Franz Schmidt 150 (1874-1939)

“In conversations about Franz Schmidt the recurring theme emerging for many is that listening to a performance of his music at a young age became the turning point in their lives the realization of how powerful music can be,” says Jonathan Berman, whose longtime love of Franz Schmidt’s work has its origins in a performance preparation for his Fourth Symphony.

Berman’s passion for Schmidt’s work and the composer’s upcoming 150th birthday in 2024 were key reasons for the conductor to approach the BBC National Orchestra of Wales to record all four symphonies together – a major project that also marks Jonathan Berman’s CD debut.

The recordings were realized between 2020 and 2022 at BBC Hoddinott Hall, the home of the BBC NOW in Cardiff. In November 2023, Accentus Music releases all four symphonies in a high-quality box set that will also be made available across all digital platforms. BBC Music Magazine wrote about the digital pre-release of the first symphony in March 2021: “Jonathan Berman and the BBC National Orchestra of Wales deliver a terrific performance which provides a fine alternative to the excellent version from Paavo Järvi. […] What really makes this new recording so enticing is the sheer energy and enthusiasm with which conductor and orchestra communicate the vigour and optimism of the opening movement.”

Produced in association with BBC Radio 3 and BBC National Orchestra of Wales.

REVIEW:

Following their highly acclaimed streamed recording of his First Symphony, Jonathan Berman and the BBC National Orchestra of Wales have now completed their Franz Schmidt symphony cycle. Packaged together in this sumptuously designed and luxuriantly recorded set, the performances of all four symphonies, released in celebration of the 150th anniversary of his birth, pay worthy tribute to an undeniably major late-Romantic Austrian composer who, despite the passage of time, continues to divide opinion.

With almost evangelical zeal, Berman staunchly defends Schmidt from his detractors by providing some insightful personal observations in the booklet notes and by investing sufficient energy and dedication in his interpretations to allow the music to speak directly and fervently to the listener.

For over 100 years the only opera by a woman to have been performed at the Metropolitan Opera, Der Wald is a taut, brooding drama where the simplicity of village life comes under threat from the uncontrollable desires unleashed by the darkness of the forest. Richly orchestrated, harmonically daring, and demanding a huge expressive range from the cast, the narrative drives relentlessly forward from wedding to tragedy in a single act, observed pitilessly by the eternal spirits of the forest. John Andrews conducts the BBC Singers, the BBC Symphony Orchestra and an international cast in the first ever recording of this work, using Smyth’s English version of the libretto.

The Doric String Quartet is firmly established as one of the leading quartets of its generation, receiving enthusiastic responses from audiences and critics around the globe. Celebrating their 25th anniversary, the Quartet here embarks on a significant new recording project – the complete string quartets by Beethoven. This first volume combines works from Beethoven’s early, middle, and late period.

The six quartets Op. 18 were the first he composed, in 1799 and 1800, encouraged by Prince Franz Joseph Maximilian von Lobkowitz, a significant patron of the arts. Once he had completed the set, Beethoven heavily revised the first three quartets, writing to a friend: ‘I have changed it considerably; for I have only now learned to write quartets correctly, as you will see when you receive them.’

Andrey Kirillovich Razumovsky was the Russian ambassador to the Vieneese court, and the dedicatee of the three quartets Op. 59. The last of the middle-period quartets, Op. 95 (Serioso) was dedicated to Beethoven’s close friend and accomplished cellist Nikolaus Zmeskall and is regarded as showing a glimpse of what would come: Beethoven’s late quartets.

Extremely complex and largely misunderstood by musicians and audiences in Beethoven's day, these quartets are now widely considered to be among the greatest musical compositions of all time, and have inspired many later composers. Op. 127, featured in this volume, is the first of these monumental works.