Customer Reviews

Hartmann: Symphonies Nos. 1-8

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This three CD collection contains the complete symphonic works of a relatively unknown german composer, Karl Amadeus Hartmann performed gloriously by the Bamberg Symphony under the
direction of Ingo Metzmacher. Metzmacher has made a name for himself as a champion of newer music, particularly that of his fellow Europeans. Here he provides us with sparkling performances of a composer that few of us would otherwise ever know. Hartmann was born in 1905 and died in 1963, living in Munich all his life. He withdrew from musical life in Germany during the Third Reich, but became rather well known abroad as a critic of the Nazi regime. His music ranges widely, from Mahlerian romanticism to German expressionism to Stravinsky-esque neo-classicism, and it is well worth getting to know. For example, the first movement of Hartmann's 6th Symphony (composed between 1951-53) is very stirring music indeed! Why Hartmann has failed to become more well known is a mystery--perhaps it is that his works are so stylistically varied that it is impossible to put him into a single category, perhaps that he never taught or attempted to establish a circle in the manner of Schoenberg, perhaps that his works written before and during World War II were extensively revised following the war. At that time, Hartmann removed all political contexts such as titles and dedications from them, undoubtedly wanting to move from a reputation earned as an Anti-Nazi composer to an apolitical reputation as a good or even great composer. He certainly deserved it, but perhaps Hartmann's problem, although he was an excellent composer, was simply that he was not an innovator in an age that increasingly valued concept above craft.

Even though his work is stylistically diverse and in fact writers on his music make much of the influence of the baroque on his pieces, it seems to me that the listener will be more readily aware of the influence of the Romantic Period. Hartmann's music is very expressive and stems from a well developed sense of pitch, coupled with romantic ideas of dynamics, texture and phrasing, and a stunning knowledge of the orchestra, particularly the percussion section. True, the melodies are not often romantic in nature, but the flavor of the music owes everything to the music of Wagner and Mahler--the relationships of consonance to dissonance, the long phrasing, the sense of harmonic rhythm, the orchestral colors.

Hartmann actually took lessons from Webern in 1941-42, but Webern's influence must have been more structural than surface. While occasional arithmetical rows are used to establish rhythms in his Sixth Symphony, the listener is never aware of the process, and certainly Webern's devastatingly thin textures and fragmented melodic elements have no counterpart in Hartmann's music. Instead, what must have attracted Hartmann was Webern's vast contrapuntal knowledge, and indeed Hartmann uses imitative forms such as fugue, canon, crab-canon or mirror-canon extensively.

The 5th symphony shows Hartmann at his least Webernesque--even though it was written only 8 years after his studies with Webern, and is only his second piece after those studies. It is scarcely conceivable that this music came from a student of the Second Viennese School--it bears an uncanny resemblance to Stravinsky. This symphony is Hartmann's unidentified hommage to Stravinsky--listen to the opening of the second movement and notice its extremely close resemblance to the opening melodic figure of the Rite of Spring.

In the space I have it is impossible to fully discuss all eight works--certainly the first Symphony, with its setting of texts by Walt Whitman, is worth an entire review by itself. This piece, originally composed in 1935-36 and later revised, is quite haunting--an absolute contrast to the music I've mentioned. If Gorecki's Symphony #3 is the Symphony of Sorrowful Songs, then Hartmann's Symphony #1 is its worthy predecessor--a symphony of Horror-ful songs, filled with the immediate shock of loss before the resignation of acceptance. And the second symphony is worth of note, too, with its unusual plantive baritone saxophone solo. This is a fascinating collection, and I'm grateful to Maestro Metzmacher and EMI for making all of Hartmann's symphonies available to us.

I must warn you! Metzmacher is a weak, tentative, and cautious conductor, intent on keeping everything in perfect balance with all the rage and pain under control - everything "tasteful." In Hartmann!!! The resulting performances will have you screaming at the speakers in frustration if you are familiar with the much more powerful and wildly passionate renditions in the Wergo set. In comparison to Macal, Leitner, and Kubelik, Metzmacher is pale and tepid. Since these, along with those of Havergal Brian, are among the very greatest of the 20th century symphonies, one might not realize what was missing without having heard the Wergo set. But, believe me, it's worth the extra dollars to find out!

Karl Amadeus Hartmann was one of the greatest composers of the twentieth century and one of the greatest symphonists of all time. A complete set of his symphonies is mandatory for any comprehensive collection of classical music on disc, and the set at hand will have to do unless you can track down the Kubelik set (or manage to piece together a complete survey from the individual recordings available). In other words, I do have some qualms about the performances - or perhaps I should say that having alternative performances, at least of some of the works, is strongly recommended - even though the set overall deserves a firm recommendation. A pity too that the set doesn't contain the Sinfonia Tragica (once thought lost), although much of the material from that one went into the third symphony.

How to describe the music? Hartmann's compositional voice was a truly original one, and his symphonies are surprisingly variegated, displaying Hartmann's development as a composer (sometimes in surprising directions). The music is consistently technically and formally assured, powerfully energetic, thematically distinguished, profound, superbly developed and magnificently scored. This is, in short, music of blistering intensity and excitement, as profound and distinguished as the symphonies of Brahms or Mahler and no less rewarding. Hartmann studied with Webern, and was (famously) the teacher of Henze; he incorporated influences from Orff, Berg and Hindemith as much as from his teacher, but his music is so much more than just an amalgam of his influences.

The first symphony, Essay for a Requiem, was written in 1934-35 and revised in 1954. Scored for contralto and orchestra (texts by Whitman; Cornelia Kallisch does a very convincing job of the solo part), it is cast in five movements, and is a work of deep anger and mourning, specifically directed at the Nazi regime. The first movement is as powerful a symphonic movement as you'll ever encounter, and the remarkable, pugnacious fifth as frighteningly staggering as they get. Still, the highlight is still the purely orchestral third, a theme and variations with the most hauntingly memorable dodecaphonic theme you'll ever encounter. One of the highlights of the cycle, this is also one of the pinnacles of the history of the symphony - a truly marvelous, anguished masterpiece, as harrowingly intense as anything else I have ever heard.

The second symphony (1945-46) is cast in a single Adagio movement and deploys a baritone saxophone solo which is given a rather songlike theme. The generally lamentatious movement, stirringly bleak and almost morbidly dark, builds up to a smoldering climax, but isn't completely without a subdued streak of optimism. While not, perhaps, as great as its predecessor, this is still a remarkable work. The third symphony (building on earlier works) opens with a Largo for string orchestra reminiscent of Alban Berg, hauntingly beautiful and powerful and developing into a remarkable, scintillatingly brilliant allegro con fuoco fugue of an almost unprecedented stridently ecstatic nature. The episodic second movement doesn't quite match the masterly first, even though it still contains many splendid things.

The fourth symphony, for strings, is a 1948 reworking of a concerto for soprano and string orchestra from 1938. It is a substantial (33 minutes) work, overall dark and elegiac. The first movement is passionate, almost Bartokian, the second relatively quick-paced and lively, but with a bitter, alienated quality to it, whereas the slow, passionate third movement is stirringly profound music of deep waters and elemental power. The fifth symphony (1945), however, belongs to a quite different soundworld. Subtitled Sinfonia Concertante (with solo trumpet), it is the most Hindemithian of Hartmann's symphonies, consisting of a Toccata, a Melodie and a Rondo, harking back to the 18th century for its models (but definitely music of its times) and scored without high strings (the winds take most of the work). On first hearing it comes as something of a surprise, its cubist playfulness and angularity standing in sharp contrast to the works surrounding it, but even though it might not be among his greatest symphonies, this is still a very rewarding work.

The sixth symphony, however, is probably the greatest of them all. Composed in 1952-53, it is one of the pinnacles of the symphonic repertoire - quite simply an indisputable masterpiece, and even on the first listening one cannot help being overwhelmed by the maelstrom of sounds, emotions and fire. Hartmann was not afraid to use all the compositional resources at hand, but there is certainly system to the whirlwinds - the melodic and rhythmic lines are ingeniously organized, and the shapes and forms that underlies the edgy, nervous opening music will gradually appear to the listener through the opulent, songful legato use of strings bullied onwards by brass and percussion. It is cast in two movements, a rich Adagio gradually building in tension, color and energy, and the second a brilliant development of three aspects of a basic fugal theme, frenetic and frenzied and energetic enough to leave the listener almost exhausted by the swirls of color, darting melodies and the propulsive rhythms of this ingenious and brilliantly scored music. It is buzzing with life and energy, in an almost Bartokian vein, but rushes ahead with unbridled energy punctuated by bolts of hamering percussion and brass. Exhilarating.

The seventh dates from 1957/58 and is cast in three movements, where the first is an almost Stravinskian, neo-classical movement of clear textures and crispness. The slow movement is introspective and beautiful and the last movement virtuosic and spirited. Yet it is probably the weakest work of the cycle, and Hartmann was clearly not at his strongest when attempting to build on classical models. The eighth, from 1960-62, is, however, a masterpiece. Cast in two movements, the textures are more airy and glittering than in the previous works. It is also more introvert and personal (sublime, even) and a superb, if slightly resigned, culmination of one of the most rewarding symphonic cycles of all time.

Now, the performances are consistently good, and they do manage to realize much of the intensity, textural and structural magnificence of these works. Yet when compared to alternatives, such as Fricsay in the sixth (or Kubelik), one cannot really avoid the conclusion that there is even more to these works than Metzmacher and the Bamberg Symphony Orchestra manage to find - they even sound a little tentative at times, adding a layer of controlled calculation to such relentlessly intense music. The engineering is generally splendid, however, and despite the shortcomings the importance of this set given the astounding quality of the music makes it set an essential acquisition, especially given the fact that the Kubelik set is somewhat hard to obtain. So while this shouldn't be one's sole versions of Hartmann's symphonies, given the circumstances I cannot defend giving it less than a top score,even though my rating would probably have been different had these works been more generally available.

This year, 2005, is the centenary year of Karl Amadeus Hartmann, and his music is being celebrated widely in Germany and Central Europe. Unfortunately he continues to be largely unknown here in the U.S. Hartmann has a higher profile for his resistance to the Nazis than for his music, but perhaps this will begin to change. I wouldn't place Hartmann on quite the same level as Mahler, Sibelius, Shostakovich or Simpson as a 20th-century symphonist, but these are fine works that deserve a wider audience.

Though he studied during the war years with Webern, Hartmann's music does not sound especially similar to Schoenberg, Webern or Berg. Advanced in its deployment of chromaticism, and generally abstract by comparison to Beethoven, Bruckner or Mahler, it seems to me that Hartmann's music occupies a space that overlaps with Shostakovich in some of its extremes of emotion and dynamics, while overlapping with the English composer Robert Simpson in its internal rigor and forward drive.

The 6th Symphony is Hartmann's best known and most often performed, and while this is an excellent performance, it doesn't touch the great 1955 recording on DG with Ference Fricsay conducting -- see my review. The highlights of this 3-disc set for me so far, after perhaps a dozen or so listenings, are the 3rd, 4th and 8th Symphonies. Ingo Metzmacher and the Bamberger Symphoniker are superb, captured in excellent sound.

My only complaint about this EMI disc, which I obtained through Amazon.co.uk, is the booklet. The liner notes, which are supposed to be in German, French and English, are botched and most of the English notes are missing. I had to do a search for information on the compositions, as there was none to be found in the booklet.

(verified purchase from Amazon.co.uk)

Hartmann's 8 symphonies are among the few pieces that make sense out of the expressionist ethos first propagated by Arnold Schoenberg in pieces like "Verklarte Nacht." While this music is intensely chromatic, Hartmann never assails us with unfocused dissonance for the sake of dissonance. And, because he sticks to established forms (like fugues and variations), his music never descends into incoherent mush the way much of Schoenberg's later music does.

Instead, Hartmann provides an intense, frequently tragic ethos based on thematic material that is constantly evolving. Clear themes are more evident in the earlier symphonies, but the remain recognizable figures in the later works. In addition to Schoenberg, there are clear echoes of Hindemith (in the 5th symphony) and Stravinsky (in the single movement 2nd Symphony especially, which sounds like a glyph on the opening to Igor's "Rite of Spring." Overall, this is quite memorable music, though there are places where Hartmann rambles on too long and some stretches where one wishes he's lighten up a little.

As for these performances, I think the reviewer who complained about them being too tepid has a point. Metzmacher clearly reins in his forces in some places where wild abandon is needed. Partially, I think this reflects and orchestra that is taxed to its limits. However, there is a stiffness to Metzmacher's phrasing that lends a bland sameness to movements that have more variety then he finds.

All that said, there is a distinct advantage to the clarity Metzmacher brings to this complex music. I haven't heard the Wergo set, but I'll bet that the "wildly passionate" playing on that set can get wearing at times if there is limited contrast. So, I guess you'll have to decide what type person you are.

Ask yourself: Do I like Haitink or Bernstein (on DG) to conduct my Mahler? If you like Haitink's musicality, go with Metzmacher. If you want Bernstein's wayward passion, then the Wergo set might be your cup of tea. For me, the Metzmacher is fine, though if Kubelik's DG versions of a few of these return, I'll probably invest for times I want to let my hair down and really feel depressed.

I agree that the conducting/execution could be more VIVID and PASSIONATE, but my major complaint is the sound quality. Sym 1 sounds like it was recorded in the 1940s (not the 1990s) and in a very dry room (similar to how Toscanini recorded for RCA many moons ago). That nearly ruined an otherwise successful reading. Furthermore, although the other symphonies sound a little better aurally, I find them all recorded low in volume, so the softer passages are all but inaudible on my CD player.

I wish the Wergo set was still in print but I don't feel the need to splurge on another box set at $70 or so from an Amazon seller.

My two cents.

Leitner and the SWR Baden-Baden and Freiburg Symphony Orchestra's profoundly sympathetic and musical performance was released in 2002 by Haenssler Classics. I find it to be light years beyond Metzmacher's reading and only equalled, in my listening experience, by Ferenc Fricsay's classic performance leading the RIAS Orchestra Berlin. But the sound quality of Leitner's reading is vastly superior to that of Fricsay, both in its original DGG Mono release as well as with the DGG re-release that came out a few years ago. Fricsay/RIAS Orchestra's recording was one of the best of that great Munich Musica Nova/DGG series. DGG sound recordists were world renowned in the 1950s for deploying the most advanced techniques of sound capture using the best technology, and the Fricsay performance that resulted from their work is a truly great performance, recorded production and cultural document to hear and to have. But thanks to many technical advances in contemporary sound recording - as realized here by the brilliant sound recordists of Haenssler Classics - reveal to the fullest extent, detail and ensemble the titanic power and tragic depth of expression of Hartmann's orchestral masterpiece as created in Leitner's shattering, almost overwhelming performance. Plus, with the Leitner CD you get one of the absolutely best recorded performances of Bruckner's 6th Symphony.