Walter Braunfels - Orchestral Works (Gregor Bühl)

Information

Composer: Walter Braunfels

• (01) Don Gil von den grünen Hosen, Op. 35: Prelude
• (02) Divertimento, Op. 42
• (07) Ariels Gesang, Op. 18
• (08) Serenade in E-Flat Major, Op. 20

Vienna Radio Symphony Orchestra

Gregor Bühl, conductor

Date: 2021

Label: Capriccio

http://capriccio.at/walter-braunfels-don-gil

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Review

There’s a sad paradox in that while the world of literature happily accepts the idea that even the best writers will absorb influences, the world of music doesn’t, at least not easily, and if I say that Walter Braunfels sounds sometimes like Mendelssohn, sometimes like Wagner, Strauss, Franz Schmidt or even Glazunov, I’m somehow decrying his gifts, as if he’s some sort of mindless musical chameleon. He isn’t, as this appealing programme of mostly quiet rarities aptly proves, though the fact that in the finale of the E flat Serenade of 1910 a friendly bunch of Valkyries seems to be waving from afar surely sends up an influence rather than honouring it. Which reminds me, in 1923 Hitler, not realising that Braunfels was half-Jewish, invited him to write an anthem for the Nazi party, an offer which Braunfels ‘indignantly turned down’. This Serenade is an utter delight, the opening like an invitation from Alpine vistas (such beautiful writing for winds), the work’s spirit deeply romantic, with delicate textures and sensitively gauged modulations. Here we have the work of a real master, as is the skipping fast movement that follows with its excited accelerandos, and the warming, pastoral pages of the third movement.

Braunfels was one of those unfortunate mortals caught between the racist evils of Nazism and the intolerantly modernist attitudes of post-war Germany. But nothing could stem a fascinating flood of compositions (this is Capriccio’s seventh all-Braunfels album), the current collection being crowned by a modest but meaningful Divertimento for radio orchestra (1929) that by admitting two saxophones into the mix hints, at least in principle, at the world of jazz, albeit no more obviously than does Glazunov’s use of them in his Saxophone Concerto or Saxophone Quartet. Braunfels urged the conductor of a 1931 performance of this piece ‘not to let them tremolate [sic] … So long as saxophones don’t whine, jazz-style … they are such beautiful instruments, as Berlioz has shown us. But we only ever hear them so horridly distorted.’ And I have to confess that Braunfels’s employment of the instruments adds a sinuous, warming texture to the score’s overall sound that lies quite outside the world of jazz, and I say that as a jazz lover myself.

The programme opens with the lively, Straussian Prelude to Don Gil of the Green Breeches but if you want a full quota of Braunfels magic then go straight to track eight, Ariel’s Song from his music for Shakespeare’s The Tempest (1910), as delicate as any incidental music from the last century. Gregor Bühl and his ORF Vienna Radio Symphony Orchestra do the honours with care and sensitivity, and the sound is excellent. So here’s to Vol 8. I can’t wait.

-- Rob Cowan, Gramophone

More reviews:
ClassicsToday  ARTISTIC QUALITY: 9 / SOUND QUALITY: 9

http://www.musicweb-international.com/classrev/2021/Aug/Braunfels-serenade-C5429.htm

https://www.pizzicato.lu/fortsetzung-der-braunfels-reihe-leicht-und-begluckend/

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Walter Braunfels (19 December 1882 – 19 March 1954) was a German composer, pianist, and music educator. Composing music in the German classical-romantic tradition, Braunfels was well known as a composer between the two World Wars but fell into oblivion after his death. There is now something of a renaissance of interest in his works. His opera Die Vögel, based on the play The Birds by Aristophanes, was recorded and has been successfully revived. Braunfels composed music in a number of different genres, not only operas, but also songs, choral works and orchestral, chamber and piano pieces.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Walter_Braunfels

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Gregor Bühl (born 1964 in Birkesdorf, Düren, North Rhine-Westphalia) is a German conductor. Bühl studied percussion at the Düren Music School, then studied conducting at the Robert Schumann Hochschule Düsseldorf with Wolfgang Trommer. In addition, he attended master classes with Ferdinand Leitner and Gary Bertini. From 1995 to 2001 Bühl was First Kapellmeister at the Staatsoper Hannover, and also has a close relationship with the Royal Opera Stockholm. Bühl has conducted radio symphony orchestras of Berlin, Hamburg, Leipzig, Hanover, Finland, Hilversum and Denmark.
https://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gregor_B%C3%BChl
http://gregorbuehl.at/

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