the Kistner or Wollenweber edition, but I don't know if YouTube really cared...)
Anyhow, enough griping on my part, you do have a good point on the whole, and there are things only available one way and only available the other...

[Alan Howe]

Oh, I'll wait; Bendix is not that central to my happiness. Anyhow, Danacord's archaic web site does suggest that they haven't fully embraced the digital age yet.

It's a dacapo release, thank goodness. (I get them muddled up too!)

[Maury]

I'm not the biggest advocate for Danish composers as even Nielsen has failed to really register with me despite repeated listens. However I do find Victor Bendix rather interesting and I like the general way he handles the orchestra. His symphonic progression is a bit unusual for the times I think. The Symphony 1 seems influenced by Schumann and early Bruckner (it was roughly contemporaneous with the B7) while the Symphony 4 is heading towards the Sibelius of Sym 3 and 6. It was written while Sibelius was composing the Symphony 3. His music lacks a certain clarity of phrase structure but is still interesting. I find a mild parallel with the Swiss Robert Hermann who is also a bit enigmatic.

[Alan Howe]

Nielsen is a radical symphonist. Even his 1st Symphony is like a stiff breeze blowing in the muggy sludge of late-romanticism with all its excesses. Bendix is an individual voice too, but one who takes the musical apparatus of the more progressive composers of his day and produces his own rather particular blend. Speaking personally, I don't hear any pre-echoes of his younger Scandinavian contemporaries such as Nielsen or Sibelius whose idioms are far more pungent and personal than the rather milder, but still attractive music of Bendix.

[Justin]

Bendix and Hermann have more in the way of discernable melodies than Nielsen, particularly Bendix's 3rd symphpony.

[Maury]

I don't hear any pre-echoes of his younger Scandinavian contemporaries such as Nielsen or Sibelius whose idioms are far more pungent and personal than the rather milder, but still attractive music of Bendix.

My post referenced the Symphonies 3 and 6 of Sibelius which I don't think fit a description of pungent but all this is subjective. I didn't mention Nielsen as a point of contact with Bendix but was just noting my inability to connect with his music. FWIW Bendix is the Danish composer I find most listenable. I was mostly remarking on the unusual progression from a 3Q 19th C Romantic symphony 1 to a quite different and not at all neo-Romantic Symphony 4 that one would have expected but something moving to a lighter style. I look forward to the Da Capo releases because I only heard the Omsk CDs but can't find them in the usual places.

[Alan Howe]

All I was suggesting is that the more powerful and progressive idioms of Nielsen and Sibelius (both very different from each other) are quite different from the much milder but still interesting voice of Bendix. I simply don't hear much more than an incidental likeness to the music of those two much greater composers. But that's just how I hear him. So, for example, Nielsen is a much more thorny listen, probably even than Sibelius; both offer excitements in their music that are far in advance of Bendix - so much so that comparisons are, to my mind, rather forced, whereas consideration of Bendix's predecessors/contemporaries, e.g. Schumann, Liszt, Wagner, Bruckner and maybe some of the Russian nationalists is more likely, I think, to help us identify the influences upon his music.

[eschiss1]

Justin- er, how much Nielsen do you know?

[Maury]

I regret even mentioning Nielsen en passant.

[Alan Howe]

Anyone should like Nielsen's 1st. Try this splendid performance:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UkhRX2vL-LY

[eschiss1]

I was thinking, in terms of memorable themes, his songs/vocal works, actually. Eg the early Sømmersang from the Op.10 set, or several others...

[Justin]

Yes I was referring to his symphonies, Eric. Tunge, Mørke Natteskyer is a great song, so I agree with you on the vocal works.

Anyway back to Bendix: The third movement Marcia solenne. Andante sostenuto from the first symphony will be released tomorrow. https://www.prestomusic.com/classical/products/9640032--symphony-no-1-in-c-major-op-16-ascension-iii-marcia-solenne

I assume this is a teaser by Dacapo to create interest.

Alan do you know what the recording dates are for this according to your CD? Perhaps we will get the other two symphonies in a similar timeframe.

[Alan Howe]

The recordings were made between 7th and 10th June 2022.

[eschiss1]

Symphonies 1 & 3 are now available on Presto and Amazon as of late last month, I see...

[Ilja]

Of course, Bendix started out about ten years before either Sibelius or Nielsen, and that was a very important ten years; at this time Gade's influence was still very noticeable in Denmark, and also as Bendix's teacher. Probably as a consequence, Bendix's first symphony sounds quite Mendelssonian in places, particularly the middle movements. On the other hand, it is a cyclical work composed in C major, a key that Gade never used for a symphony. Bendix's set of four symphonies shows us the development of a composer influenced by Gade and Liszt in No. 1 to someone who'd clearly heard Nielsen in No. 4.

To come back to this recording, it is obviously a huge improvement over the old Shestakov set, and well played. The standout here, in every way, is No. 3, and to me this is pretty much perfectly executed. I have some niggles about the first though; the first movement still is troppo Adagio for me, while the finale, particularly the first half, sounds too animato for my liking. Despite that, I hope Dacapo will continue in their effort and give us the other two symphonies.