A belated thank you for your support, Antonio.

Saturday, March 14, 2020

Paul Hindemith - Orchestral Music (Herbert Kegel; Otmar Suitner; Hans Sandig)


Information

Composer: Paul Hindemith

CD1:
  • (01) Symphony 'Mathis der Maler'
  • (04) Concerto for trumpet, bassoon and strings
  • (07) Nobilissima visione
CD2:
  • (01) Symphony in E flat
  • (05) Symphonia serena
CD3:
  • (01) Symphony 'Die Harmonie der Welt'
  • (04) Pittsburgh Symphony
Dresdner Philharmonie
Herbert Kegel, conductor

CD4:
  • (01) Der Schwanendreher
  • (04) Trauermusik
Alfred Lipka (1-3) & Davia Binder (4-7), viola
Leipzig Radio Symphony Orchestra
Herbert Kegel, conductor
  • (08) Symphonic Metamorphosis after Themes by Carl Maria von Weber
Staatskapelle Dresden
Otmar Suitner, conductor

CD5:
  • (01) Wir bauen eine Stadt
  • (13) Kinderlieder
Rundfunk-Vorschulkinderchor Leipzig
Kleiner Rundfunk-Kinderchor Leipzig
Rundfunk-Kinderchor Leipzig
Instrumental Ensemble
Hans Sandig, conductor

Recording: 1969-1985
Release: 2013
Label: Brilliant Classics
https://www.brilliantclassics.com/articles/h/hindemith-orchestral-music/


----------------------------------------------------------------------------

Review

Brilliant Classics does nothing by halves. This Hindemith collection across 4 CDs draws together many of Hindemith's most prominent orchestral works and adds a fifth setting out one of his works for schoolchildren, Wir bauen eine Stadt.

Herbert Kegel (1920-1990) presides over the first four discs with recordings from the 1980s. He is hardly a celebrated figure from the perspective of today. However he was a very major player in the music scene of the DDR as can be gathered from the Kegel set put out by Berlin Classics in 2002. He was principal conductor of the Dresden Philharmonic from 1977 to 1985 but served three decades from 1970 with the Leipzig Radio Orchestra with whom he is heard on CD 4 in a recording from 1969 of two works for viola and orchestra.

These accounts are good but not outstanding given the brightly lit sound which is vivid but not especially refined. Kegel certainly pours ardour into these scores with their monumental striding violin writing. This is heard to typically sturdy effect in the Symphony Mathis der Maler. The latest work (1949-52) on CD 1 is for the unpredictable pairing of trumpet and bassoon in a Concerto for those two instruments and strings. In fact those two instruments blend and caper rather smoothly in this cheekily clever three-movement piece. It relaxes for a haunting Molto Adagio before returning to japes for a very short Vivace. The trumpeter, Ludwig Güttler, was renowned East of the Berlin Wall and recorded extensively. His legacy can be sampled on various discs from Berlin Classics, Carus and Capriccio. The suite from Nobilissima Visione is brimful of character and benefits from a cheery Marsch. By coincidence Naxos has recently issued the complete ballet.

On CD 2 the Symphony in E flat from 1940 is rumbustiously energetic, archingly severe, cheerily athletic and thoughtful. The performance is nicely balanced but when it comes to burning intensity does not equal that on Everest from Sir Adrian Boult with the LPO; pity about the somewhat distressed Everest sound, but what a performance. Consistent with its name the Symphonia Serena, premiered by the Dallas Symphony and Antal Dorati, is of elevated emotional content. Only in the finale does Hindemith's predilection for a sort of heartlessly clever hyper-activity cast a slight pall.

On CD 3 we encounter the Harmonie der Welt Symphony written for the Minneapolis Orchestra. This is another big-scaled work based on an opera on the life of the astronomer Johannes Kepler. This is a fine performance with an especially affective middle movement, Musica Humana. If you want to hear an even more heatedly emotional reading then do try to track down the Mravinsky/Leningrad performance on B MG-Melodiya. The Harmonie symphony is followed by the strenuous heroics of the 1958 Pittsburgh Symphony in a hearty recording from the 1980s; as is the Harmonie der Welt. The long central Slow March movement again taps Hindemith's gift for sincere and thoughtful music. It's superbly done by Kegel. Hindemith was often at his best when tackling adagios and andantes. His faster music was prone to a certain hardness of heart.

CD 4 comprises a very forward and vivid sounding Schwanendreher concerto, sounding more alive and agreeably bright than the later recordings on CDs 1-3. It's a vivid performance too from violist Alfred Lipka who here enjoys a Heifetz-style spotlight - well, perhaps one step back from that. The recording is pretty impressive for 1969. It's one of Hindemith's most humane and emotional works, so impressive as music too. The compact Trauermusik, written at speed, is also affecting.

After these two concertante pieces we change conductor to Otmar Suitner (1922-2010) whose light was once again hidden under a communist bushel so far as the West was concerned. He too has been celebrated with a Berlin Classics box and in a notable Dvorak symphony cycle. His uproarious and cheery 1996 Weber Symphonic Metamorphosis is the most recent recording here.

The last disc is one of a kind and of a very different kind from the other four. About half of it is dedicated to Hindemith's charming guileless musical play for children Wir bauen eine Stadt - with children's choir singing and children and adults having speaking roles. There is no translation so you will need to be a German speaker to get the specifics. Other instruments play a role including gong, and a small string and woodwind ensemble. That's tracks 1-12 while tracks 13-25 are again for children's choirs but there the music is not by Hindemith. The music is full of innocent humour and enthusiasm. Many have been arranged/edited by the conductor Hans Sandig (1914-1989). Again there are instrumentals to add decoration including xylophone, woodwind and guitar.

The notes are a bit of a patchy affair. They're quite serviceable and read as if they have been fluently translated but there are absolutely no notes for the works on CD 4.

This is an unusual and inexpensive collection with decent rather than glorious sound. It should not be forgotten that there are Hindemith boxed sets in modern sound from Decca (Blomstedt and the SFSO) and in good vintage analogue from the composer on DG and EMI although older than these DDR examples. If top-flight audio on a tight budget is a high priority then go for the Blomstedt. Hearing the composer's own approach - at least in older age - means settling for mono and analogue. If you are OK with good to acceptable sound and want to explore Hindemith then the present pretty wide-ranging set is not a difficult choice.

-- Rob BarnettMusicWeb International

----------------------------------------------------------------------------

Paul Hindemith (16 November 1895 – 28 December 1963) was a German composer, violist, violinist, teacher and conductor. Hindemith is among the most significant German composers of his time. His early works are in a late romantic idiom, and he later produced expressionist works, before developing his neoclassical style in the 1920s. Notable compositions include his song cycle Das Marienleben (1923) and opera Mathis der Maler (1938). Hindemith's most popular work, both on record and in the concert hall, is probably the Symphonic Metamorphosis of Themes by Carl Maria von Weber, written in 1943.

***

Herbert Kegel (29 July 1920 – 20 November 1990) was a German conductor. Kegel was born in Dresden. He studied conducting with Karl Böhm and composition with Boris Blacher at the Dresden Conservatory from 1935 to 1940. In 1946 he began conducting in Pirna and Rostock; and in 1948 he began a three-decade-long association with the Leipzig Radio Orchestra and Choir, of which he became the principal conductor in 1960. Meanwhile, in 1977 Kegel took the position of principal conductor of Dresden Philharmonic Orchestra, which he kept until 1985. In 1990, he died by suicide in Dresden.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Herbert_Kegel

***

Otmar Suitner (16 May 1922 – 8 January 2010) was an Austrian conductor. He studied piano at the Conservatory in Innsbruck with Fritz Weidlich, then at the Mozarteum in Salzburg with Franz Ledwinka (piano) and Clemens Krauss (conducting). Suitner was chief conductor of the Staatskapelle Dresden (1960-1964), and general music director of the Berlin State Opera, of which the orchestra is Staatskapelle Berlin (1964-1971 and 1974-1991). He had to stop conducting in 1990 due to Parkinson's disease. From 1977 to 1990 Suitner was professor of conducting at the Hochschule für Musik und darstellende Kunst in Vienna.
https://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/Otmar_Suitner

***

Hans Sandig (June 21, 1914 - September 23, 1989) was a German choir director, conductor, composer and arranger. In 1948 Sandig took over the role of music consultant at the Mitteldeutschen Rundfunk. In the same year he founded the Rundfunk-Kinderchor Leipzig (now MDR Kinderchor), which he directed until his death, and to which he dedicated the Christmas carol Sind die Lichter. This Christmas carol is the motto of the traditional Leipzig Gewandhaus Christmas concerts. Later he also took over the Radio-DDR-Jugendchor. Both ensembles were recognized throughout Europe.
https://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hans_Sandig

----------------------------------------------------------------------------

FLAC, tracks
Links in comment
Enjoy!

1 comment:

  1. Choose one link, copy and paste it to your browser's address bar, wait a few seconds (you may need to click 'Continue' first), then click 'Skip Ad' (or 'Get link').
    If you are asked to download or install anything, IGNORE, only download from file hosting site (mega.nz).
    If MEGA shows 'Bandwidth Limit Exceeded' message, try to create a free account.

    CD1 http://hinafinea.com/44Gq
    CD2 http://hinafinea.com/44Gr
    CD3 http://hinafinea.com/44Gs
    CD4 http://hinafinea.com/44Gt
    CD5 http://hinafinea.com/44Gu

    or

    CD1 http://exe.io/xkYA8iH
    CD2 http://exe.io/Dwt0Cqm
    CD3 http://exe.io/YmmxGQ
    CD4 http://exe.io/6ORXCBYC
    CD5 http://exe.io/YJs6

    or

    CD1 http://uii.io/hQSWG
    CD2 http://uii.io/tMmxQt
    CD3 http://uii.io/6MCE3F
    CD4 http://uii.io/OhU7p
    CD5 http://uii.io/wI6Wn

    ReplyDelete