And now for the symphony of a man who I misspelled both the first and last name of yesterday. It is fixed now. So I ran in to this chap when I was looking up contemporaries of Beethoven, realizing I knew very little of the symphonic music that was happening at the same time as his. And listening to his symphonies made me kind of go on a quest for other lesser known composers since I found each of his symphonies extremely solid. Maybe not the equivalent of the greatest works of the pantheon of master composers, but certainly the equal to some of their lesser works that still receive a ton of performances.
In many ways the opening movement sounds like it could almost be a sequel to Mozart 40. A very anxious and driving minor movement. This makes sense from what I read about Étienne Méhul. Namely that he felt that he had to accustom his audience to the fact that a Frenchman could follow in the footsteps of Mozart and Haydn. This was written the same year as Beethoven 5, and while it doesn't have that tumultuous of a sound, there is still some edges here and there that mark it as solidly Romantic. Which is appropriate because according to the only research I do for this blog (what wikipedia says), he was the first composer to ever be labelled as a Romantic.
The inner movements are very classical in spirit, with what sounds like a theme and variation and a menuetto. There are interesting orchestrational things going on here with a low bassoon and horn interjection towards the end of the movement that struck me as an interesting color choice. The third movement opens with an extended pizicatto section, that is later mimicked by staccato winds. In between these sections the meneut feels like it never quite settles in to the full melody.
The last movement is restless throughout, and again reminiscent of some more anxious Mozart music, to my ears at least. This has the kind of embellishments all over the place driving things forward that would give me nightmares if they were in the back of my Arban's book, but I feel like they might be in there somewhere. If I have any problem with the finale it is that the consistency of motion almost obscures the ending which comes as a bit of a surprise, since it just drives straight to the end.
I know this is a little short, but there is not a ton to say except that it is a solid piece of work. You should check it out. Like the next time you're thinking about listening to Beethoven 2 or 4 again, put this on instead.
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