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

 

 

alternatively
CD: MDT AmazonUK AmazonUS
Sound Samples & Downloads

Robert FUCHS (1847-1927)
Serenade No 3 in E minor, Op 21 [22:08]
Serenade No 4 in G minor, Op 51 [25:30]
Serenade No 5 in D, Op 53 [21:07]
Cologne Chamber Orchestra/Christian Ludwig
rec. 5-6 March 2009 (No 3), 10-12 January 2010 (No 5), 6-8 May 2010 (No 4)
NAXOS 8.572607 [68:45]

Experience Classicsonline



 
Well, this is a let-down. I fell head-over-heels for Robert Fuchs’ first two string serenades (see review), but these later three are - sorry! - kind of boring. The first time I listened to the disc, I did so in one sitting, holding out hope for the finale of the last serenade, which is a rousing parody of Johann Strauss. It was hard to be patient, because the music here is all derivative and a lot of it just drags on and on. Robert Fuchs was a very important figure in music history, his place in which is very well-described in the booklet essay, but these last three serenades aim to charm and only sometimes do.
 
The Serenade No 3 opens with a slow movement, a trick which can be done well (see Suk’s incredible serenade) but isn’t here, since the music (andante sostenuto) provides no immediate interest. Then we have to plod through a six-minute minuet and an allegretto before arriving at the first bit of the CD with any harmonic or dynamic contrast, a Hungarian-style finale.
 
The Fourth and Fifth serenades date from much later in Fuchs’ career, when he had evidently cast aside any last vestiges of youthful freshness and enthusiasm to write dour, solid Germanic stuff. No 4 very elegantly blends the sounds of French horns into the ensemble, and the opening andante sostenuto (again!) manages a very late-Brahmsian kind of autumnal beauty. But when Fuchs immediately doubles back to blandly cheery dances afterward, the result is patently artificial.
 
Compared to the sweet innocence of the first two serenades, one gets the sense of a composer too concentrated on having fun properly to really allow himself to have fun. Even the Johann Strauss parody (more of a loving homage, really) which rounds out No 5 is a little too earnest and hardworking. What made the first two serenades so much fun is that they seemed not to be trying: they just danced, these wispy, sweet little trifles. The stuff on the present CD, not so much. The Cologne Chamber Orchestra plays with the same excellent intonation they displayed last time, and they’re extremely well recorded. The blame falls on Robert Fuchs.
 
Brian Reinhart 

 

 

 

 

 

 
Error processing SSI file



Error processing SSI file