Felix Weingartner - Symphony No. 1; König Lear (Marko Letonja)

Information

Composer: Felix Weingartner

1. König Lear, symphonic poem, Op. 20
2. Symphony No. 1 in G major, Op. 23: I. Allegro moderato grazioso
3. Symphony No. 1 in G major, Op. 23: II. Allegretto alla Marcia
4. Symphony No. 1 in G major, Op. 23: III. Vivace scherzoso
5. Symphony No. 1 in G major, Op. 23: IV. Allegro vivo

Basel Symphony Orchestra
Marko Letonja, conductor

Date: 2004
Label: cpo

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Review

ARTISTIC QUALITY: 9 / SOUND QUALITY: 9

Only three years’ Mahler’s junior, Felix Weingartner (1863-1942) writes like a member of the older generation, but that’s not a bad thing at all given the results on display here. This is delightful music. King Lear sounds a bit tame, and for all its programmatic specificity could be about anything at all (though there is an effective storm scene); but it’s surprisingly well constructed along Lisztian lines and it wears its 22 minutes lightly.

The symphony is better still. It sounds like the love child of Beethoven’s Sixth and Seventh, with a freshness and innocence that recalls a work that Weingartner later premiered (in 1935) but could not possibly have known in 1898 because it hadn’t yet been discovered: Bizet’s Symphony in C. In both symphonies you find good tunes, a strict approach to established forms, and charming orchestration with especially perky wind writing. If Weingartner had had the courage to add triangle and tambourine to the finale’s second subject, you might mistake it for something by Borodin or Balakirev.

Conservative or not, this is just plain lovable music. The performances are very good, a bit cautious sounding in King Lear and in the first movement of the Symphony, but well played and well recorded. I could do with less back-channel ambience in multi-channel format, however. If Weingartner keeps up this level of quality in future releases (this is Volume 1 of a projected series), we may have another first-rate composer who also happened to conduct (rather than the other way around) on our hands.

-- David Hurwitz, ClassicsToday

More reviews:
https://www.theguardian.com/music/2005/jan/14/classicalmusicandopera.shopping
https://www.amazon.com/Weingartner-Symphony-No-1-Felix/dp/B0002ONAHE

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Felix Weingartner (2 June 1863 – 7 May 1942) was an Austrian conductor, composer and pianist. He studied at the Leipzig Conservatory, and was one of Franz Liszt's last pupils in Weimar. Weingartner was the first conductor to make commercial recordings of all nine Beethoven symphonies, and the second to record all four Brahms symphonies. Despite his lifelong career as a conductor, Weingartner regarded himself as equally, if not more importantly, a composer. Besides numerous operas, Weingartner wrote seven symphonies, a sinfonietta, violin concerto, cello concerto, orchestral works, string quartets, quintets and lieder.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Felix_Weingartner

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Marko Letonja (born August 12, 1961) is an Slovenian conductor. Letonja studied piano and conducting at the Academy of Music in Ljubljana. Following his studies with conductor Otmar Suitner at the Academy for Music and Theater in Vienna, Letonja went on to be music director of the Slovenian Philharmonic Orchestra from 1991 to 2003 and Music Director and Chief Conductor of both the Symphony Orchestra and the Opera in Basel from 2003 to 2006. Since 2012, Letonja has served as the chief conductor of the Orchestre Philharmonique de Strasbourg and as the chief conductor and artistic director of the Tasmanian Symphony Orchestra.
https://www.allmusic.com/artist/marko-letonja-mn0002189240

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