Customer Reviews

Richard Wetz: Violin Concerto

5 star:		(1)
4 star:		(1)
3 star:		(1)
2 star:		(1)
1 star:		(0)

 

 

When I first listened to this CD I was disappointed, but now, after repeated listening, I thoroughly enjoy these pieces. The Violin Concerto does not jump out at the listener with obvious themes, and requires a good deal of concentration to appreciate it. It is this characteristic that causes the piece to require repeated listening, and it is the same characteristic that makes repeated listening so enjoyable for me.

The performances are satisfying, and more than adequate to introduce this music; the same can be said for the recording and engineering.

This CD would provide a poor introduction to the work of Richard Wetz, but it is absolutely not mediocre schlock. The works included on this disk are not as good as his symphonic work, but they are certainly worth the effort taken to record them. I am absolutely thrilled with CPO for introducing me to this heretofore neglected master.

Richard Wetz (1875 - 1935) was a little-known German composer. He admired Bruckner, and his symphonies are, by most accounts, reminiscent of Bruckner symphonies (I've heard his #3 and I agree). The violin concerto is something else, however. It is a 30-minute one-movement work - with four sections - in which the violin plays almost continuously, with spare orchestral accompaniment. It is rhapsodic and intense, like the expression of a smoldering passion. It does not remind me of Bruckner, but I suspect that it is influenced by Bruckner in the way that the melodies gradually reveal themselves and the mood builds to an ecstatic climax (in the fourth section). Since I obtained this a few months ago I listen to it every week or two, to re-experience its power and to try to understand its secrets. I feel I don't want to listen to it too often, that I must ready myself for it and be strong enough for it. It has enough subtlety and complexity that I suspect I will never tire of it, like an Elgar symphony or the Elgar violin concerto. Obviously I'm crazy about this and expect to continue to love it. It's played perfectly by violinist Ulf Wallin, whom I'd never heard before. He plays in a way that I sometimes find unusual but which seems just right for this.

I read the two previous reviews, one fairly positive, the other fairly negative. I've listened to Wetz's violin concerto several times--and I like it. The themes are attractive and lyrical. Memorable, I don't know. Among my favorite violin concertos are Sibelius's and Prokofiev's first, but I'm not sure I could hum the very attractive melodies. I agree that structure in Wetz's concerto is not readily apparent except for the four general divisions of the one-movement work. The concerto has a rhapsodic character and I find the music attractive and melodic. The composer is obviously skilled in orchestration, as is evident in his three symphonies, and he writes well for the violin soloist. I do like his three symphonies which, although quite original, are obviously greatly influenced by Bruckner. Bruckner's influence is much less evident in the violin concerto. I am not terribly pleased that I find myself enjoying the work of a composer who was a member of the Nazi party, but so be it. (I also enjoy the operas of that proto-Nazi, Richard Wagner.)

Richard Wetz (1875-1935) was essentially a self-taught composer who spent most of his professional life in Erfurt. His works had modest success during his life. At the end of his life he enjoyed the patronage of the Nazis. Despite the efforts of such influential musicians as Peter Raabe, President of the Reichsmusikkammer, who established the Richard-Wetz Gesellschaft in 1943, his work was performed very rarely and has only been revived infrequently since World War II. The cpo label has released his three early symphonies, Brucknerian in tone, and follows up with this release.

There are three works on this CD. The earliest is the 'Traumsommernacht' ('Dream Summer Night'), Op. 14, from 1904. Five minutes long, and set for women's chorus and orchestra to the words of an idyl by Otto Julius Bierbaum, it is highly indebted to the music of Bruckner, not very original but effective for what it is. Unfortunately, given its short length, it is also the best thing on this disc. The chorus, however, is only approximately tuned and this nearly ruins the ethereal grace of the piece.

'Hyperion,' Op. 32, for baritone, chorus and orchestra, from 1912, and set to the last (prose) passage of Hölderlein's novel of the same name, is set in only slightly less Brucknerian style and with some of the tone-poem characteristics of Liszt. It has some very interesting things in it. But even the writer of the booklet (and, I believe, also the producer of the earlier Wetz CDs, Eckhardt van den Hoogen) admits that its reach exceeds its grasp. The performance here by baritone Markus Köhler is provincial. This is sixteen minutes of what-might-have-been.

The big piece offered here is Wetz's Violin Concerto in B Minor, Op. 57, from 1933. It is a thirty minute, one-movement work that moves away from Bruckner to some degree, but as far as I can tell it has no clear style, nor for that matter a lucid form. It falls into four sections, but it is episodic. The orchestration is often clotted with unpolished counterpoint and little memorable melodic content. It's as if it were an opera comprised entirely of dry recitative. Nothing sticks in the mind, and very little makes you want to hear it again. Ulf Wallin, the solo violinist, is technically fairly secure but his tone is sometimes thin and harsh, and his phrasing utilitarian. For my money, this concerto is not worth the effort and it sounds as if Werner Andreas Albert and his Staatsphilharmonie Rheinland-Pfalz may feel that, too.

I'm sad to say all this because cpo has brought us some wonderful discoveries from the byways of late Romantic and twentieth century German and Scandinavian music in recent years. One thinks, for instance, of the recent releases of Reznicek's 'Der Sieger' and 'Schlemihl.' And they've just released, but I haven't yet heard it, Reznicek's opera 'Donna Diana.' But this release is simply not one of their triumphs. I do hope, though, that cpo will continue searching for music worthy of their efforts.

TT=52:11

Scott Morrison