# SS 23.03.19 - Berwald #2 "Capricieuse"



## realdealblues (Mar 3, 2010)

A continuation of the Saturday Symphonies Tradition:

Welcome to another weekend of symphonic listening! 
_*
*For your listening pleasure this weekend:*

Franz Berwald **(1796 - 1868)*

Symphony #2 in D major, "__Capricieuse__"
1. Allegro
2. Andante
3. Allegro assai

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Post what recording you are going to listen to giving details of Orchestra / Conductor / Chorus / Soloists etc - Enjoy!_


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## realdealblues (Mar 3, 2010)

Another weekend is upon us and another Symphony is up for your listening enjoyment. This week it's Swedish composer Franz Berwald's 2nd Symphony. I enjoy Berwald and am looking forward to hearing this one again. I hope everyone can join it.

There's several recordings of this one so I don't feel the need to post a YouTube link. I'll be listening to:







Neeme Jarvi/Gothenburg Symphony Orchestra


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## Mika (Jul 24, 2009)

From my collection


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## KenOC (Mar 7, 2011)

For me, Thomas Dausgaard with the Danish National SO. Dausgaard is the new music director this season with the Seattle Symphony.


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## Merl (Jul 28, 2016)

I've got a few of these Berwald sets so I'll go with this lovely recording.


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## D Smith (Sep 13, 2014)

Merl said:


> I've got a few of these Berwald sets so I'll go with this lovely recording.
> 
> View attachment 114735


Kamu here for me too. I've grown to really enjoy Berwald. Good choice!


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## cougarjuno (Jul 1, 2012)

A wonderful breezy Berwald symphony. Different artwork for the Jarvi Gothenburg set.


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## Haydn man (Jan 25, 2014)

Mika said:


> View attachment 114733
> 
> From my collection


Yes this one for me too
I am a fan of Berwald so this will be a fun Saturday


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## KenOC (Mar 7, 2011)

People on another forum were enthusiastic about Sixten Ehrling’s set. I went checking on YouTube and it appears they have his 1, 3, and 4 – but no 2!


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## Rogerx (Apr 27, 2018)

realdealblues said:


> Another weekend is upon us and another Symphony is up for your listening enjoyment. This week it's Swedish composer Franz Berwald's 2nd Symphony. I enjoy Berwald and am looking forward to hearing this one again. I hope everyone can join it.
> 
> There's several recordings of this one so I don't feel the need to post a YouTube link. I'll be listening to:
> View attachment 114731
> ...


This one for me too.


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## Malx (Jun 18, 2017)

This fine recording for me:

View attachment 114794


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## Malx (Jun 18, 2017)

KenOC said:


> People on another forum were enthusiastic about Sixten Ehrling's set. I went checking on YouTube and it appears they have his 1, 3, and 4 - but no 2!


If you can access spotify all four of Ehrlings fantastic performances are available - not the best sound but should be good enough to let Ehrling's recordings shine.


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## KenOC (Mar 7, 2011)

I had heard this before but maybe never listened too closely, my favorite of Berwald's symphonies being No. 3 in C, _Sinfonie singulière_. So this time I really paid attention and listened to it twice, Dausgaard's recording. My notes:

1 Allegro - Cougarjuno wrote that this symphony was "breezy," a term that seems about right. Memorable though abrupt and often jagged themes, emphatic and oddly-sprung rhythms, idiosyncratic harmonies, always quick, energetic, and upbeat. Berwald sounds like nobody else!

2 Andante - Opens with an extended Beethovenish hymn-like passage. Not much "Berwald" here. This is followed by segment marked by steady beats throughout, a bit more energetic and, in places, dramatic. The first part returns and ends the movement. A slow movement but in scherzo form (the symphony lacking a scherzo). This movement, the shortest and (I think) least interesting, seems kind of a respite between the outer movements.

3 Allegro assai - The antic mood of the first movement returns. Much of the music consists of woodwinds and brass playing at moderate tempo above the violins, who are madly fiddling away as if this were a _perpetuum mobile_. Seems to be, like the first movement, in sonata form. The symphony ends in a jubilant mood.

I really like and enjoy Berwald's symphonies. But if I'm honest, and comparing him with Mendelssohn and Schumann, he probably deserves to be ranked one step down. However, the quality of his inspiration is far higher than that of, say, Raff. And the unusual way he approaches symphonic music, unique in its time so far as I know, adds a lot of interest for me.

A welcome choice for the SS series.


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## KenOC (Mar 7, 2011)

BTW we don't have the original score of the symphony. Wiki has more, including:



> "The original score has been lost since the 1850s. In 1909, the Franz Berwald Foundation commissioned Ernst Ellberg to reconstruct the score from 4-stave sketches containing indications for orchestration. Ellberg's reconstruction was published in 1913 and first performed on January 9, 1914. Towards the end of the century, Nils Castegren reviewed Ellberg's reconstruction and published an 'urtext' for Bärenreiter."


I don't know which of the two reconstructions are used in the various recordings.


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## MrMeatScience (Feb 15, 2015)

A little late, but I'll be going with Dausgaard for this one. I've heard some Berwald before (not this work) and thought him fine, albeit not quite first-rate. Interesting stuff regarding the couple of completions -- shame that the different recordings on Spotify aren't labeled with the score they use.


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