# Wetz #3, which recording?



## RobertJTh (Sep 19, 2021)

Richard Wetz (1875-1935) is no longer a complete nobody, but he's not a household name either.

The problem is that his music (3 symphonies, a violin concerto, a requiem and some chamber music) is badly under-recorded. Only his 2nd and 3rd symphonies have the luxury of being recorded twice (!), the rest of his oeuvre has yet to be discovered, or exists in single recordings of various quality.

When I first heard his symphonies (the CPO recordings with Bader and Albert), I was intrigued, but the first symphony made a bigger impression than the other two. I thought the quality of the music had something to do with it - the first symphony seemed more coherent and formally tight than the other two.

Only recently I came across the older recording of the 3rd symphony by Erich Peter and the Berlin SO on Sterling - and my verdict was turned upside down. What a masterpiece! Now I realized what difference a good, heartfelt and inspired performance can make. Albert somehow can't wrap his brain around the curious architecture of the symphony, resulting in a fragmented, incoherent performance that sounds like a first run-through. Peter (who knew the composer personally!) seems much more involved in the music, creates tension and natural flow, resulting in a much more authoritative and convincing recording. It's not perfect either, with sometimes malnourished strings, but neither is Albert, whose Rheinland-Pfalz orchestra hardly seems to be cut out for the job (really ugly brass tone in places). Peter is 8 minutes (!) slower than Albert, and I got to admit that there are spots where he lingers a bit too much - but then again, he plays the first movement's second theme so gorgeously, it's incredibly touching and mutes any criticism that Wetz couldn't write beautiful melodies. Albert in contrast just waltzes over it like it's nothing special.

Which takes me back to symphonies 1 and 2. The first exist in a single recording (CPO) by Roland Bader and the Krakow SO. It's really pretty good, no complaints at all. 
The 2nd is more problematic, here we have Albert again and the same issues that impair his 3rd for me. I'm sure it's a terrific symphony, but I what I hear is a collection of sometimes beautifully played unconnected fragments. I see there's an alternative recording by Hiroshi Kodama and the Osaka SO, haven't heard it yet. It seems to be available only as an expensive Japanese import.

I'd love to hear from you guys - which version do you prefer for the 3rd? I'm not expecting everyone listening to this long symphony twice, just the first movement will suffice, since the differences in interpretation are already evident there.

Albert (2001):





Peter (1981):


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## Rogerx (Apr 27, 2018)

I like the piece, got both recording and if I must choose I would go for the Erich Peter , just a fraction clearer in sound .


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## mbhaub (Dec 2, 2016)

I had the Sterling and couldn't stand it. The orchestral playing was wretched; out of tune winds, whiny strings...it was bad. The CPO has a better orchestra, better sound but that's about it. I've listened to all three symphonies and can't say these are unknown masterpieces; they are not. But they are in the tradition of Mahler, Bruckner, Schmidt with some Korngold tossed in. Maybe a performance with a top-notch orchestra and conductor will sell the music. Wetz is like Klughardt. A lot of promise, but never quite delivers.


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## RobertJTh (Sep 19, 2021)

mbhaub said:


> I had the Sterling and couldn't stand it. The orchestral playing was wretched; out of tune winds, whiny strings...it was bad. The CPO has a better orchestra, better sound but that's about it. I've listened to all three symphonies and can't say these are unknown masterpieces; they are not. But they are in the tradition of Mahler, Bruckner, Schmidt with some Korngold tossed in. Maybe a performance with a top-notch orchestra and conductor will sell the music. Wetz is like Klughardt. A lot of promise, but never quite delivers.


That's a honest and well informed opinion, I appreciate that.
But personally I think there's something special about Wetz, he's not a dime a dozen Bruckner and Brahms epigone - I wouldn't even call him a Bruckner imitator. The man definitely had a thing of his own going on, even if he used oldfashioned means to assemble his own style.

I always try listen to unknown music while reading the score, and there are some youtube videos (Wetz' violin concerto and 2nd string quartet) that make it immediately clear how his music is organized and how the harmonies and counterpoint function. Once you're reading the score you notice that he's much more modern than one would initially assume, judging on the sound of the music itself. The techniques used in the 2nd quartet resemble Hindemith's more than, say, Strauss or Reger. He's quite similar to Franz Schmidt in that respect!
Unlike Schmidt, Wetz didn't have much of a revival of his music yet. I guess three factors contribute to that ongoing negligence:

a relatively small oeuvre
his awkward political ideas - not that you hear anything overly "brown" in his music, mind you
a definite lack of international appeal, Wetz was a provincial musician all his life and somehow his music doesn't travel far
But his orchestral music is superbly orchestrated, which makes up for the (granted) lack of great, catchy melodies. That's where he's solidly in the Reger school of composition: the development is more important than the material itself. But then again, that 2nd theme of the 3rd's symphony's first movement - it's plain gorgeous.

As for the Sterling recording, I guess you may be right, but I find it quite easy to overlook defects in a recording as long as there's a vision present that somehow compensates technical shortcomings. And to me, Peter does present such a vision while Albert doesn't - so the choice is clear.
Like you say, the music would benefit tremendously from a performance by a top notch orchestra and conductor. See what Barenboim did for Furtwängeler's 2nd, a recording that made people see the qualities of the work, something that the various mono and 2nd rate recordings failed to do.


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