Siegmund von Hausegger: Natursymphonie [Hybrid SACD] [Hybrid SACD, SACD]

The SACD hybrid disc on review here is, quite simply, one of the most, if not THE most superbly recorded I have heard. The orchestral amplitude and heft is amazing and the dynamic range is breathtakingly accommodated from huge orchestral and choral outburst with full organ to gentlest whisper of sound. The West German Radio Symphony Orchestra, Cologne, is a fine orchestra and they get a recording that brings out all their magnificence.

But what of the music? Siegmund von Hausegger did not write all that much, the Nature Symphony being the largest orchestral work he completed (in 1911). Its language in high and late Romantic and lovers of Richard Strauss, Rachmaninov or Scriabin will find themselves at home in the sound world - though the music itself is does not have either the descriptive facility of Strauss or the melodic refulgence of Rachmaninov or Scriabin. This is "serious stuff", and it ends with a choral finale on words by Goethe about the relationship in nature between the Uncreated Creator and Mankind. The three movements can be characterised as "Demonic Struggle of gladness and darkness in Nature"; "Funeral Ode for the passing of all things" and, finally, "Apotheosis of the magnificence of creation and mankind's presence in it". These putative titles occur nowhere in the score or in the booklet notes (of which more later) but they are rather my interpretation of what I think the composer might have been trying to do.

Hausegger was a musical academic and orchestral conductor and he obviously had a serious turn of mind. You might characterise the music as something like "Mahler without the ecstasy..." On a first hearing I was nonplussed by it, but on subsequent playings I have begun to see that it is a noble work, if not perhaps one that yields up its secrets very easily. The five star rating is as much for the astonishing recording as anything else. But if you are a lover of the sheer grandeur of late Romantic music, this might be a disc you would want to explore. I have moved from not being at all sure to a gradual feeling of being glad that I bought the disc, but this is after trying quite hard with the music over several playings (and the symphony lasts for 56 minutes!). My one adverse criticism of the disc is that the orchestra tends to overwhelm the chorus in the finale. I do not know if that is Hausegger's writing, the relatively small size of the chorus compared to the large orchestra, or the balance achieved by the recording producer. The quality sinks from stunning to very good indeed. An oddity of a disc and perhaps a connoisseur's piece, but worth getting if you are in the mood for some stirring climaxes.

The other adverse criticism is of the impossibly overblown booklet notes that seem to have been written by someone with an incapacity to come to the point and a desire to demonstrate his (it is a "he")intellectualism by bombarding the reader with elliptical references to the artistic community of late 19th Century Graz (birthplace of the composer). These notes add nothing much to the understanding of the music and what analysis there is cannot be clearly understood to refer to the desire of the composer that the passages be interpreted in the manner presented. Use the notes only for the translation of the Goethe in the last movement.

Many times, when a piece of music is released not a soul has heard of for around 40 years, the booklet says `there's real Mahlerian grandeur and influence' and all those times after listening to those CD's I couldn't hear any of it. So, maybe that are just marketing tricks: `let's write it's Mahlerian influenced, they'll buy that, cos Mahler sells'. Until I bought this release; in this case the CLAIM is TRUE.
Born in Graz, the son of the composer Friedrich von Hausegger, this composer had a handful of orchestral works to his name including three symphonic poems: Dionysische Phantasie, (1896), Barbarossa (1898/99) and Wieland der Schmied (1904)
The Natursinfonie could easily have been another pictorial nature symphony in the manner of Raff and Huber. No such thing. Here instead is a full-blown philosophical symphony written in grandeur. It is expressed in Mahlerian magnificence with such fastidious craftsmanship that it never topples over into bombast. You can forget about any Bucknerian involvement. This is a big work which gets to grips with the eternal verities and does so with the deep reach of a philosopher. The language is that of early 20th century romanticism. That first movement starts with the mastery of the opening of Mahler 3 and 6. The exuberant brass writing is redolent of the joyous uproar of Mahler's First Symphony. The whole thing is lavishly orchestrated and is treated to a simply glorious recording.

A beautifully recorded CD. Unfortunately, to my ears, the music, whatever its other merits, is devoid of one memorable tune. Like many another Late Romantic composer, (say Fibich, Foerster, Pfitzner, Suk, Schmidt, Marx etc.), on one of their off days, von Hausegger includes everything except a melody. Maybe it's just me, but I was hoping to be, and certainly wasn't, swept away on a post-Mahlerian tide of emotion.
"Too many notes".