Klughardt: Symphonie Nr.5; Konzertouvertüre "Im Frühling"; Festouvertüre / Anhaltische Philharmonie Dessau, Antony Hermus – Tonträger gebraucht kaufen

wie neu

62 Min.

2013

CD

120 g

Album: NEU und EINGESCHWEISST (OVP). STILL SEALED

August Klughardt: Symphony No. 5; Overtures / Anhaltische Philharmonie Dessau

Release Date: 11/19/2013
Label: CPO Catalog #: 77 7693 Spars Code: DDD
Composer: August Klughardt
Conductor: Antony Hermus
Orchestra/Ensemble: Dessau Anhalt Philharmonic Orchestra
Number of Discs: 1
Recorded in: Stereo
EAN: 0761203769322


Works on This Recording

1. Symphony No. 5 in C minor, Op. 71 by August Klughardt
Conductor: Antony Hermus
Orchestra/Ensemble: Dessau Anhalt Philharmonic Orchestra
Period: Romantic
Written: Germany
2. Concert Overture Op. 30, "In the Spring" by August Klughardt
Conductor: Antony Hermus
Orchestra/Ensemble: Dessau Anhalt Philharmonic Orchestra
Period: Romantic
Written: Germany
3. Festival Overture in E flat major, Op. 78 by August Klughardt
Conductor: Antony Hermus
Orchestra/Ensemble: Dessau Anhalt Philharmonic Orchestra
Period: Romantic
Written: Germany


Notes and Editorial Reviews

KLUGHARDT Symphony No. 5 in c, op. 71. Concert Overture: Im Frühling, op. 30. Festival Overture in E?, op. 78 • Antony Hermus, cond; Anhalt P Dessau • CPO 777693 (61:36)

Here is a late German Romantic composer, August Klughardt (1847–1902), I should be more familiar with, but I’m not. Perhaps it’s because so little of his music has been recorded. Yet, among his works that have been recorded are a String Quartet, a String Quintet, and a Piano Quintet—the very type of works that are of the most interest to me and that I make an effort to seek out. As it happens, I do have CPO’s prior release of Klughardt’s Violin Concerto and Third Symphony, a CD reviewed by Robert Markow in 35:1, and one which subsequently advanced to his Want List for that year. In fact, perusing the Fanfare Archive, I find that quite a few Klughardt works have been reviewed—the above-mentioned Piano Quintet and String Quintet, a Cello Concerto, a Second Symphony, and a number of others among them.

In his review, Markow suggests that if the glut of recordings of Schumann and Brahms symphonies, and Mendelssohn and Bruch violin concertos has you in a rut, then Klughardt may be just the ticket to get you out of the doldrums. There certainly appear to be enough works by Klughardt to keep one supplied with previously unheard music for quite some time—six symphonies, a number of orchestral scores, quite a few chamber pieces, and at least four operas—if and when CPO and/or some other enterprising label gets around to recording them.

Meanwhile, Klughardt’s Symphony No. 5 on this disc offers quite a wild ride on the rails of a late Romantic train. Ronald Müller’s program note pretty much rehashes the composer’s online biography, which describes Klughardt’s admiration of Liszt and Wagner, but cites his essentially conservative bent, which led him to emulate the models of Schumann and Brahms and to ally himself with those upholding Classical traditions.

Nonetheless, on hearing this Symphony, completed in 1897, the year Brahms died, I would beg to differ with the above received wisdom about Klughardt’s backward-looking tendencies. Not even in Schumann’s mentally deranged state could he have imagined anything that sounded like Klughardt’s Fifth Symphony. So, at least insofar as this specific score is concerned, I totally reject the Schumann and even the Brahms associations.

I will concede that for 1897 this music may not be in line with some of the more progressive trends of the day, but Klughardt’s C-Minor Symphony is, without the slightest doubt, the offspring of Liszt’s tone poems and Wagner’s operas. The score is imprinted with the DNA of Les preludes, Mazeppa and the Ring cycle; and in Klughardt’s hands, it comes together in a symphonic score of enormously thrilling power, passion, and stunning beauty.

It comes as quite a shock to learn from the notes that this imposing work began life as a String Quintet in C? Minor—shades of the transformation Brahms’s op. 15 underwent on its way to becoming the composer’s D-Minor Piano Concerto. This five-movement masterful Symphony by Klughardt should definitely put it and him on the radar for anyone who is exhilarated by full-blown, unapologetic Romantic orgies in sound. This may just end up on my 2014 Want List.

The concert overture Im Frühling is a much earlier work, dating from around 1873. Here the Schumann connection is overt, but so too, as the album note acknowledges, is the influence of Lohengrin and Die Meistersinger , and I would add, Tannhäuser.

The Festival Overture followed just two months after the Symphony. Klughardt, who was court music director in Dessau at the time, was called upon to provide the Overture for festivities celebrating the 100th anniversary of the inauguration of the court theater. The opening trumpet fanfare is very nearly a dead ringer for the opening of Tchaikovsky’s Capriccio italien , but instead of the triplet ostinato that follows in the Tchaikovsky, we get something in Klughardt’s Overture that’s of a more solemn character. This soon gives way, however, to music of a celebratory but dignified nature appropriate to the occasion. It’s a pleasant piece, but one, I’d have to say, that doesn’t approach the white-hot inspiration that gave rise to the just completed Symphony and, to a somewhat lesser extent, the earlier Im Frühling Overture.

Dessau’s Anhalt Philharmonic is new to me, but I’ve encountered conductor Antony Hermus before, leading the Gavriel Lipkind and the Sinfonia Varsovia in a performance of Saint-Saëns’s A-Minor Cello Concerto in 35:3. Raymond Tuttle also gave Hermus a positive nod in a review of works by Dutch composer Johan Wagenaar on CPO in 33:5.

None of the works on the present disc is flagged as a world premiere recording, which may just be modesty on CPO’s part, but I haven’t found any other listings. In any case, this is a must-have release for anyone who loves rousing Romantic works. I have a feeling that August Klughardt is not going to languish in obscurity for much longer after this. Urgently recommended.

FANFARE: Jerry Dubins

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Produktinfo:

Neues vom Meister aus Dessau

Auch unsere zweite Veröffentlichung mit Orchesterwerken von August Klughardt »stellt ein beeindruckendes Plädoyer für einen Komponisten dar, dem man nicht einfach unbeteiligt zuhören darf« (klassik. com 09 / 11, zu Vol. 1). Von Klughardts seinerzeit vielgespielten Sinfonien hat die Fünfte eine besondere Werkgeschichte aufzuweisen. Sie entstand 1892, in jenem Jahr, in dem Klughardt sein 25-jähriges Kapellmeister-Jubiläum in Dessau feiern konnte. In dieser Urform handelte es sich jedoch noch nicht um eine Sinfonie in c-Moll, sondern um ein Streichsextett in cis-Moll, das aber leider nicht erhalten geblieben ist, so dass keine Vergleiche zur späteren Sinfonie angestellt werden können. Aber der häufige Einsatz einer Solovioline in fast allen Sätzen dürfte sicher ein Erbe der ursprünglichen Streichsextett-Version sein. Die äußerst schwungvolle, vitale und klangvolle Musik sowie zwei Ouvertüren des Meisters aus Dessau werden natürlich wieder interpretiert von der Anhaltischen Philharmonie, dieses Mal unter der Leitung von Antony Hermus.

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Product Information

New Music by a Dessau Master

Our second release featuring orchestral works by August Klughardt also »represents an impressive case on behalf of a composer to whom one simply cannot listen without becoming personally involved« (klassik. com 9 / 11, of Vol. 1). Klughardt's symphonies were frequently performed during his lifetime, and his fifth such work displays a special compositional history. He composed it in 1892, the year during which he celebrated his twenty-fifth anniversary as a conductor in Dessau. In this early form, however, the work was not yet a Symphony in C minor but a String Sextet in C sharp minor, which unfortunately has not come down to us, so that we can no longer compare it to the later symphony. The frequent employment of a solo violin in almost all the movements nevertheless must surely be an inheritance from the original string sextet version. This highly animated, vital, and sonorous music and two overtures by this Dessau master are interpreted by the »home team, « the Anhalt Philharmonic, this time under the conductor Antony Hermus.

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CPO 777 693A