Search - Wellesz, Vienna Radio Symphony Orchestra, Rabl :: Wellesz: Symphonies Nos. 2 & 9

Hitting his stride

Michael E. Karman | Portland, OR USA | 02/02/2007

(5 out of 5 stars)

"I thought 1 and 8 were pleasant, but 2 and 9 are both of them much more substantial pieces of music. I could never shake the feeling listening to number one that Wellesz, for all that he was 60 and an established composer, was not very sure of himself, perhaps because it sounds like he's not only recycling Mahler generally, but specifically reworking (without much change) long bits of that composer's 9th. (Listen to Jan Klusak's Variations on a Theme by Gustav Mahler for an example of non-derivative treatment.)The eighth seemed similarly derivative, only this time of Schoenberg or even Berg, though not nearly to the same extent.



Numbers 2 and 9, however, both sound secure. Number 2 sounds as if it could have been written at the turn of the century, so thoroughly has Wellesz assimilated the sounds and logics of forty or fifty years before. And 9 is simply a fine piece of music. The textures are much leaner than in the 8th--a smaller ensemble?--so it seems much easier to hear everything at first listen. And, fortunately, the music is more interesting, so the 9th rewards repeated hearings better, too. Much more than simply pleasant, both of these. Makes me wonder now what he was up to in symphonies 3-7..."