Wilhelm Berger - Symphony No. 2, Op. 80 (1900) скачать в хорошем качестве

Wilhelm Berger - Symphony No. 2, Op. 80 (1900)

Wilhelm Reinhard Berger (9 August 1861 - 16 January 1911) was a German composer, pianist and conductor. Please support my channel: https://ko-fi.com/bartjebartmans Symphony No. 2 in B minor, Op. 80 (1900) I. Allegro molto e con brio (0:00) II. Adagio (15:36) III. Intermezzo: Vivace (28:03) IV. Allegro con fuoco (37:16) Nordwestdeutsche Philharmonie conducted by Klaus Bernbacher Details by Renate Hellwig, 2020 The Symphony No. 2 in B minor, op. 80 was premiered on 26 May 1900 in Bremen, at the 36th Tonkünstlerfest, under the composer’s direction. In the same year, the Berlin premiere took place under Felix Weingartner. How-ever, a performance planned with Fritz Steinbach did not work out to the composer’s chagrin. “Incidentally, I am raging under the depressing impression that my symphony is not being made! I can’t believe that the performance could be endangered by 2 wind players! - Well, Steinbach did all sorts of things to prevent this, but the disappointment is bitter enough.” The symphony did not receive the same attention as the First Symphony, if one considers the number of performances. The latter was played more frequently by the Meininger Kapelle between 1898 and 1920, even outside Meiningen. The Second Symphony, on the other hand, is found only once in their repertoire - in a tour concert in Gotha on 10 December 1905. The Symphony No. 2 was not published until 1912, one year after Berger’s death, by Bote & Bock in Berlin. It consists of four movements and, like his First Symphony, is entirely in the classical tradition. With his two symphonies, Berger stands on the threshold of the 20th century and at the same time at the beginning of New Music - but without wanting to cross this border. In the same year, works as diverse as Arnold Schoenberg’s string sextet Verklärte Nacht, Richard Strauss’ Ein Heldenleben and Gustav Mahler’s Symphony No. 4 with soprano solo were composed. The late romantic Berger takes a different path, he does not deconstruct the music as Mahler does, but for him everything is still “true” and “real”. His motto is “banishing all flitter, plasticity, concise thoughts, absolute music”. Berger in a letter from 1905: “The new music in general?! Anyone who is insincere in his art joins in and thus enjoys a certain protection; anyone who remains honest has a very hard time, but one does have a feeling of honesty!“ And in a letter to the composer Friedrich Gernsheim: “I no longer understand the whole trend - on the one hand they yearn for Bach, on the other hand, there is an art that can fill one with sorrow.“ Nevertheless, old and new mix together in Berger’s cosmos. “Chromatic harmony“ and “dissonant counter-point” meet with “overloaded polyphony, baroque forms and monumentalisation of the dimensions, carried by Wilhelmine pathos, but also by stupendous craftsmanship.“ Even though Berger is in the tradition of Brahms, there are influences from Wagnerian harmonics and the art of instrumentation. This is not particularly surprising, since as a student he had made no secret of his enthusiasm for Wagner: “That Wagner is undoubtedly the greatest genius living at the present time became clear to me once again when I was at Bilse for the Wagner evening. Only Wagner can inspire like this. With Brahms, one has the feeling that it is beautiful music, but his music has such a reflective quality that it is impossible to listen to him for an entire evening “. Later, however, the tide turned and the Wagnerian Wilhelm Berger switched to the Brahms camp. Renate Hellwig, 2020