Also, Mahler, Bruckner. Jakub Hrusa, Bamberg Symphony Orchestra. DG 486 2932.
By John J. Puccio
“Hans Rott wrote his First Symphony--filled with groundbreaking musical ideas and a unique vision for how the symphony could develop--at a time when his younger schoolmate Mahler was barely getting started and his mentor Bruckner was struggling through his middle period. Jakub Hrusa and the Bamberger Symphoniker present this masterpiece alongside words by Bruckner and Mahler, shining a new light on a work which deserves to sit at the centre of the symphonic repertoire.” --DG liner notes
Mahler described Rott as “a musician of genius...who died unrecognized and in want on the very threshold of his career.... What music has lost in him cannot be estimated. Such is the height to which his genius soars in...[his] Symphony, which he wrote as a 20-year-old youth and makes him...the Founder of the New Symphony as I see it. To be sure, what he wanted is not quite what he achieved.... But I know where he aims. Indeed, he is so near to my inmost self that he and I seem to me like two fruits from the same tree which the same soil has produced and the same air nourished. He could have meant infinitely much to me and perhaps the two of us would have well-nigh exhausted the content of new time which was breaking out for music.”
The question has always been: Did Rott’s one and only full symphony influence Gustav Mahler’s compositions to come, or did the young Mahler somehow influence Rott’s writing of his First Symphony? We’ll probably never know for sure, but Maestro Jakub Hrusa and his Bamberg Symphony players do their best to illuminate the comparisons among Rott, Mahler, and Bruckner.
Whatever, it’s a shame composer and organist Hans Rott ((1858-1884) completed only a handful of tunes before he died. It seems that after writing his Symphony in E in 1880 Rott tried pressing it on both Brahms and Bruckner, but they wouldn’t have it. Brahms even became annoyed with Rott's pushiness (and possibly with some of the symphony's content, which he felt mimicked his own work), telling him he had no talent whatsoever. As a result of these and other obstacles, Rott’s Symphony fell into obscurity (it was not performed publicly until 1989), and Rott himself became depressed, delusional, and hostile. The state locked him up in a mental institution while he was in his early twenties, and he died there a few years later.
The present disc opens with Rott’s Symphony No. 1 in E-major, which has always reminded me of Schumann in the opening, Wagner in some of bigger, grander passages, and Brahms in the Finale. There is also a goofy third-movement Scherzo, which does, indeed, sound a lot like Mahler, the similarities being much too obvious, it seems to me, to have been mere coincidence. I like Rott’s intriguing, atmospheric, and mostly pleasurable (if not entirely memorable) passages, but in the end, it sounds to me too much like a pastiche of ideas. Still, I do like that bizarre Scherzo and the overall Romanticism of the piece.
The symphony begins quietly, much like Mahler’s First, though with both a Wagnerian and Schumann-like flavor. Then, by the time the first movement gets moving, we hear a touch of Brahms. I have to admit that I have never heard the Rott Symphony played in a live performance, but by the measure of the several recordings I’ve heard of it, I have never been overly impressed. That said, Hrusa does a fine job making the opening sound more imposing than I’ve heard it before. Of course, whether that is good or bad is entirely in the ear of the beholder.
The slow second movement Adagio seems more appealing at its outset than it does in its development, which doesn’t appear to go anywhere. Not even Hrusa can salvage it, although his sensitive hand guides us through it with a gentle sweetness.
Thankfully, we are rescued by that eccentric Scherzo I’ve mentioned, a jolly affair that couldn’t help inspiring Mahler. Under Hrusa’s direction, it marches steadily forward, pauses briefly for a quiet middle interlude, then resumes with vigor in a series of anticlimaxes. Hrusa keeps it under control as best he can before barely reining it in at the end.
The symphony culminates in a lengthy grand finale, which begins as the symphony began--in muted solitude. Then it quickly builds up a head of steam, which Hrusa and his Bamberg forces play to the hilt, amplifying, reducing, broadening, inflaming, inflating, decreasing, and stretching almost interminably. Yet Hrusa is skillful enough never to let it become overly bombastic, just overly drawn-out.
Following the Rott Symphony, Hrusa gives us two more works, the Andante allegretto “Blumine” by Mahler and the Symphonic Prelude in C minor by Bruckner. Hrusa’s purpose, of course, is to show us similarities in the writing of all three composers, even if the comparisons cannot offer any definite proof of who might have influenced whom. I can say I liked both the Mahler and Bruckner pieces better than I liked the Rott, but that rather misses the point.
Producers Eckhard Glauche, Johnannes Gleim, and Sebastian Braun and engineer Markus Spatz, Christian Jaeger, and Thorsten Kuhn recorded the music in the Konzerthalle, Bamberg in 2021 and 2022. There’s a good sense of depth to the orchestra, noticeable from the very beginning, and enough hall resonance to provide a realistic ambience. A slightly greater distancing makes the sound a mite soft and cloudy, though, so expect a seat in an auditorium perhaps more than halfway back. It makes for big, sometimes massive sound that complements the big, massive sections of the Rott score but tends to leave the quieter passages too recessed.
JJP
By John J. Puccio
Mahler described Rott as “a musician of genius...who died unrecognized and in want on the very threshold of his career.... What music has lost in him cannot be estimated. Such is the height to which his genius soars in...[his] Symphony, which he wrote as a 20-year-old youth and makes him...the Founder of the New Symphony as I see it. To be sure, what he wanted is not quite what he achieved.... But I know where he aims. Indeed, he is so near to my inmost self that he and I seem to me like two fruits from the same tree which the same soil has produced and the same air nourished. He could have meant infinitely much to me and perhaps the two of us would have well-nigh exhausted the content of new time which was breaking out for music.”
The question has always been: Did Rott’s one and only full symphony influence Gustav Mahler’s compositions to come, or did the young Mahler somehow influence Rott’s writing of his First Symphony? We’ll probably never know for sure, but Maestro Jakub Hrusa and his Bamberg Symphony players do their best to illuminate the comparisons among Rott, Mahler, and Bruckner.
The present disc opens with Rott’s Symphony No. 1 in E-major, which has always reminded me of Schumann in the opening, Wagner in some of bigger, grander passages, and Brahms in the Finale. There is also a goofy third-movement Scherzo, which does, indeed, sound a lot like Mahler, the similarities being much too obvious, it seems to me, to have been mere coincidence. I like Rott’s intriguing, atmospheric, and mostly pleasurable (if not entirely memorable) passages, but in the end, it sounds to me too much like a pastiche of ideas. Still, I do like that bizarre Scherzo and the overall Romanticism of the piece.
The symphony begins quietly, much like Mahler’s First, though with both a Wagnerian and Schumann-like flavor. Then, by the time the first movement gets moving, we hear a touch of Brahms. I have to admit that I have never heard the Rott Symphony played in a live performance, but by the measure of the several recordings I’ve heard of it, I have never been overly impressed. That said, Hrusa does a fine job making the opening sound more imposing than I’ve heard it before. Of course, whether that is good or bad is entirely in the ear of the beholder.
The slow second movement Adagio seems more appealing at its outset than it does in its development, which doesn’t appear to go anywhere. Not even Hrusa can salvage it, although his sensitive hand guides us through it with a gentle sweetness.
Thankfully, we are rescued by that eccentric Scherzo I’ve mentioned, a jolly affair that couldn’t help inspiring Mahler. Under Hrusa’s direction, it marches steadily forward, pauses briefly for a quiet middle interlude, then resumes with vigor in a series of anticlimaxes. Hrusa keeps it under control as best he can before barely reining it in at the end.
The symphony culminates in a lengthy grand finale, which begins as the symphony began--in muted solitude. Then it quickly builds up a head of steam, which Hrusa and his Bamberg forces play to the hilt, amplifying, reducing, broadening, inflaming, inflating, decreasing, and stretching almost interminably. Yet Hrusa is skillful enough never to let it become overly bombastic, just overly drawn-out.
Following the Rott Symphony, Hrusa gives us two more works, the Andante allegretto “Blumine” by Mahler and the Symphonic Prelude in C minor by Bruckner. Hrusa’s purpose, of course, is to show us similarities in the writing of all three composers, even if the comparisons cannot offer any definite proof of who might have influenced whom. I can say I liked both the Mahler and Bruckner pieces better than I liked the Rott, but that rather misses the point.
Producers Eckhard Glauche, Johnannes Gleim, and Sebastian Braun and engineer Markus Spatz, Christian Jaeger, and Thorsten Kuhn recorded the music in the Konzerthalle, Bamberg in 2021 and 2022. There’s a good sense of depth to the orchestra, noticeable from the very beginning, and enough hall resonance to provide a realistic ambience. A slightly greater distancing makes the sound a mite soft and cloudy, though, so expect a seat in an auditorium perhaps more than halfway back. It makes for big, sometimes massive sound that complements the big, massive sections of the Rott score but tends to leave the quieter passages too recessed.
JJP
