Stephan/Zemlinsky Orchestral Works
View record and artist detailsRecord and Artist Details
Composer or Director: Alexander von Zemlinsky, Rudi Stephan
Label: Vanguard Classics
Magazine Review Date: 4/1996
Media Format: CD or Download
Media Runtime: 61
Mastering:
DDD
Catalogue Number: 99065
Tracks:
Composition | Artist Credit |
---|---|
Music for orchestra |
Rudi Stephan, Composer
Jacek Kaspszyk, Conductor North Netherlands Orchestra Rudi Stephan, Composer |
(Die) Seejungfrau |
Alexander von Zemlinsky, Composer
Alexander von Zemlinsky, Composer Jacek Kaspszyk, Conductor North Netherlands Orchestra |
Author: Michael Oliver
This is the North Netherlands Orchestra’s first recording to be issued in the UK. They were founded in 1989 and very wisely appointed Jacek Kaspszyk as their Principal Conductor two years later. But were they wise to make their recording debut in such opulent music as Zemlinsky’s? On this showing, certainly. They may not have quite the sheer luxuriant density of string tone of the Berlin or Vienna Philharmonics (or, if it comes to that, of their southern neighbours, the Royal Concertgebouw), but they seem to have pretty well everything else that this music requires. And how very shrewd to couple the Zemlinsky with Rudi Stephan’s striking piece which, although it shares with Zemlinsky a good many influences (Strauss and Wagner, among others), uses the orchestra quite differently and enables Kaspszyk and the NNO to hint at a number of other things they might be very good at.
Stephan was killed during the First World War at the age of only 28. His Music for Orchestra was written two years before his death, and shows him already moving away from his obvious models towards an orchestral sound that can be rhapsodically luscious but can equally well be lean and sinewy. Formally, the piece is both clever and satisfying: a sort of one-movement symphony, with two basic themes that are both obviously related (the second is an inversion of the first) and capable of fruitful development and of giving birth to further ideas. Thus a lyrical slow movement, with some especially beautiful string writing, and a vigorous fugal scherzo are both generated from variants of the opening themes, as is the jubilant major-key coda.
In the Zemlinsky Kaspszyk is very good at demonstrating how many qualities it has, as well as opulence. Real urgency in the more dramatic sections, for example, which are fierily done. And an extreme delicacy of fine detail, no less difficult to achieve than warm richness. This is an orchestra that can already produce that most arresting of sonorities, a genuine pianissimo. I was very impressed, in short, and am eager to hear more of them and their imaginative conductor. It seems, too, as though they have found themselves an excellent hall in which to record: the sound is very clear but pleasingly spacious, spacious enough for the strings to achieve a satisfying warmth.'
Stephan was killed during the First World War at the age of only 28. His Music for Orchestra was written two years before his death, and shows him already moving away from his obvious models towards an orchestral sound that can be rhapsodically luscious but can equally well be lean and sinewy. Formally, the piece is both clever and satisfying: a sort of one-movement symphony, with two basic themes that are both obviously related (the second is an inversion of the first) and capable of fruitful development and of giving birth to further ideas. Thus a lyrical slow movement, with some especially beautiful string writing, and a vigorous fugal scherzo are both generated from variants of the opening themes, as is the jubilant major-key coda.
In the Zemlinsky Kaspszyk is very good at demonstrating how many qualities it has, as well as opulence. Real urgency in the more dramatic sections, for example, which are fierily done. And an extreme delicacy of fine detail, no less difficult to achieve than warm richness. This is an orchestra that can already produce that most arresting of sonorities, a genuine pianissimo. I was very impressed, in short, and am eager to hear more of them and their imaginative conductor. It seems, too, as though they have found themselves an excellent hall in which to record: the sound is very clear but pleasingly spacious, spacious enough for the strings to achieve a satisfying warmth.'
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