More Pffffffffff-itzner!
Symphony op.36,Elegie und Reigen op.45,Fantasie op.56 Bamberg Symphony Orchestra / Werner Andreas Albert Cpo
Someone's going to tell me it's rubbish (if any members posts here?) but I must admit I'm impressed by this symphony. In fact,I think it's an impressive piece. Like allot of Pfitzner's music it surprised me,when I first heard it. I thought he was going to be a throw back to the late nineteenth century;but the main influiences seem to be from the first decade (or two) of the twentieth century. Mahler and Schreker spring to mind. Indeed,'Mahlerian',is how I would describe part's of this symphony. Particularly,the big climaxes in the first movement. And there's a lovely,serene slow movement with some quite beautiful writing for the strings and woodwind. This is the quite of big,late romantic symphony that rocks my boat! A few years ago I had look around the internet to find out what people thought of Pfitzner's music. What I found wasn't too positive and there wasn't allot! Now,I find allot of enthusiastic reviews and allot of posts at the GMG forum expressing admiration for some of his music. The performance on this cd is very good,to my ears;and the sound quality is up to Cpo's usual standard (very good!). While,it was listening to this I was thinking it would be great to hear the Berlin Philharmonic perform this work (and his Violin Concert,please! ;D).
"Well,it's better than the Rufinatscha!" 