Hans Huber - Symphonies Nos. 1 & 7 (Jörg-Peter Weigle)

Information

Composer: Hans Huber

• Symphony No. 1 in D minor, Op. 63 'Tellsinfonie'
• Symphony No. 7 in D minor 'Schweizerische'

Stuttgart Philharmonic Orchestra

Jörg-Peter Weigle, conductor

Date: 2001

Label: Sterling

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Review

Swiss composer Hans Huber (1852-1921) must have loved weddings. Both his First and Seventh Symphonies contain scherzos marked “in slow wedding march tempo” and “peasant wedding procession” respectively, and this fact does indeed reveal something of the music’s sweet, unchallenging character. The First Symphony, subtitled “Tell” (as in “William”) recalls Dvorák, and it has plenty of charm if not an overwhelmingly powerful character; but the tunes are good and the orchestration skillful. No. 7 (“The Swiss”) has movement titles that not surprisingly involve mountains, and it’s a more substantial and clearly more advanced (though still firmly harmonically consonant) work. The orchestration has expanded to include much more confident use of winds (piccolos especially), brass (often muted), and percussion, and the result has a cinematic sweep with scarcely a dull moment. It’s very much worth hearing.

Jörg-Peter Weigle and the Stuttgart Philharmonic turn in fine performances of these obscure pieces, and they convey the bravura writing in the outer movements of Symphony No. 7 with the necessary energy and conviction. Sterling’s recording also sounds excellent, with a firm bottom and a nice, bright top to catch the brilliant skirling piccolos that contribute such a memorable glint of color to Symphony No. 7’s sonic landscape. If you’re looking for well-crafted, harmonically comfortable, but consistently and enjoyably listenable Romantic music of the German school, give this a shot. You won’t be sorry.

— David Hurwitz

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Hans Huber (28 June 1852 – 25 December 1921) was a Swiss composer. Born in Eppenberg-Wöschnau, Canton of Solothurn, he studied at the Leipzig Conservatory under Carl Reinecke and later taught in Alsace before moving to Basel in 1877. Though initially denied a position at the Basel Conservatory, he eventually joined in 1889 and became its Director by 1896. Huber composed eight symphonies, concertos for violin, cello, and piano, nine violin sonatas, and five cello sonatas. He also wrote five operas, and a collection of 24 Preludes and Fugues for piano four-hands, covering all major and minor keys.

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Jörg-Peter Weigle (born in 1953) is a German conductor. He trained with the Thomanerchor in Leipzig and studied at the Hanns Eisler Academy in Berlin, later attending masterclasses with Kurt Masur and Witold Rowicki. His conducting career includes roles with the Neubrandenburg State Orchestra, Leipzig Radio Choir, Dresden Philharmonic, Stuttgart Philharmonic, Brandenburgisches Staatsorchester Frankfurt and Philharmonischer Chor Berlin. As an educator, he taught at the Carl Maria von Weber Academy in Dresden and served as Professor of Choral Conducting at the Hanns Eisler Academy until 2017.

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