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             


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

REVIEW


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

 

 

Buy through MusicWeb
for £12.49 postage paid World-wide.

Musicweb Purchase button

Hans GÁL (1890-1987)
Symphony no.3 in A major/minor, op.62 (1951-2) [34:39]
Robert SCHUMANN (1810-1856)
Symphony no.3 in E flat, op.97 (1850) [31:37]
Orchestra of the Swan/Kenneth Woods
rec. Civic Hall, Stratford-upon-Avon, England, 6-7 December 2010. DDD
AVIE AV2230 [66:16]

Experience Classicsonline



 
Hans Gál's 'old-fashioned' music was effectively done down for decades by the post-war illuminati who favoured a strict modernism. The explosion in modern recordings - coupled ironically with the cultural denigration of art music in the mass media - has shown that countless composers, including Gál, ignored what academics were insisting. They carried on writing 'anachronistic' symphonies, string quartets, piano sonatas and so on in the great tradition that stretches back into the 18th century.
 
With this release Kenneth Woods and the Stratford-Upon-Avon-based Orchestra of the Swan embark on their four-disc cycle of Austrian Gál's complete Symphonies. Interestingly each issue is coupled with one of Schumann's.
 
Somewhat surprisingly, Avie released only last year a recording of Gál's First Symphony, with the Second to follow soon afterwards - conducted not by Woods, but by Thomas Zehetmair, leading the Northern Sinfonia, pairing Gál with Schubert. At the time of writing (summer 2012) Woods's Second Gál has already been released by Avie. Thirty-five-plus years after Gál finished the Fourth, well into his eighties, are two of his Symphony cycles now appearing like proverbial buses - on the same label even? The Hans Gál Society will be pleased. The composer's grandson, Simon Fox-Gál, must also be pleased, having produced and engineered both the Woods and the Zehetmair recordings.
 
Most importantly the music-lover will be happy: Gál's symphonic music is superbly lyrical and energetic. It’s Hartmann than Henze, but also more Huber or Hindemith than Hartmann.
 
The fragrantly delicate, balmy opening bars of Gál's Third Symphony betoken a conservative but individual voice, albeit there are occasional hints of Mahler, Bruckner and Brahms in the long opening movement. In the finale, the sensuousness of the music is more redolent in places of Strauss and even Bax. The Third is clearly vieux jeu and staunchly Germanic, its three-movement form aside. It throws up no real surprises, or even dissonance, and plumbs no great depths of emotion. For all that, it is impeccably elegant, chastely orchestrated and melodious almost to a fault. Many similar symphonies lie neglected or undiscovered on library shelves across Europe, but that is no reason not to rejoice in Woods's reanimation of this particular specimen.It’s not an epoch-making masterpiece, but a very pleasant work that deserves to be heard and is very likely to please even those who buy this disc for the Schumann.
 
It is probably high time that the nickname 'Rhenish' was detached once and for all from Schumann's Symphony in E flat. Not only did he not want any such programmatic label associated with his work, but 'Rhenish' is an obsolescent word at best in English, if it was ever used at all outside wine-quaffing circles! Avie, thankfully, do not use it in the track-listing, and in his notes Woods mentions it in passing once and then never again.
 
Woods and the Orchestra of the Swan are having no truck with the faintly ludicrous assertion that Schumann was an awkward or even incompetent orchestrator. Woods lets it be known, with this expertly delineated, clarified account that any claimed textural 'thickness' is the fault of the conductor, not the composer. There is some particularly infectious horn playing to note, reminding the listener of Schumann's debt to Mendelssohn and Schubert.
 
Sound quality is good, if not precisely all that one would wish for. There is a certain lack of definition, especially noticeable in the strings, which gives a slightly 'muddy' effect. The recordings have also been made at a substantially lower volume than normal, which will almost certainly necessitate manual adjustment during listening.
 
The English-French-German booklet notes are by Woods himself, and provide a detailed background and description of the music in communicative language. Woods perhaps exaggerates the drama and originality of Gál's Symphony, but it is high time the composer had such a knowledgeable, proactive champion for his orchestral music.
 
Byzantion
Collected reviews and contact at reviews.gramma.co.uk

see also review by Rob Barnett

see also Hans GÁL (1890-1987) Symphony no.4 (Sinfonia concertante) op.105 (1974) [36:37] Robert SCHUMANN (1810-1856) Symphony no.2 in C op.61 (1846) [36:11] Orchestra of the Swan/Kenneth Woods rec. 2011, AVIE AV2231 [73:09]
 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 


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






Error processing SSI file