Wagner: Symphony in C Major

Albumbeschreibung

Even though Richard Wagner's youthful attempts at writing symphonies did little to advance his career, they were formative works that helped him move beyond the influences of Ludwig van Beethoven and Carl Maria von Weber to find his own voice. The fragmentary Symphony in E major, of which there are only two movements (later orchestrated by conductor Felix Mottl, who also orchestrated Wagner's Wesendonck Lieder), and the four-movement Symphony in C major were composed between 1832 and 1834, around the same time Wagner had completed his first opera, Die Feen. The early Romantic impulse dominates both symphonies, and while it's easy to detect echoes of Beethoven in Wagner's insistent rhythms, or Weber in the evocative orchestration, there is little here that even hints at the Wagner most listeners know from the music dramas. But Jun Märkl and the MDR Leipzig Radio Symphony Orchestra play the Allegro movements with great power and energy, giving the music an appropriate feeling of confidence and bombast, while the slow movements convey the lyricism that is Wagner's most recognizable trait at this early stage. Naxos' recording is detailed and reasonably close, though fortissimo dynamics reveal the highly resonant and occasionally booming acoustics of the MDR Studio.
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