Édouard Lalo - Symphony in G minor; etc. (Giancarlo Andretta)

Information

Composer: Édouard Lalo

• (01) Symphony in G minor:
• (05) Rapsodie norvégienne:
• (07) Scherzo in D minor
• (08) 4 Divertissements (from opera "Fiesque")

Basel Symphony Orchestra
Giancarlo Andretta, conductor

Date: 1995
Label: cpo
https://www.jpc.de/jpcng/cpo/detail/-/art/Edouard-Lalo-1823-1892-Symphonie-g-moll/hnum/7192151

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Review

Lalo has two claims to fame – his enormously successful Symphonie espagnole and the fact that he shared a birthday (though not the year, of course) with Mozart: let astrologers find any link between these two Aquarians! Playing violin and viola in a string quartet, he gained no recognition as a composer until 1868, when he won third prize in a competition for a new opera with Fiesque (based on Schiller), though it was never performed. (The booklet-note is clearly wrong in saying he wrote it “at the beginning of the 1870s”.) Later, he drew from it an orchestral Divertissement and an Aubade for string quartet. The former, engagingly played here, proves to be a brightly scored set of four movements (the last the weakest musically) which none the less could well be heard more often at popular concerts. The Symphonie espagnole was followed up four years later with another show-piece for violin and orchestra, the Fantaisie norvegienne (incorporating genuine folk-tunes), which Lalo almost immediately adapted as an orchestral Rapsodie (dropping the national tag), exigently transferring the high-lying solo part to the violins as a body – an ordeal from which the Basle players emerge with great credit, though they are balanced too distantly, robbing them of their rightful brilliance. But Andretta is successful in restraining the brass, who in most performances are too noisy in the second movement.

The annotator is again all wrong about the remaining two works, stating that the symphony was written when Franck was completing his own symphony (it was in fact the other way about) and that Lalo was 61 when he composed the independent Scherzo. This enjoyably rumbustious movement was actually adapted from his A minor Piano Trio (written when he was 58) for the Exposition Universelle of 1889 (when he was 66)! As to the Symphony, it’s a work that over the years has won but few champions: its material is undistinguished, only the outer sections of the scherzo movement seizing the interest, though about the whole work there is a kind of determined cheerfulness. One needs a Beecham to make it sound better than it is: Andretta is no Beecham, but he does his best with a less than satisfying work. Never mind: the rest of this disc is more than acceptable.

-- Lionel Salter, Gramophone

More reviews:
http://www.amazon.com/Symphony-G-Minor-E-Lalo/dp/B000001RYY

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Édouard Lalo (27 January 1823 – 22 April 1892) was a French composer. Although Lalo is not one of the most immediately recognized names in French music, his distinctive style has earned him some degree of popularity. Lalo's music is notable for strong melodies and colourful orchestration, with a rather Germanic solidity that distinguishes him from other French composers of his era. His most celebrated piece is Symphonie espagnole, a popular work in the standard repertoire for violin and orchestra. His Symphony was a favorite of Thomas Beecham, while his Cello Concerto is also revived now and then.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/%C3%89douard_Lalo

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 Giancarlo Andretta (born 1962) is an Italian conductor and composer. He was Chief Conductor of the Aarhus SO, guest conductor at the Royal Opera House in Copenhagen, Principal Conductor of the Graz Opera, Artistic Director and Chief Conductor of the Orchestra del Teatro Olimpico in Vicenza and Orchestra Filarmonia Veneta, and Principal Guest Conductor and consultant at The Göteborg Opera. Now he is Principal Conductor of the Granada Symphony Orchestra. Andretta has been awarded with several prizes, and has recorded with orchestras such as the Bavarian RSO and the Vienna RSO.
https://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/Giancarlo_Andretta
http://en.opera.se/om-oss/personal/portratt/giancarlo-andretta/

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