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Hindemith: Works for Orchestra / Eschenbach, NDR Symphony
Ondine

Hindemith: Works for Orchestra / Eschenbach, NDR Symphony

$18.99

Details

Composer
HINDEMITH, PAUL
Artist
Eschenbach
Format
CD
Label
Ondine
Released
Oct 09, 2015
Catalog #
ODE 1275-2
UPC
761195127520

About

Ondine's successful Paul Hindemith (1895-1963) recordings with the NDR Sinfonieorchester conducted by Christoph Eschenbach continue with another release featuring two major symphonic works by the composer: Symphonie ‘Mathis der Maler' and Symphonie in E-flat.

The orchestra's and Christoph Eschenbach's previous Hindemith release together with Midori won a Grammy Award in 2014.

The ‘Mathis der Maler' Symphony is based on an opera that treats the life of the Renaissance painter Mathias Grünewald. Hindemith started to work on the symphony already prior to the completion of the opera. The symphony was premiered with great success by the Berlin Philharmonic Orchestra under Wilhelm Furtwängler on 12 March 1934. This performance was the last premiere of an orchestral work by Hindemith in Germany before the National Socialist regime issued a general performance prohibition applying to his works in 1936.

Hindemith wrote his Symphonie in E-flat during his exile in the United States in 1940. The Symphony is absolute music in the tradition of the four-movement symphony of Beethoven and the romantic period.

REVIEW:

Eschenbach’s trademark fondness for textural warmth and clarity is much to the fore in Mathis, where strings and woodwind are admirably numinous, the complex counterpoint in both the ‘Engelkonzert’ and the ‘Temptation’ beautifully detailed. The central ‘Grablegung’ is slow, rich-sounding and very introverted. The state-of-the-art recording, pristine and wide-ranging but with no sense of dynamic exaggeration, helps him at the big climaxes, which are imposing, at times even monumental, and there’s a beguiling elegance to the instrumental solos that thread their way through the textures. Abbado and the Berlin Philharmonic on DG have more dramatic bite but this is superbly done nevertheless.

Eschenbach’s approach to the underrated Symphony in E flat, meanwhile, is epic, thoughtful and at times startlingly measured. He is wonderfully attuned to the complex trajectory of a work that looks back from a newly acquired place of safety on an old world irrevocably damaged. The opening Sehr lebhaft has terrific élan, the scherzo a supple, gracious wit. The orchestral clarity is again breathtaking. But placed beside the almost reckless energy of Bernstein (Sony—nla) or Hindemith himself (DG), you notice a grander manner and slower speeds. Eschenbach’s longbreathed way with the crucial Sehr langsam steers it closer to ritual mourning than private grief, though his treatment of the work’s closing pages, in which sadness briefly threatens to intrude upon gathering joy, is moving in the extreme.

-- Gramophone

Tracklist 7 tracks

  1. 1 I. Engelkonzert (Angelic Concert) 09:24
    Track
    1
    Title
    I. Engelkonzert (Angelic Concert)
    Duration
    09:24
    Composer
    Paul Hindemith
    Ensemble
    NDR Sinfonieorchester
    Conductor
    Christoph Eschenbach
  2. 2 II. Grablegung (The Entombment) 06:21
    Track
    2
    Title
    II. Grablegung (The Entombment)
    Duration
    06:21
    Composer
    Paul Hindemith
    Ensemble
    NDR Sinfonieorchester
    Conductor
    Christoph Eschenbach
  3. 3 III. Versuchung des heiligen Antonius (The Temptation of St. Anthony) 15:06
    Track
    3
    Title
    III. Versuchung des heiligen Antonius (The Temptation of St. Anthony)
    Duration
    15:06
    Composer
    Paul Hindemith
    Ensemble
    NDR Sinfonieorchester
    Conductor
    Christoph Eschenbach
  4. 4 I. Sehr lebhaft 04:45
    Track
    4
    Title
    I. Sehr lebhaft
    Duration
    04:45
    Composer
    Paul Hindemith
    Ensemble
    NDR Sinfonieorchester
    Conductor
    Christoph Eschenbach
  5. 5 II. Sehr langsam 14:09
    Track
    5
    Title
    II. Sehr langsam
    Duration
    14:09
    Composer
    Paul Hindemith
    Ensemble
    NDR Sinfonieorchester
    Conductor
    Christoph Eschenbach
  6. 6 III. Lebhaft 07:14
    Track
    6
    Title
    III. Lebhaft
    Duration
    07:14
    Composer
    Paul Hindemith
    Ensemble
    NDR Sinfonieorchester
    Conductor
    Christoph Eschenbach
  7. 7 IV. Massig schnelle Halbe 10:29
    Track
    7
    Title
    IV. Massig schnelle Halbe
    Duration
    10:29
    Composer
    Paul Hindemith
    Ensemble
    NDR Sinfonieorchester
    Conductor
    Christoph Eschenbach