Ernst Toch: Symphonies Nos. 5-7

Ernst Toch (Composer), Alun Francis (Conductor), Berlin Radio Symphony Orchestra (Orchestra) | Format: Audio CD

Product Details

• Orchestra: Berlin Radio Symphony Orchestra
• Conductor: Alun Francis
• Composer: Ernst Toch
• Audio CD (April 8, 1997)
• SPARS Code: DDD
• Number of Discs: 1
• Label: Cpo Records
• ASIN: B000001S16
• Average Customer Review: 4.3 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (3 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #568,312 in Music (See Top 100 in Music)

Track Listings

1. Symphony No 5 op 89: Slow

2. Symphony No 5 op 89: Molto tranquillo

3. Symphony No 6 op 93: Allegro commodo

4. Symphony No 6 op 93: Molto grazioso e leggiero throughout

5. Symphony No 6 op 93: Allegro energico

6. Symphony No 7 op 95: Molto lento

7. Symphony No 7 op 95: Allegro giocoso

8. Symphony No 7 op 95: Allegro resoluto

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

9 of 9 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Fascinating "Viennese" music, March 23, 2000

By 

V. Wilson (Cambridge, MA United States) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: Ernst Toch: Symphonies Nos. 5-7 (Audio CD)

Ernst Toch was another one of those German/Austrian composers displaced by the insanity of Hitler. As with many others, his promising career was derailed by the Nazis and he never really achieved the acclaim he deserved.

This disc contains a late flowering of his genius. Toch was at the end of a long line of "Viennese" composers stretching through Schmidt, Strauss and Mahler back to Schubert. As a result, his music has an appealing melodic content.

However, unlike Mahler, for example, Toch's music is not weighed down with a lot of philosophical baggage. Instead, he uses the orchestra very delicately--rarely offering large tutti passages. Frequently, several solo instruments are weaving amid one another, supported by interesting percussion sounds.

The result is a very nostalgic sound--as if one hears a Strauss waltz from very far away. The jacket notes speak of the "formlessness" of these symphonies, but I found that the ear picks up on familiar phrases.

All in all, this wonderfully played disc offers intriguing music that ought to be heard. One can only hope that these forces will return to complete the Toch symphonic canon (there are 7), and maybe offer us some other pieces from this wonderful composer.

6 of 7 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars All 7 Available Soon, November 16, 2000

By 

Charles Voogd (Underwaterland) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: Ernst Toch: Symphonies Nos. 5-7 (Audio CD)

Toch was one of many Entartete Musiker Germany `produced' in the 30s and he too fled to the US. In the last years of his life he composed a series of symphonies which CPO issue on record (# 2 and 3 are also available on CPO).

Toch must have learnt a lesson or two from other composers (I hear Hindemith, Prokofiev, Shostakowitch, Mahler, Schoenberg echoes in these works) but it is worthwhile exploring. These are works that you would like to listen to more than once, although a `Toch only diet' will never be the case. To monochrome.

I enjoyed this disc and the performance strikes me as a good one. It indeed is very well produced, and the recording is very clean. I would like to compliment CPO with the booklet text, again very well done, as is always the case with them!

Happily, while the Decca Entartete Musik Series seems to dry up, CPO and some other labels are picking up the case of these composers (Korngold already available).

4.0 out of 5 stars Rewarding music, well played, January 31, 2009

By 

G.D. (Norway) - See all my reviews
(TOP 500 REVIEWER)    (VINE VOICE)   

This review is from: Ernst Toch: Symphonies Nos. 5-7 (Audio CD)

All of Ernst Toch's symphonies date from late in his career and are written in a gritty idiom, but despite being very chromatic they are definitely tonal - in fact, I find these three works from the very end of his life more immediately approachable than the symphonies earlier in the series. The fifth, Jephtha, is probably his most famous symphony (there is among other things alternative recordings on Naxos and First Edition which I haven't heard, and even though it was the third that got him the Pulitzer prize). It doesn't really have the hallmarks of a genuine symphony - more like an extended rhapsody, perhaps (in fact, the original title was Rhapsodic Poem no.6) - but includes many interesting things and is definitely worth a listen.

The sixth is a sunny work, melodic and diverting and interesting, and the seventh is, while a little more elusive, still an overall positive work. The performances are all very good, and Francis has a sure grasp of both overall structure and detail, and sound quality is very fine as well. A safe recommendation.