Search - Ernst Toch, Alun Francis, Berlin Radio Symphony Orchestra :: Ernst Toch: Symphonies Nos. 5-7

Fascinating "Viennese" music

V. Wilson | Cambridge, MA United States | 03/23/2000

(5 out of 5 stars)

"Ernst Toch was another one of those German/Austrian composers displaced by the insanity of Hitler. As with many others, his promising career was derailed by the Nazis and he never really achieved the acclaim he deserved.This disc contains a late flowering of his genius. Toch was at the end of a long line of "Viennese" composers stretching through Schmidt, Strauss and Mahler back to Schubert. As a result, his music has an appealing melodic content. However, unlike Mahler, for example, Toch's music is not weighed down with a lot of philosophical baggage. Instead, he uses the orchestra very delicately--rarely offering large tutti passages. Frequently, several solo instruments are weaving amid one another, supported by interesting percussion sounds.The result is a very nostalgic sound--as if one hears a Strauss waltz from very far away. The jacket notes speak of the "formlessness" of these symphonies, but I found that the ear picks up on familiar phrases.All in all, this wonderfully played disc offers intriguing music that ought to be heard. One can only hope that these forces will return to complete the Toch symphonic canon (there are 7), and maybe offer us some other pieces from this wonderful composer."

All 7 Available Soon

Charles Voogd | Underwaterland | 11/16/2000

(4 out of 5 stars)

"Toch was one of many Entartete Musiker Germany `produced' in the 30s and he too fled to the US. In the last years of his life he composed a series of symphonies which CPO issue on record (# 2 and 3 are also available on CPO).Toch must have learnt a lesson or two from other composers (I hear Hindemith, Prokofiev, Shostakowitch, Mahler, Schoenberg echoes in these works) but it is worthwhile exploring. These are works that you would like to listen to more than once, although a `Toch only diet' will never be the case. To monochrome. I enjoyed this disc and the performance strikes me as a good one. It indeed is very well produced, and the recording is very clean. I would like to compliment CPO with the booklet text, again very well done, as is always the case with them!Happily, while the Decca Entartete Musik Series seems to dry up, CPO and some other labels are picking up the case of these composers (Korngold already available)."