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Friday, November 10, 2017

Karl Goldmark - Symphony No. 1; Der gefesselte Prometheus (Frank Beermann)


Information

Composer: Karl Goldmark
  1. Overture, Op. 38 'Der gefesselte Prometheus'
  2. Symphony, Op. 26 'Ländliche Hochzeit': I. Hochzeitsmarsch
  3. Symphony, Op. 26 'Ländliche Hochzeit': II. Brautlied
  4. Symphony, Op. 26 'Ländliche Hochzeit': III. Serenade
  5. Symphony, Op. 26 'Ländliche Hochzeit': IV. Im Garten
  6. Symphony, Op. 26 'Ländliche Hochzeit': V. Tanz

Robert-Schumann-Philharmonie
Frank Beermann, conductor

Date: 2016
Label: cpo


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Review

‘Clear cut and faultless’ was Brahms’s judgement on Karl Goldmark’s Rustic Wedding Symphony, first performed in 1876. Though its bucolicism is an acquired taste, it has never lacked admirers, and its discography includes distinguished versions by Beecham, Abravanel and Bernstein.

Don’t be put off here, though, by an absence of ‘big names’. Frank Beermann and the Chemnitz-based Robert-Schumann-Philharmonie offer a breezily energetic performance, done with plenty of panache and wit, closer in style to Beecham’s spirited elegance than Bernstein’s comparative weight. The structure continues to surprise: Goldmark opens with a swirling set of folk-based variations, reserving sonata form for his breakneck finale. The debt to Brahms is very apparent, but the woodwind-writing in the amorous ‘Im Garten’ section and the string fugato that kicks off the final dance also reveal a familiarity with The Bartered Bride. The playing is virtuoso, though clarity comes at the price of a lack of warmth in the strings.

The coupling, however, is striking. Unusually for a late-19th-century composer Goldmark ignored the perceived Wagner-Brahms dichotomy (though he was dismayed by Wagner’s anti-Semitism), and his Aeschylus-inspired 1890 concert overture Prometheus Bound attempts a fusion of formal rigour with chromatic intensity and orchestral complexity. A slow introduction, winding upwards Norn-like on strings and woodwind, leads to a massive single-movement sonata that develops themes associated with the chained titan’s angry defiance and the humanity he has aided against the gods’ wishes.

Beermann conducts with measured intensity. The brass-playing has tremendous majesty, nowhere more so than in the hefty first statement of Prometheus’s theme against a lurching string tremolando, while the complex woodwind counterpoint that ushers in human aspiration is eloquent in the extreme. A gripping rarity, finely done.

-- Tim Ashley, Gramophone

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Karl Goldmark (May 18, 1830 – January 2, 1915) was a Hungarian-born Viennese composer. Came from a large Jewish family, he briefly studied at the musical academy of Sopron, Vienna Technische Hochschule and then to the Vienna Conservatory, but was largely self-taught as a composer. Among Goldmark's best known works are the Rustic Wedding Symphony Op. 26, the opera Die Königin von Saba Op. 27, and the Violin Concerto No. 1 Op. 28. Goldmark's chamber music, influenced by Schumann's and Mendelssohn's, although critically well received in his lifetime, is now rarely heard.

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Frank Beermann (born 13 March 1965 in Hagen, Westphalia) is a German conductor. He studied at the Hochschule für Musik Detmold. Beermann became Generalmusikdirektor of the Robert-Schumann-Philharmonie in Chemnitz in 2007. He was also Generalmusikdirektor at the Chemnitz Opera for several years, and left the opera house after the 2015/2016 season to work as a freelance conductor. Beermann recorded several works by Robert Schumann with the orchestra named after him, and has conducted premieres and recordings of rarely performed operas and orchestral works.

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