Hans Huber - Symphony No. 2; etc. (Jörg-Peter Weigle)

Information

Composer: Hans Huber

• Symphonische Einleitung zur Oper 'Der Simplicius'
• Eine Lustspiel-Ouverture, Op. 50
• Symphony No. 2 in E minor, Op. 115 'Böcklin-Symphonie'

Stuttgart Philharmonic Orchestra

Jörg-Peter Weigle, conductor

Date: 1996

Label: Sterling

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Review

Huber was a Swiss composer whose music and life straddled the nineteenth and twentieth centuries. The music itself remains resolutely a product of vintage nineteenth century romanticism. Nothing desperately original here but whoever said that music had to be original to be enjoyable. If you enjoy Brahms, Dvorák, Stanford, Smetana, Fibich or Suk delay no longer. These discs are for you.

His grounding in music came from his father, a skilled amateur musician. He became a chorister at Solothurn but made such astounding progress with his piano studies that he switched from an ecclesiastical learning environment to a secular college. From 1870 to 1874 he attended Leipzig Conservatory studying with Reinecke. He then taught in the Alsace until, in 1877, he came to Basel. Denied a place at the Basel Conservatory until 1889, once ensconced, he soon made rapid progress as his works gained recognition. By 1896 he had been appointed Director. He died in Locarno in 1921 in the same year as Saint-Saëns.

He has eight symphonies to his name as well as a concerto apiece for violin, cello and piano, nine violin sonatas and five cello sonatas. These are:-

No. 1 William Tell (1882)

No. 2 Böcklin (1900)

No. 3 Heroische (1902)

No. 4

No. 5 Der Geiger von Gmünde (1906)

No. 6 (1911)

No. 7

No. 8 Frühlings-Symphonie (1920)

These eight symphonies form the raison d'être of what will eventually be a complete cycle from Sterling - A Swedish company recording a cycle of Swiss symphonies. The usual tributes are due to the creativity, and sheer grit of Sterling's proprietor, Bo Hyttner, whose energy would be an example to the Hoover Dam hydro-electric turbines.

Der Simplicius (1898): There are five Huber operas (six if you count the unfinished Der Gläserne Berg) of which Der Simplicius is the third. The overture is Mephistophelian - buzzing with whippy impetuosity. It will appeal to those who like Elgar's Froissart Overture and Smetana's symphonic poems Haakon Jarl and Richard III.

Eine Lustspiel-Ouverture (1879) is very attractive: calming but also with the slaloming vigour of Dvorak Symphonies 5 and 6 and Schumann's Rhenish Symphony.

The first and second movements of the Böcklin Symphony blaze with activity inflamed by the same drive as those two Dvorák symphonies. When the fires burn on a lower pressure a honeyed Brahmsian tone tempers the Dvorakian element. The third movement adagio has a willowy fluency with pointillistic effects from harp and solo violin ending in the autumnal sunshine familiar from Brahms' Third Symphony. The finale is a free fantasy inspired by a gallery of paintings by Arnold Böcklin (yes, the same Böcklin whose Isle of the Dead inspired Rachmaninov and Max Reger's Four Böcklin Tone Poems.). The movement is, by turns, jaunty, passionate and butterfly textured. So airy is some of the orchestration that we are almost into Berlioz at his most impressionistic as in Symphonie Fantastique. Set off against this a Brahmsian gravitas. The performance is excellent - infused with flammable temperament and an impressive unanimity of attack. A welcome change from Dvorák 5 and 6. Do try it!

— Rob Barnett

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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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