Label: CPO Catalog: 777381-2 Format: CD DEUTSCHE RADIO PHILHARMONIE; SAARBRÜCKEN KAISERSLAUTERN; MERCIERGouvy Symphonies Vol. 3
Our Gouvy edition continues this month with this German-French composer’s first two symphonies. Gouvy primarily composed symphonies that were very highly regarded in Germany already during his lifetime. No other foreign composer was played so frequently in Leipzig during the 1850s than Gouvy was. The influence of the »allemands« in France may have been one factor motivating the choice of the typical »German« genres of the symphony (and later of chamber music). Gouvy’s early first to fifth symphonies were composed between 1845 and 1857 and are without exception in four movements. Although he largely did without motivic developments in his first two symphonies, he always maintained the pulsing swing of the main motif while quite naturally modulating through remote keys. He once again demonstrates the bravura and »clarté« that his contemporaries valued in his music. It is above all his mastery, in the tradition of Beethoven and Haydn, in combining compositional thoroughness with tonal sophistication and virtuosity that was and is welcomed. |