Lebrecht Weekly | Franz Schmidt: 4 symphonies (Naxos)

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Into every musical life, a little Schmidt must fall. I cannot count the conductors who have tried to persuade me that the Viennese cellist belongs among the ranks of great composers, or the number of hours I have devoted to attempts to understand their devotion. In vain. Once I’m over admiring the brilliance of the scoring, what then?

Schmidt played in the Vienna Opera orchestra and the Vienna Philharmonic under Gustav Mahler but fell out with his brother-in-law, concertmaster Arnold Rosé, and left on bad terms. He became a conservatory teacher and, eventually, principal of the city’s music academy, spending his spare time composing symphonies. His wife was confined to a mental home and his daughter died in childbirth. When the Nazis arrived, Schmidt wrote a German Resurrection cantata, dying before it was finished. He was not a lucky man.

This rare cycle of his symphonies is conducted in Malmo, Sweden, by the very fine Russian conductor Vassily Sinaisky, one of the most edifying Shostakovich interpreters. I have listened with care to each of the symphonies and appreciated the structural elegance and internal interply without ever being moved, or bowled over.

The primary influence is Bruckner, with a dash of Richard Strauss. There are moments in the third and fourth symphonies when Schmidt appears to be nearing a climax, only to retreat again into orchestral haze. Much of Bruckner must sound like this to a cellist in the bits he or she is not playing, a wall of sound without a roof, floor or habitable amenities. It goes on and on, and on. The Malmo Symphony plays with commendable patience. Sinaisky does his best. There’s a rather nice Chaconne which lasts less than half an hour. That might be the highlight.

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