Schulhoff 2

Rec.: Bavarian Radio Symphony Orchestra

    I was introduced to this composer earlier this week by my friend Jacqui. After listening to a woodwind trio by Schulhoff I wanted to check some more stuff out by him. Erwin Schulhoff's music has the kind of excited energy that I find very appealing in early-mid 20th centruy music so I was hooked. So I just found the first symphony I could on Spotify of his and went with it. I was also intrigued by the scherzo alla jazz and what that would entail.

    I'll save the biography, as it is a sad one, and get right in to the music. These are impressions being written while listening as I've done before, so this is a little more free form. So far in the first movement I'm loving the clarity and drive of the neo-classical (I think I would classify it as that) style. It is thematically strong and the themes are well developed. In some ways it feels like a more approachable Hindemith to me (although he is another guy I have unreserved love for the music of). The double reed writing of Schulhoff in the first movement is particularly good.

    Slow movements seem to me to have suffered the roughest treatment during this time period. A lot of the times they seem to be striving to avoid their identity as the slow, serious movement. Or sometimes they make them overserious. This movement avoids a little bit of that, but I feel like it never quite settled on what it wanted to be. Which I understand is an incredibly vague assessment, but that is the initial impression I have. Maybe it will make more sense on repeat listenings.

    The opening of the third movement lured me in to thinking that this was a REALLY loose definition of jazz. In otherwords I thought the only thing he was gonna do is use the muted trumpet. Sure enough though, there is a saxophone duet with the trumpet all accompanied by what sounds like banjo. So now I can say I've heard a symphony with sax and banjo in it. As far as content goes, I like it in the way I usually like these European adaptations of the jazz idiom (one of my favorite pieces is Milhaud's La Creation du Monde after all). Also interesting is how succinct and unrelated the movements feel compared to more integrated symphonies that seemed popular at that time.

    The longest movement is the last, which still comes in at under 7 minutes. I think there might be late Romantic movements that last longer than this symphony. But I think this works in the pieces favor. The music is all very efficiently presented and developed in a way that it would feel weird if there was extra fluff and fat hanging on it. The final movement is driving and has a clarity to the thematic presentation and the form. This movement sounds like a modern reinterpretation of a Classical era final movement. It hits a lot of the same beats that you would expect out of one, but with a more modern sense of harmony and orchestration.

    Well it is official, I need to stop finding composers who I really enjoy or I'm never going to finish listening to all the music I want to listen to. Schulhoff is definitely on my list of composers I need to check out more extensively now, and while this symphony was not as impressive as the trio I listened to of his, I still found it enjoyable.  

I'll figure out next week's theme tomorrow