Paul Büttner: Symphony No. 2, A Vision, Heroic Overture

[Tapiola]

Just stumbled upon this new CPO release that includes the works displayed on the thread title:

https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=OLAK5uy_nSgfJaAp-ipplN5iMR_YJHKcAxMx0MrUY

It never ceases to baffle me why these releases appear first on streaming platforms rather than on the official website. Anyway, looks like a new and promising project that hopefully will record all of his symphonies and orchestral works.

[Alan Howe]

Yes, almost like a preview, except that one can hear the whole thing! Very strange. Symphony No.2 in G major dates from 1908, incidentally. Right up my street - thanks!

Download details here: https://www.prostudiomasters.com/album/page/305338

[Alan Howe]

Büttner's 2nd Symphony is predominantly a good-humoured work demonstrating a real command of the late-romantic orchestra (e.g. gorgeous writing for the brass). It is in three movements (10:31; 10:42; 14:44), with a central movement Scherzo.

This has really lightened my mood this evening. Thanks so much to Tapiola for spotting it!

[eschiss1]

Looking forward to. I've heard his 3rd (in D-flat, ending in c-sharp minor) recently while borrowing the interesting score. Thanks! And I agree, hope cpo intends to, or already has, recorded the first and third for release in a reasonable timeframe

[Alan Howe]

And I agree, hope cpo intends to, or already has, recorded the first and third for release in a reasonable timeframe

Well, yes: we can hope, but this new recording isn't even listed at jpc - yet.

[Ilja]

This looks like a mishap; it's surprisingly easy to set a YT video to "public" by accident.

In which case it cannot help but ponder the coincidence that one of the two bridges in the cover image (the Carolabrücke, or rather its second incarnation) spontaneously collapsed earlier this year.

[tuatara442442]

This CD is available for streaming first, it seems. Spotify also have it now.
I absolutely love the heroic overture. Now we get another commerical release after the one on Sterling and a broadcast!

[tuatara442442]

Also I just discovered that the Sterling version of the Heroic Overture is cut. The new recording has more music in the second subject section.
The vibrant triangle is also to be welcomed, which is inaudible in the Sterling version.

[Alan Howe]

Looks like this'll be an altogether excellent release.

[Ilja]

This is unusual practice for cpo, who tend to restrict access to other formats for the first weeks after the physical CD release. I can only assume that the orchestra preferred this way.

But whatever the marketing considerations, thankfully the symphony is excellent, and so is the performance. This is a prime example of how a good recording can really bring out the best in a musical work. Not that the old Pflüger recording (with the Leipzig RSO) was awfully played, but the sound was quite bad and the recording balance was also off (favoring the left side of the orchestra). Also, it contained sizeable cuts in the second and third movements, which partly explains the six-minute difference. Weigle's recording with the as-usual excellent Frankfurt/Oder orchestra, appears to be complete, and all these differences make the work sound notably more substantial than it might have appeared from the old recording.
 
The setup of the symphony is somewhat unusual; the outer movements contain both faster and slower sections, while the middle movement is rather fast. Büttner is often cast as a Brucknerite, but the evidence here points at a different inspiration in the form of Richard Strauss, and when looking for other influences it made me think most of Emil von Reznicek. Listen to this, and then to Reznicek's Wie Till Eulenspiegel lebte, for instance. The delightful, fleet-footed Scherzo middle movement is perhaps the clearest example, and it is full of humorous, quirky play with rhythm. There are some Brucknerian moments, most notably at the slow beginning of the finale, but they never last long.

Bruckner's influence returns in the understandably much more sombre Eine Vision (1920). However, it sounds much more modern than the symphony, let alone Bruckner himself. The work opens with a reference to Beethoven's Eroica, which then quickly dissipates into a faux regimental march in what one assumes is a reference to historical events. Particularly in the Fugue middle movement Büttner plays around with dissonance, and the end result comes across as somewhat similar to the way in which Ravel's La Valse reflects on the carelessness of pre-WW1 Vienna. The Epilogue third movement is more tangibly Brucknerian, however. The piece as a whole feels intensely bleak but is perhaps also the most powerful of Büttner's works. It contrasts very well with an almost jolly symphony.

That bleakness had apparently evaporated when Büttner wrote the Heroische Ouvertüre in 1925. It could have been written ten or twenty years earlier, and despite all its earnestness it sounds not nearly as personal as either of the other works on offer here.

Altogether, without a shadow of a doubt, my recording of the year sofar. Five days until Stöhr #2. This'll be a good week.

[Alan Howe]

Great review, Ilja - thanks. Büttner's really gone up in my estimation as a result of this release. And don't the orchestra play brilliantly? You're right about the influences on the Symphony - there's certainly Strauss, and also something of Reznicek's sardonic humour, and I detect Draeseke too (Büttner was one of his pupils, of course).

[Alan Howe]

Presto are now listing the download:
https://www.prestomusic.com/classical/products/9730076--paul-buttner-symphony-no-2-vision

[Alan Howe]

Has anyone noticed the Rosenkavalier-like section from around 8:30 in the first movement of the Symphony? Except that Büttner got there first...

[Alan Howe]

The CD has now suddenly appeared out of nowhere at jpc:
https://www.jpc.de/jpcng/cpo/detail/-/art/paul-buettner-symphonie-nr-2/hnum/11166104

[Alan Howe]

And the CD has now arrived here in the UK from jpc...

I note, by the way, that this recording wasn't made in connection with a radio broadcast. I don't know whether that's significant.

The playing and sonics are very good: I rather like the spacious acoustic of the Messehalle No.1 in Frankfut (Oder) - the town is located close to Germany's eastern border with Poland, incidentally.

I hear a lot of Draeseke in the music on this CD, mostly in the contrapuntal mastery of the writing on display. I suppose the Symphony is the most Straussian of the three works included and, for that reason, and for its generous spirit, it is likely to be the most widely appreciated of the trio recorded here. All in all, a most interesting and attractive disc of late-romantic music.