JOHANN VON HERBECK: Symphony No. 4 in D minor "Organ Symphony", Symphonic Variations in F major – Irénée Peyrot, organ / Hamburger Symphoniker / Martin Haselböck – NCA multichannel SACD 60150; 61:36 **** [Distr. by Naxos]:
Johann von Herbeck is now hardly known, but during his lifetime he was a highly influential musical mover and shaker in Vienna. Born on Christmas Day in 1831, he became a choirboy at Heiligenkreuz in 1843, and began lessons in composition a couple of years later. After interrupting his musical studies to become a tutor, and then study law, he married in 1852, started a family and became a choirmaster in Vienna. Thereafter, his influence became increasingly important and he gave first performances of some of the greatest music – Schubert’s B minor symphony, Bruckner’s Mass in D minor, the first Viennese performance of Wagner’s Meistersinger and more. He became director of the court opera from 1870 to 1875 and succeeded his friend, Brahms, as director of the “Gesellschaft der Musikfreunde”. He had agreed to give the first performance of Bruckner’s Third Symphony in December1877 but died in September, aged just 45; in the event Bruckner conducted the work himself, the concert not a success.
But what of his music? The Fourth Symphony harks back to the time of Bach, and f you know and like Joseph Marx’s much later Alt-Wiener Serenaden, Partita In Modo Antico or Sinfonia In Modo Classico which were available on ASV you may well fall for this piece, too. There’s a good deal of maestoso writing, with a colourful part for the organ, and for the trombones which shine in this performance. In his biography of his father, Ludwig von Herbeck describes this work as one of his father’s best, “certainly the most magnificent”. Written in the Summer of 1877, the composer was to have conducted the première in the Autumn; instead the orchestra was conducted by Hans Richter. The Bachian first and last movements act as a Prelude and Fugue, and the scherzo in particular has some winning moments.
The Symphonic Variations date from the Summer or 1875, and also include a Prelude and Fugue in the last two variations. The work was very well received at its première at the end of November 1875, the composer conducting the Vienna Philharmonic Orchestra, but soon fell out of the repertoire. There are nods to Schumann and Bruckner in the writing, and more in a Brahmsian flavour, but doesn’t really compete for one’s interest as do similar works by Brahms and Dvorak.
The Hamburger Symphoniker under Martin Haselböck play with sensitivity and produce some fine sounds; the recording in stereo is fine, but in multichannel the soundstage really does open up with excellent results. A handsome booklet accompanies this release beautifully printed and well illustrated; the essay by Wolfgang Doebel is a model of its kind, informative and interesting, outlining Herbeck’s life and career in the context of his times. And in this, the recording has much value; the music may not be that undiscovered masterpiece, but its honesty has a certain charm.
— Peter Joelson
