Information
Composer: Donald Tovey
- The Bride of Dionysus: Prelude
- Symphony in D, Op. 32: I. Allegro maestoso
- Symphony in D, Op. 32: II. Scherzo. Vivace ma non troppo presto
- Symphony in D, Op. 32: III. Canzona Dorica: Adagio
- Symphony in D, Op. 32: IV. Allegro con moto energico
Malmö Opera Orchestra
George Vass, conductor
Date: 2000
Label: Toccata
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An Edinburgh legend remembered in a grand symphony
Long-time Reid Professor of Music at Edinburgh University, Sir Donald Francis Tovey (1875-1940) remains best known for his magnificently readable and insightful Essays in Musical Analysis (OUP: 1935-44). He was also a gifted pianist and composer, completing a Piano Concerto in 1903 (memorably championed by Steven Osborne for Hyperion, 10/98) and, 10 years later, this earnest and admirably ambitious Symphony in D.
Although lasting the best part of an hour and occasionally over-thickly scored, it’s a work which held my attention throughout on a first hearing, not least due to Tovey’s keen sense of long-term dialogue and harmonic adventure, allied to a felicitous mastery of counterpoint. Brahms and Reger are the most obvious stylistic templates (the symphony’s arrestingly pregnant pianissimo opening idea even hints at Nielsen), yet a quiet individuality emerges from the radiant Canzonetta slow movement in particular, and the scampering Scherzo has a pleasingly mischievous twinkle in its eye.
A very creditable performance, too, from the Malmö Opera Orchestra under George Vass (there is, fascinatingly, a historic alternative from 1937 conducted by Tovey himself on Symposium which I have yet to hear), who also acquit themselves most ably in the noble Prelude to Tovey’s 1918 opera The Bride of Dionysus which launches proceedings. Good if not perhaps ideally ventilated sound, as well as exceptionally detailed notes and analyses by Peter R Shore and the composer respectively, add to the attractions of this courageous and valuable issue from Toccata Classics. Here’s hoping this enterprising young label will now go on to give us some of Tovey’s chamber music.
-- Andrew Achenbach, Gramophone
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Donald Tovey (17 July 1875 – 10 July 1940) was a British musical analyst, musicologist, writer on music, composer, conductor and pianist. He had been best known for his book Essays in Musical Analysis and his performing editions of works by Bach and Beethoven, but since the 1990s his compositions (relatively small in number but substantial in musical content) have been recorded and performed with increasing frequency. Among Tovey's large scale compositions are the Piano Concerto (1903), the Symphony (1913), and the Cello Concerto (1935, for his longtime friend Pablo Casals).
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English conductor George Vass studied at the Royal Birmingham Conservatoire and the Royal Academy of Music in London. He was appointed Artistic Director of the internationally renowned Presteigne Festival in 1992, having served the Hampstead and Highgate Festival in a similar capacity from 2004 until 2009. He is also founder and Artistic Director of the Nova Music Opera. Vass has made over 30 commercial recordings for labels Dutton, Champs Hill, Guild, Lyrita, Naxos, Resonus Classics, SOMM and Toccata Classics. He has also broadcast for BBC Radio 3 and Channel 4 television.
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