Gramophone – September 2019

gramophone.co.uk GRAMOPHONE SEPTEMBER 2019 51

repeat(ashedoesintheSecond),and

shapeslinesbeautifully,especiallyinthe

flowingAndantesostenuto.Thethird-

movementUnpocoallegrettoegraziosois

alittlebreathlessattimesbutZehetmair

encouragesanunbuttoned,joyousfinale.

TheSecond–themostSchubertian

ofthefoursymphonies–glowsinsunny

Dmajor,unfurledherewiththegreatest

ofeaseandcharm,thebestaccountinthis

set.Zehetmairallowshisoboeplentyof

roomatthestartoftheAdagionontroppo,

pointedwithdeliciouslittlehesitations.

Thefinaleispropelledexuberantlytowards

itsclimax.

ZehetmairgivestheThirdaswift

reading,bringingbrusqueimpetuosity

tothefirstmovement,butthere’sbalm

tothewarmclarinettoneintheAndante.

HekeepsthePocoallegrettoonthemove–

Iwouldhavelikedmoreofawallowhere,

oratleastsometimetobreathe–whereas

Ticciatitreatsthismovementohso

tenderly.AlthoughtheSwissstringsaren’t

weighty,Zehetmairdrawsthestormiest

responseinthefinalebeforeitscurious,

low-keysign-off.

TheFourthopensitsblossomsgradually,

alovingperformancethathighlightssome

wonderfulwoodwindexchanges.Zehetmair

seguesstraightintothesecondmovement,

whichthenfeelslikeanaturalextensionof

thefirst.TheAllegrogiocosobustlesalong

andthelackofstodgeinthepassacaglia

finaleiswelcome.

Amiableperformances,then,ifhardly

asrevelatoryasTicciati’sSCOaccounts.

MarkPullinger

Selectedcomparison–coupledasabove:

SCO,Ticciati(4/18)(LINN)CKD601

Braunfels

Hebridentänze,Op 70 a. OrchestralSuite,Op48.

Sinfoniaconcertante,Op 68 b

bErnstKovacicvnbThomasSelditzvaaPiersLane

pfBBCConcertOrchestra/ JohannesWildner

DuttonEpochFÍCDLX7355(81’• DDD/DSD)

According to Michael

Haas’s invaluable

Forbidden Music

(Yale UP: 2013),

Walter Braunfels chose mental rather than

physical emigration after the Nazis hounded

him out of his job at the Cologne Music

Academy – believing himself to be ‘a stone

in the dam that was keeping evil from

flooding everything’. One of the first

‘exile’ works that he completed, in 1936

(though he seems to have started it at

least four years earlier), was the Orchestral

Suite in E minor, recorded here for the

first time.

Like the orchestral suites of Enescu

and Dohnányi, it’s not quite what you

might call symphonic (at least not in the

Brahmsian sense) but it’s large in scale

and unmistakably serious in purpose.

Braunfels’s movement titles evoke the

Baroque era – there’s a Präludium and

a Sarabande – but the sound world is one

in which late Romanticism has started to

darken and grow chilly. The big, lowering

central Marsch evokes Mahler one

moment, Kurt Weill the next; and the

second-movement Courante takes Bach’s

A minor Fantasia and transforms it into a

Totentanz: a musical symbol of German

culture’s acceleration into the abyss.

Followers of the Braunfels revival will

certainly want to hear this, and Wildner

and his BBC forces go at it with a nervous,

insistent energy that actually suits the

music’s essentially tragic character well –

as does the bass-heavy recorded sound. The

other two (post-war) works are not new to

disc but Piers Lane is easily the most alert

and engaging pianist on record in the

Hebridentänze (a sort of post-Romantic

Scottish Fantasy for piano and orchestra)

and the slightly rough-cut solo playing in

ORCHESTRAL REVIEWS

Ludovic Morlot directs the Seattle Symphony Orchestra in assured performances of music by John Luther Adams

PHOTOGRAPHY:

JAMES HOLT