MusicWeb International One of the most grown-up review sites around 2024
60,000 reviews
... and still writing ...

Search MusicWeb Here Acte Prealable Polish CDs
 

Presto Music CD retailer
 
Founder: Len Mullenger                                    Editor in Chief:John Quinn             


CD REVIEW

Some items
to consider

new MWI
Current reviews

old MWI
pre-2023 reviews

paid for
advertisements

Acte Prealable Polish recordings

Forgotten Recordings
Forgotten Recordings
All Forgotten Records Reviews

TROUBADISC
Troubadisc Weinberg- TROCD01450

All Troubadisc reviews


FOGHORN Classics

Alexandra-Quartet
Brahms String Quartets

All Foghorn Reviews


All HDTT reviews


Songs to Harp from
the Old and New World


all Nimbus reviews



all tudor reviews


Follow us on Twitter


Editorial Board
MusicWeb International
Founding Editor
   
Rob Barnett
Editor in Chief
John Quinn
Contributing Editor
Ralph Moore
Webmaster
   David Barker
Postmaster
Jonathan Woolf
MusicWeb Founder
   Len Mullenger

 
Support us financially by purchasing
this through MusicWeb
for £12 postage paid world-wide.

 

 

Philipp Ludwig SCHARWENKA (1847-1917)
Frühlingswogen Op.87 [23:50]
Arkadische Suite in B major Op.76 (1887) [30:49]
Liebesnacht, fantasy piece for orchestra Op.40 [19:15]
Gävle Symphony Orchestra/Christopher Fifield
rec. Gävle Concert Hall, March 2007
STERLING CDS10712 [73:54]


These forces have already recorded Scharwenka’s Symphony and other orchestral works for Sterling and now here’s a follow-up. The name Scharwenka probably triggers thoughts of Franz Xaver, pianist and teacher and also composer. The slightly younger Xaver’s piano concertos have been recorded in polished and exemplary style on Hyperion but his brother Philipp Ludwig was a fine musician and composer in his own right.

He was born in the province of Posen in 1847 of a Czech-Polish background and studied at Theodor Kullak’s New Academy of Music in Berlin. Whereas Xaver studied piano under the tutelage of Kullak himself Philipp concentrated on composition before Xaver founded the conservatory that bore his name and Philipp joined him as head of music theory. Later still Philipp became head of the Berlin Conservatory whilst his ever-busy brother founded another conservatory in New York. Philipp died in 1917 and regrettably a deal of information relating to his compositions was lost in the destruction of the Second War.

The three works recorded here differ considerably. Frühlingswogen falls into fairly clear sectional lines. It opens in verdant, woodland, folkloric fashion that admits some lingering, lonesome  - indeed at one point desolate - solo voices. The harp and winds make their presence known and there are strong narrative implications throughout - the title of the work is actually the German translation of a Turgenev novella (Spring Torrents in English, written in 1871). Stylistically there are echoes of Wagner and also of Scharwenka’s near contemporary, Tchaikovsky. From 11:40 there’s an especially fine clarinet solo and an air of brooding sensuality permeates the score for this point until at there’s a cloudburst with Dvořákian winds and a sunset Wagner glow to end it all.

The Arkadische Suite is the only one of the three works that can be dated with accuracy – 1887. It’s cast in four rather overlong movements that vary in inspiration. It’s broadly genial in tone with some rather odd military moments that had me thinking of the Strauss dynasty from time to time. The most immediately attractive of the movements is the third with its eloquently spun clarinet solo and the refined dynamics of the orchestra under Fifield’s direction.  The finale returns to the genial ease of the opening movement, flecked with some vaguely ecclesiastical sounding punctuation points along the way.

The last of the trio of works is Liebesnacht, a fantasy piece for orchestra. This is really a hymn of love to Tristan and Isolde, an extended nineteen-minute paraphrase of total Wagnerian absorption. Listening to it is rather like hearing a composer almost entirely effaced by his Godhead and inspiration. It would be cruel to say that not a trace of Scharwenka remains – though I think it’s true – but the skill resides in the orchestration and the subtleties of its dramatic deployment. To that extent Liebesnacht earns its place here.

The performances are all – or all sound, given the unfamiliarity of this music – idiomatic and engaging. More heft in the strings wouldn’t have gone amiss in Liebesnacht. Otherwise, this is an enjoyable sampling of the less well-known Scharwenka.

Jonathan Woolf 

 


 




 


Advertising on
Musicweb


Donate and keep us afloat

 

New Releases

Naxos Classical
All Naxos reviews

Chandos recordings
All Chandos reviews

Hyperion recordings
All Hyperion reviews

Foghorn recordings
All Foghorn reviews

Troubadisc recordings
All Troubadisc reviews



all Bridge reviews


all cpo reviews

Divine Art recordings
Click to see New Releases
Get 10% off using code musicweb10
All Divine Art reviews


All Eloquence reviews

Lyrita recordings
All Lyrita Reviews

 

Wyastone New Releases
Obtain 10% discount

Subscribe to our free weekly review listing

 

 


EXPLORE MUSICWEB INTERNATIONAL

Making a Donation to MusicWeb

Writing CD reviews for MWI

About MWI
Who we are, where we have come from and how we do it.

Site Map

How to find a review

How to find articles on MusicWeb
Listed in date order

Review Indexes
   By Label
      Select a label and all reviews are listed in Catalogue order
   By Masterwork
            Links from composer names (eg Sibelius) are to resource pages with links to the review indexes for the individual works as well as other resources.

Themed Review pages

Jazz reviews

 

Discographies
   Composer
      Composer surveys
   National
      Unique to MusicWeb -
a comprehensive listing of all LP and CD recordings of given works
.
Prepared by Michael Herman

The Collector’s Guide to Gramophone Company Record Labels 1898 - 1925
Howard Friedman

Book Reviews

Complete Books
We have a number of out of print complete books on-line

Interviews
With Composers, Conductors, Singers, Instumentalists and others
Includes those on the Seen and Heard site

Nostalgia

Nostalgia CD reviews

Records Of The Year
Each reviewer is given the opportunity to select the best of the releases

Monthly Best Buys
Recordings of the Month and Bargains of the Month

Comment
Arthur Butterworth Writes

An occasional column

Phil Scowcroft's Garlands
British Light Music articles

Classical blogs
A listing of Classical Music Blogs external to MusicWeb International

Reviewers Logs
What they have been listening to for pleasure

Announcements

 

Community
Bulletin Board

Give your opinions or seek answers

Reviewers
Past and present

Helpers invited!

Resources
How Did I Miss That?

Currently suspended but there are a lot there with sound clips


Composer Resources

British Composers

British Light Music Composers

Other composers

Film Music (Archive)
Film Music on the Web (Closed in December 2006)

Programme Notes
For concert organizers

External sites
British Music Society
The BBC Proms
Orchestra Sites
Recording Companies & Retailers
Online Music
Agents & Marketing
Publishers
Other links
Newsgroups
Web News sites etc

PotPourri
A pot-pourri of articles

MW Listening Room
MW Office

Advice to Windows Vista users  
Questionnaire    
Site History  
What they say about us
What we say about us!
Where to get help on the Internet
CD orders By Special Request
Graphics archive
Currency Converter
Dictionary
Magazines
Newsfeed  
Web Ring
Translation Service

Rules for potential reviewers :-)
Do Not Go Here!
April Fools




Return to Review Index

Untitled Document


Reviews from previous months
Join the mailing list and receive a hyperlinked weekly update on the discs reviewed. details
We welcome feedback on our reviews. Please use the Bulletin Board
Please paste in the first line of your comments the URL of the review to which you refer.