Search - Ernst Wilhelm Wolf, Nicolas Pasquet, Franz Liszt Chamber Orchestra :: Wolf: Four Symphonies

The Symphony in F Major is the Standout Here

M. C. Passarella | Lawrenceville, GA | 11/12/2009

(5 out of 5 stars)

"Ernst Wilhelm Wolf was born in Gotha, studied at the University of Jena, and served as court Kapellmeister at Weimar for thirty years. Born three years after Haydn and outliving Mozart by a year, he charted the growth of the symphony from its origins as a brief, three-movement successor of the Italian opera sinfonia to the large-scale sonata-form work it became by the time of Mozart's and Haydn's greatest contributions to the genre circa 1790. And since Wolf came late to the symphony, he did so in the short span of twenty or so years. Helpfully, the present Naxos disc includes early and late work so we get a snapshot of that growth.



The undated D Major Symphony is clearly an early work, with high trumpets and drums providing only brief, fanfare flourishes. The tiny first and third movements lack development sections and instead feature short transitional passages between exposition and recapitulation.



Compare this to the twenty-four minute Symphony in F Major, easily the most notable represented here. It starts with a halting slow introduction that sounds like a quiet lament. Followed by a celebratory Allegro, the introductory material surprisingly returns before the repeat of the exposition, during the development, in the middle of the recapitulation and before the coda, each time casting a shadow across the proceedings; the final, quiet cadence sounds as tentative as the opening. Surprisingly, again, the mature symphonies of Wolf include development within the recapitulation, which stretches both the technical and emotional bounds of his allegros.



The second movement sustains a tragic air over the course of ten minutes and has all the gravity of Mozart in his best G-minor mode, so the relaxed, patrician quality of the last movement comes as a relief.



Almost as distinguished is the vital first movement of the Symphony in C Major, dating from 1786. This is the only four-movement symphony represented here, and while the other movements don't maintain the very high level established in the initial Allegro, with its dancing first subject and rocket figures in the bass, this is nonetheless a fine symphony as well.



The Symphony in E-flat displays in spades another feature of Wolf's symphonic style, his heavy reliance on the winds for coloristic effect. Clarinets, bassoons, flutes all get their chance to declaim, but the cumulative effect is to hinder the forward thrust of the music and give it an almost Rococo decorativeness instead of the vitality found in the C Major and especially the F Major Symphony.



But then at least two of symphonies on this disc are memorable indeed, aided and abetted by vigorous, sympathetic conducting and playing, the Franz Liszt Chamber Orchestra of Weimar doing their fellow citizen proud. Excellent, very natural sound from Naxos too."