For British listeners, the name of Reinecke is likely to evoke
Stanford’s recollection - after an uninspiring period
of study with him - that “of all the dry musicians I have
ever known, he was the most desiccated”. Scandinavians
will remember that Grieg thought no better of the man and that
for Svendsen, “not only is he envious and bloodless …
he is also in the highest degree villainous”. Yet
many musicians sought him out during his long reign at the Leipzig
Gewandhaus (1860-1895), including Sullivan, Bruch, Delius and
the three just mentioned, while Elgar travelled to Leipzig in
1882 to hear him conduct.
If this all suggests a plodding academic, the “Undine”
Sonata for flute and piano, the one work by Reinecke that remains
at least on the fringe of the repertoire, is neither academic
nor lacking in fantasy. A disc containing the First Symphony,
the Violin Concerto and some smaller pieces suggested to me
that further examination of Reinecke would be never less than
pleasant, if hardly thrilling. Maybe thrilling would be too
strong a word for these cello sonatas too, but they do suggest
he was more inspired in chamber music than in larger orchestral
pieces.
In some ways the first sonata is the most attractive of all.
Its ballad-like opening theme immediately catches the attention
and the second theme is not only well contrasted, it is introduced
in a very remote tonality indeed. What is striking about this
movement is the mastery with which it combines free-flowing,
rhapsodic feeling with tight formal control. Though Reinecke
is said to have looked back to Mendelssohn and Schumann for
his models, and certainly rejected Liszt and Wagner, his music
combines romantic spirit with an intuitive sense of form. Here,
at least, he was able to make his own personal fusion of classical
ideals and romantic freedom. The second movement also contains
a number of quite contrasting ideas and the finale has much
surging passion.
The claims of the second sonata are not to be underestimated,
either. After a short but brooding introduction the first movement
leads off with a pithy, expressive idea that revolved in my
head for some days afterwards. Again, Reinecke’s formal
control is tight even while the effect is of free rhapsody.
The themes tend not to appear and reappear in the expected places
and tonalities, and are inclined to undergo transformations
just where an exact recapitulation might seem in sight. The
second movement is marked “Quasi fantasia” and has
much soaring romantic melody. The finale starts with a catchy
tune but is inclined to chase its own tail a bit too much for
its own good. This, admittedly, is a common failing among 19th
century finales when not written by Brahms.
Altogether, it may be said that, if Reinecke did not revolutionize
sonata forms, he nevertheless evolved an intuitively inventive
way of reinterpreting received formal wisdom. The interesting
thing is that exactly the same thing could be said about his
grudging pupil Stanford’s chamber music, even down to
a tendency to write finales that chase their own tail. One is
bound to wonder if Reinecke’s music did not have a greater
influence on Stanford than he later cared to admit, having been
so disappointed by the man himself. Also common to both composers
is a complete equality between the two partners, with plenty
of challenging material for both players and a continual melodic
interplay that must make Reinecke’s chamber music rewarding
to perform. Ultimately, I suppose this music inhabits smiling
valleys and pleasant domestic surroundings rather than soar
above the mountain peaks, but we can surely find a place for
music that does this so attractively.
The third sonata arouses more ambivalent reactions. Dedicated
“to the shade of Brahms”, who had just died, its
formal mastery will not be questioned. Furthermore, while in
one sense it occupies harmonic ground solidly rooted in Schumann,
its restless modulations look ahead to the world of Reger. It
is a bitter, even vehement work by a composer whose art was
by then left high and dry by musical progress. The only problem
is that Reinecke’s easy flow of melodic inspiration seems
to have dried up. The themes are clear-cut and functional, but
neither the composer’s masterly development of them, nor
these performers’ imagination and conviction, can hide
the fact that the cupboard is a little bare. Only the second
theme of the finale recalls the warmth of earlier years. Nevertheless,
as often with late works by composers clinging to the style
of their youth in the teeth of what they perceive as ugly modernism,
the sense of isolation and disillusionment can be moving in
themselves. Here, too, the case of Stanford is an obvious parallel.
Manuel Fischer-Dieskau, just in case you’ve been wondering,
is the great baritone’s son. It would seem that interventionism,
as an interpretative creed, runs in the family. But, like his
father at his best, MF-D knows how to intervene in a way that
brings the music to life, and he extracts the maximum range
of expression from these scores. The Canadian pianist Connie
Shih has an easy technical command and a well-rounded tone in
the heavier moments. She and the cellist seem in full agreement
over how to play this music. They leave me wondering why the
first two sonatas, at least, never made it into the not very
large repertoire of romantic cello sonatas.
Cellists reading these words may be wondering where they can
get the scores. They will be delighted to find that the IMSLP-Petrucci
Library, a great Internet resource, apparently offers all three
for free download. They will be a bit less delighted when they
find that the file of no.1 is missing pages 4-15, jumping from
the first page of the first movement to the last page of the
second, so you get only the finale complete. Also, there’s
not a cello part, instead there’s an alternative violin
part. The second sonata is complete but the piano part of no.3
lacks the last page, or maybe the last two. In compensation
you get pages 10 and 11 twice. I used to think that people who
do things for love not money do them properly, but on this showing
even some who work for love are as slap-happy as any half-hearted
employee anxious for the next coffee break. Granted, one shouldn’t
look a gift-horse in the mouth, but we may reasonably check
that it has all four legs.
None of this little grumble, obviously, affects the value of
this finely recorded and excellently annotated disc of three
cello sonatas well worth investigating. The name of Reinecke
is beginning to come alive for me.
Christopher Howell
Manuel Fischer-Dieskau (cello), Connie Shih (piano) 
