Karl Goldmark - Symphonic Poems Vol. 2 (Fabrice Bollon)

Information

Composer: Karl Goldmark

1. Im Frühling, Op. 36
2. Zrínyi, Op. 47
3. In Italien, Op. 49
4. Götz von Berlichingen: Vorspiel
5. Aus Jugendtagen, Op. 53
6. Ein Wintermärchen: Vorspiel

Bamberg Symphony Orchestra

Fabrice Bollon, conductor

Date: 2021

Label: cpo

https://www.jpc.de/jpcng/cpo/detail/-/art/karl-goldmark-symphonische-dichtungen-vol-2/hnum/8977575

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Review

‘The mighty king of dissonance’: that, bizarrely enough, is how the Viennese critic Eduard Hanslick described Karl Goldmark, and when you hear Im Frühling leap, sparkling, into life at the start of this latest release in CPO’s Bamberg Goldmark series, you might wonder if you’re listening to the same composer. In fairness, even Hanslick was charmed by this delightful concert overture, and it sets the tone for an album packed with colourful, melodious Romantic orchestral music by (to paraphrase Richard Strauss) a really first-class second-rate composer.

I enjoyed the previous album in this series (1/19) and praised Bollon’s taut, energised readings and the ‘enthusiasm, understanding and collective virtuosity’ of the Bambergers. I’m glad to say that the same applies here, and that the quality of the music might be even higher. Bollon and his players find a passionate sense of yearning in the melancholy A Winter’s Tale prelude, with searching woodwind and horn solos and ardent string phrasing. The Bamberg brass are agile and sonorous, declaiming powerfully in the Götz von Berlichingen prelude, and giving a real dazzle to the jubilant final bars of In Italien – an exuberant postcard from Italy with a sensuous, almost Straussian barcarole at its deliriously Romantic heart.

If Goldmark’s idea of Hungarian spice is a bit mild for modern palates, Bollon nonetheless keeps a firm grip on the sprawling symphonic poem Zrinyi; and nothing on this recording is ever less than vivid. The same can’t be said of the prolix and convoluted booklet note, whose author spends the first two pages pursuing an incomprehensible academic feud with an un-named American musicologist. Well, that’s CPO booklets for you. Happily, the music – and the music-making – speaks eloquently for itself.

-- Richard Bratby, Gramophone

More reviews:
http://www.musicweb-international.com/classrev/2020/Nov/Goldmark-orchestral-v2-5552512.htm

http://www.musicweb-international.com/classrev/2021/Jan/Goldmark-poems-CPO555251-2.htm

https://www.wtju.net/karl-goldmark-symphonic-poems-2-hit-mark/

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Karl Goldmark (May 18, 1830 – January 2, 1915) was a Hungarian-born Viennese composer. Came from a large Jewish family, he briefly studied at the musical academy of Sopron, Vienna Technische Hochschule and then to the Vienna Conservatory, but was largely self-taught as a composer. Among Goldmark's best known works are the Rustic Wedding Symphony Op. 26, the opera Die Königin von Saba Op. 27, and the Violin Concerto No. 1 Op. 28. Goldmark's chamber music, influenced by Schumann's and Mendelssohn's, although critically well received in his lifetime, is now rarely heard.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Karl_Goldmark

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Fabrice Bollon (born Paris, 1965) is a French conductor. He studied with Michael Gielen and Nikolaus Harnoncourt in Paris and at Salzburg’s Mozarteum, before completing his studies with Georges Prêtre and Mauricio Kagel. Bollon worked as musical assistant at Salzburg Festival until 1998, then as chief conductor of the Flanders’ Symphony Orchestra (1996-2000). Since 2009 he has been General Music Diretor/Chief conductor at Germany’s Theater Freiburg, and there the orchestra and the opera division have made an enormous step under his guidance. Fabrice Bollon is also an acclaimed composer.
http://www.fabricebollon.com/fabricebollon/Start.html

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