Joseph Rheinberger - Organ Concertos (Andreas Juffinger)

Information

Composer: Joseph Rheinberger

• (01) Organ Concerto No. 1 in F major, Op. 137
• (04) Suite for Violin and Organ in C major, Op. 166
• (08) Organ Concerto No. 2 in G minor, Op. 177

Andreas Juffinger, organ
Ernő Sebestyén, violin

Radio-Symphonie-Orchester Berlin
Hartmut Haenchen, conductor

Date: 1992
Label: Capriccio
http://capriccio.at/

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Review

Here’s old wine in a new bottle, a 1989–90 recording given the surround-sound SACD treatment. Presumably, the rear-channel ambience is artificially processed, which doesn’t really matter. What comes out of the front speakers is good and well balanced, although the orchestral strings lack the warmth and full definition of an original DSD recording.

Both the performances and the scores have aged pretty well. Rheinberger was a fine though not entirely distinctive composer of the mid to late 19th century; he was clearly influenced by Schumann and Brahms (the F-Major Concerto could almost pass for the latter), and ended up as something of a proto-Reger. His two concertos do not deserve their relative neglect, and Andreas Juffinger and Hartmut Haenchen serve them well, if not ideally. In his Telarc recording, Michael Murray seems more decisive and impulsive in the F-Major Concerto (he didn’t record the other), and the German musicians’ tempos in the G-Minor Concerto, with its Phantom of the Opera melodrama, can be listless, though not debilitatingly so. On the other hand, these musicians’ sober approach allows Rheinberger’s music to soar without giving it too hard a push. Soaring is something the op. 166 Suite for Violin and Organ can’t quite manage. It’s Romantic music inspired by Baroque formats, each of the four movements attractive in its own way but contributing no internal variety. Here, it’s all stately and well played, with Ernö Sebestyen employing a dark, viola-like tone in many passages.

-- James Reel, FANFARE

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Josef Rheinberger (17 March 1839, in Vaduz – 25 November 1901, in Munich) was an organist and composer, born in Liechtenstein and lived most of his life in Germany. The stylistic influences on Rheinberger ranged from Brahms to Mendelssohn, Schumann, Schubert and, above all, Bach. A distinguished teacher, his students included Ermanno Wolf-Ferrari, Engelbert Humperdinck, Richard Strauss and Wilhelm Furtwängler. Rheinberger was also a prolific composer. His works include twelve Masses, a Requiem, a Stabat Mater, several operas, symphonies, chamber music, and choral works.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Josef_Rheinberger

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