Franz Schmidt; Arnold Schoenberg - Symphony No. 4; Chamber Symphony No. 1 (Zubin Mehta)

Information

Composer: Franz Schmidt; Arnold Schoenberg

• Schmidt - Symphony No. 4 in C major
• Schoenberg - Chamber Symphony No. 1 in E major, Op. 9

Vienna Philharmonic Orchestra

Los Angeles Philharmonic Orchestra

Zubin Mehta, conductor

Date: 1971; 1968

Label: Decca

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Review

These two very different manifestations of twentieth-century Viennese symphonic composition make a slightly improbable but stimulating coupling. Schoenberg's flamboyantly economical display of contrapuntal wizardry, storming the bastions of traditional form and harmony, precedes Franz Schmidt's relatively conservative symphony by more than 20 years, and the only flaw in Mehta's reading of it is a tendency to opt for caution when (as most more recent recordings demonstrate) daring is the better part of valour. Mehta is particularly sedate in the scherzo, when heard alongside the Orpheus CO (DG) or the Dutch Schoenberg Ensemble (Schwann/Koch International), and the clear though dryish sound coarsens noticeably in the work's final stages. This is nevertheless the only mid-price CD version currently available, and it provides a striking counterweight to Schmidt's expansive and much less radical enterprise.

Schmidt's Fourth Symphony has won some extravagant praise which I can understand but cannot completely endorse. Given its length—almost 50 minutes—it lacks that sustained, Brucknerian sense of ecstacy to which it aspires, at least until the impressive moment of crisis at the end of the scherzo. Schmidt has a fine feeling for the dynamics of tonal harmony, but less flair for conjuring up the arrestingly memorable musical idea. This is nevertheless a well-projected performance, the sound a little constricted but with that typical Sofiensaal opulence shining through whenever the brass come into play. It may prove a minor irritant that the disc's third track runs the symphony's scherzo and most of the recapitulation of the Allegro molto moderato together.

— Arnold Whittall

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Franz Schmidt (22 December 1874 – 11 February 1939) was an Austro-Hungarian composer. A piano student of Theodor Leschetizky and a composition pupil of Anton Bruckner, he began his career as a cellist with the Vienna Court Opera, where he experienced professional tensions with Gustav Mahler. Schmidt later taught composition at the Vienna Staatsakademie and served as director of the Musikhochschule (1927–31). His music, sometimes compared to Max Reger, includes the opera Notre Dame, the oratorio Das Buch mit sieben Siegeln, four symphonies, left-hand works for Paul Wittgenstein, and organ works.

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Arnold Schoenberg (13 September 1874 – 13 July 1951) was an Austrian composer. Schoenberg was known early in his career for simultaneously extending the traditionally opposed German Romantic styles of Brahms and Wagner. Later, his name would come to personify innovations in atonality that would become the most polemical feature of 20th-century art music. Mentoring Anton Webern and Alban Berg, he became the central figure of the Second Viennese School. In the 1920s, he developed the twelve-tone technique, an influential compositional method of manipulating an ordered series of all twelve notes in the chromatic scale.

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Zubin Mehta (born 29 April 1936) is an Indian conductor. Trained at the Vienna Academy of Music, he gained early recognition after winning the 1958 Liverpool International Conducting Competition. Mehta held prominent roles with major orchestras, including the Montreal Symphony, the Los Angeles Philharmonic, the New York Philharmonic and the Israel Philharmonic Orchestra, where he served as music director for life until 2019. He also led leading European opera houses and orchestras. His memoir, Zubin Mehta: The Score of My Life (2009), reflects his celebrated international career and numerous honors.

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