Salomon Jadassohn - Symphonies (Howard Griffiths)

Information

Composer: Salomon Jadassohn

CD1

• Symphony No. 1 in C major, Op. 24
• Cavatine for Violin & Orchestra, Op. 69
• Symphony No. 2 in A major, Op. 28

CD2

• Symphony No. 3 in D major, Op. 50
• Cavatine for Cello & Orchestra, Op. 120
• Symphony No. 4 in C minor, Op. 101

Klaudyna Schulze-Broniewska, violin

Thomas Georgi, cello

Brandenburgisches Staatsorchester Frankfurt

Howard Griffiths, conductor

Date: 2015

Label: CPO

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Review

The music of Breslau-born, Leipzig-educated Jadassohn is not totally unfamiliar. There are reviews here of his First Symphony, Serenade and Piano Concerto No. 1 as recorded by Cameo and of the two piano concertos from Hyperion. Toccata and Querstand have weighed in on behalf of his chamber music. It can fairly be said from this that his music is of good report and this very logical double from CPO underscores that appraisal.

He has a sure-footed melodic gift and his orchestration is sleek and memorable. That is obvious from his remarkably concise First Symphony which has the punch and the flight-feathers of Schumann's Fourth Symphony. It's an extremely enjoyable work that you will want to hear again straightaway. The playing and the sound, as with the rest of the set, is a delight. All those sprinting strings could so easily have sounded shrill but the CPO team, and more to the point Griffiths' Frankfurt orchestra, present themselves as yielding and aureate. Speaking of which the delightful Cavatine op. 69 could easily have been by Brahms - the middle movement of some lost violin concerto. As for the other Cavatine (cello) this is a warm genre piece. It would go well with an inglenook and a blazing fire on a November's day. It merits a place alongside the short works for cello and orchestra by Dvořák, Bridge and Tchaikovsky.

The other three symphonies run to around the half-hour mark. The Second again metaphorically doffs a respectful and enthusiastic hat in the direction of Robert Schumann. Jadassohn keeps the ideas coming fresh and pleasing but always within the channels of Schumann's idiom. There is passion there too, of the type you can hear in the first movement of Parry's glorious First Symphony or in Sullivan's Symphony. On disc 2 we start with the Third Symphony, which is only let down by a leaden-footed fugal Menuetto. Otherwise Jadassohn continues to explore the Schumann style. The Fourth Symphony still has those rushing and scurrying Schumann-isms but the craftsmanship is polished and meets a gift for agreeable melodic invention.

By the way Jadassohn's pupils included Chadwick, Delius, Grieg, Busoni, Reznicek, Weingartner and Karg-Elert.

The two discs are presented elegantly in a single-width case.

The lengthy and useful liner note by Franz Groborz helpfully limns in the details of the composer, these works and their background.

Of the generation after Schumann, Jadassohn is clearly creatively indebted to that composer. If you enjoy Schumann you will like Jadassohn. His fall from grace was perhaps down to his failure to shake off the influence of others. This was consolidated in 1930s and 1940s Nazi Germany by his being Jewish. None of this need hold us back from enjoying the music now or for that matter the music of his contemporaries Reinecke, Volkmann and Gernsheim.

The performances in this case are forward and eager; not in the least academically reticent. The photograph on the back of the booklet shows Howard Griffiths conducting sums up what we hear in these performances; all smiling dynamism. Smile that we still have such music to discover and revel in.

— Rob Barnett

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Salomon Jadassohn (13 August 1831 – 1 February 1902) was a German pianist, composer and influential teacher. Born in Breslau, Prussia (now Wrocław, Poland), he studied at the Leipzig Conservatory and privately with Franz Liszt. He later taught piano and composition at the same conservatory, mentoring notable students such as Ferruccio Busoni, Frederick Delius, Sergei Bortkiewicz, Emil Reznicek and Felix Weingartner. Though his music fell into obscurity after his death, the 21st century has seen renewed interest, with modern performances and recordings contributing to a reevaluation of his work.

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Howard Griffiths (born 24 February 1950) is a British conductor. He was born in Hastings and studied music at the Royal College of Music, London. Griffiths has lived in Switzerland since 1981. From 1996 to 2006, he was chief conductor and artistic director of the Zürcher Kammerorchester (ZKO). Griffiths is a champion of music by contemporary Turkish and Swiss composers. With the ZKO, he has also conducted works in a classical and classical modern range. From 2007 to 2018 Griffiths was chief conductor of the Brandenburgisches Staatsorchester in Frankfurt. He has recorded over 60 CDs under various labels.

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