# Franz Schmidt's Symphonies



## Tallisman (May 7, 2017)

Wow. Just discovered these. Will try and get a hold of the quite acclaimed Naxos recordings (there don't seem to be any available alternatives). This 4th symphony is gorgeous. If you like Bruckner, Strauss, German Romanticism etc then this should appeal. I'd love to hear your thoughts if you've familiar with Schmidt.


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## Art Rock (Nov 28, 2009)

Great works, very rewarding composer.

The Naxos CD's are very good, and at that price unbeatable. There are alternatives though, such as the Chicago Symphony Orchestra under Neeme Järvi on Chandos.


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## mbhaub (Dec 2, 2016)

I love these symphonies so much! There was a time when I really thought they would gain a foothold in the repertoire, but it never came to pass for a lot of reasons. Most all of Schmidt's music is very rewarding. The chamber music is magnificent. The oratorio Das Buch mit sieben Siegeln is just awesome. The organ music is great - if you like organ music.

The Mehta recording is the one that most of us first caught a glimpse of Schmidt, but thanks to the cd era, we have a bounty of recordings to choose from. I've collected them all, along with scores for everything, was a member of the Vienna based Franz Schmidt Society...I take my Schmidt seriously! Here's my take on recordings:

For the symphonies there are several complete sets:

Naxos: excellent all the way - great playing, fine recording, interpretations nothing to complain about. Good pairings with other Schmidt works, too. The best overall set, period.

Chandos: Great sound, the best orchestras (Detroit and Chicago). But - the pairings I find annoying (this is on the individual releases, the set of 4 has nothing but the symphonies). And Jarvi can sometimes be impatient and glib. The 2nd is spectacular in his hands. It's the 3rd that suffers the most - it needs time to breathe. 1 and 4 are fine. Second choice, easily.

Opus: with L'udovit Rajter and the Bratislava Radio Orchestra. These have appeared on various labels. This was the first complete set. The conductor knew Schmidt and obviously loves these symphonies. But the orchestra just isn't up to the severe demands of the music, the conducting is too often sluggish. There isn't a single movement in any symphony that isn't marred by some screw up. Still, I wouldn't get rid of this for anything! There is an honest, heartfelt love of the music that comes through.

MDR: these are from Germany, have been on another label with Fabio Luisi (now at the MET) and the MDR Sinfonieorchester. No couplings - that's ok. But the sound is muffled and curiously dull. Great playing, sympathetic conducting and a huge gaff in the first trumpet in the 1st symphony's 2nd movement that makes be cringe everytime that passage comes up. Luisi has a Das Buch with it, too and it's great.

There have been some single recordings worth checking out:

1st sym: was on Marco Polo with the Budapest Symphony - it's really a great performance. Very energetic. The first ever recording of this symphony.

2nd sym: Vienna Philharmonic with Bychkov on Sony - new release. This is Vienna Phils' third try (Mitropolous and Leinsdorf before) and they finally get it right!

3rd sym: an early cd on Supraphon with Pesek and the Slovak Philharmonic. What a loving performance! Everything seems exactly right. The sound is ok, but not what it should have been.

4th sym: Pentatone with Yakov Kreizberg and the Netherlands Philharmonic. Superb sound, well played, well conducted. Kreizberg was the hope that Schmidt would become better known. I heard him do this symphony in Philadelphia and how I wish that performance could be released! His Minneapolis concerts were not as exalted - the orchestra actually struggled at times. But alas, he died and there's no one out there taking up the mission.

Das Buch: hard to believe that this once almost unknown work has had so many recordings - and they're all good! There are two that stand out for me. The first is a newer one on Oehms, with Simone Young in Hamburg. The other is very old: Anton Lippe with the Munich Philharmonic on the Amadeo label. It may be old, sound dated, but boy, the performance has everything including a world-weary atmosphere that is memorable. But really, any recording of it is worth it: Harnoncourt, Welser-Most, Zagrosek, Mitropoulos (well, the sound is pretty bad), Jarvi, Stein, Hochstrasser.


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## Jacck (Dec 24, 2017)

sounds wonderful. I am looking forward to exploring his symphonies.


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## Phil loves classical (Feb 8, 2017)

Been a while since I listened to Schmidt’s 4th. I have Welser Most’s recording on EMI. Sounds a lot like Mahler, but a bit more chromatic.


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## vesteel (Feb 3, 2018)

The first Schmidt piece I heard was the 1st Symphony. I absolutely love the first movement of it that it's stuck on my head for a few days.


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## hpowders (Dec 23, 2013)

The Fourth with Zubin Mehta and the Vienna Philharmonic is as good as it gets, IMO.


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## mbhaub (Dec 2, 2016)

hpowders said:


> The Fourth with Zubin Mehta and the Vienna Philharmonic is as good as it gets, IMO.


That was the first recording a lot of us got to know and it imprinted itself in our minds. The Vienna Philharmonic was is fabulous form, and Mehta didn't seem to miss anything. It has been pointed out many times that Schmidt took under 40 minutes to conduct the symphony, so Mehta's slower tempos aren't authentic. And to be sure, some of the newcomers are quicker and make just as big of an impact. But Mehta's is just so beautifully done! His teacher, Hans Swarowsky, loved this symphony and the recording I have of one of his performances is very much like Mehta did it.

Mehta re-recorded a lot of his analog recordings in digital sound and I kept hoping that he would redo the 4th in modern sound, but it hasn't happened. Petrenko is doing it in Berlin this month and I hope it re-ignites interest in Schmidt.


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## Woodduck (Mar 17, 2014)

mbhaub said:


> That was the first recording a lot of us got to know and it imprinted itself in our minds. The Vienna Philharmonic was is fabulous form, and Mehta didn't seem to miss anything. It has been pointed out many times that Schmidt took under 40 minutes to conduct the symphony, so Mehta's slower tempos aren't authentic. And to be sure, some of the newcomers are quicker and make just as big of an impact. But Mehta's is just so beautifully done! His teacher, Hans Swarowsky, loved this symphony and the recording I have of one of his performances is very much like Mehta did it.


I don't believe there's any such thing as an authentic tempo for any music, since composers have been known to play their own music at different tempos at different times and to approve of varying approaches by other performers. If it sounds good, do it! - and I agree that Mehta does the Schmidt 4th beautifully.

Having listened to Schmidt's symphonies a few years ago and returned to them recently, I still find the 4th to be a near-masterpiece, but the others considerably less than that. There's an awful lot of fat and sugar in most of his music. The 4th trims some of the fat and adds some welcome bitters.


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## Nevum (Nov 28, 2013)

The 1st symphony of Schmidt is as good as anything in the romantic era. Some sort of a modern evolution of Bruckner. The other 3 symphonies are great, but slightly different style.


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## DaveM (Jun 29, 2015)

Nevum said:


> The 1st symphony of Schmidt is as good as anything in the romantic era. Some sort of a modern evolution of Bruckner. The other 3 symphonies are great, but slightly different style.


My thoughts exactly. In some ways, Schmidt's Symphonies mirror the changes that occurred in what was left of the true Romantic period in general in the early 20th century. Solid statement of theme/melody and development characteristic of the 19th century gave way to something more vague in Romantic symphonies as the 20th century progressed.

The Schmidt Symphony #1 is a Romantic gem and I prefer it over the others. I'll even go so far as saying that the Langsam/Adagio ranks among the very best of the 19th century. The use of the winds and horns is particularly wonderful:


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## Enthusiast (Mar 5, 2016)

I don't really know any Schmidt except (slightly) the Clarinet Quintet. Presumably it was his alleged Nazi sympathies that damaged his posthumous reputation? Perhaps there is more to say on this and I wonder if this reputation is based on anything more than the similar allegations about Strauss?


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## Biffo (Mar 7, 2016)

Enthusiast said:


> I don't really know any Schmidt except (slightly) the Clarinet Quintet. Presumably it was his alleged Nazi sympathies that damaged his posthumous reputation? Perhaps there is more to say on this and I wonder if this reputation is based on anything more than the similar allegations about Strauss?


I got to know Schmidt's 4th Symphony from the recording by Mehta and the Vienna Philharmonic. This was decades before I heard about his connection to the Nazis. Just enjoy the music.


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## CnC Bartok (Jun 5, 2017)

The Fourth is probably - and deservedly - the best known of these fine works. The trumpet music is very moving indeed.

I am delighted to see however, that the first encounter I had with any of these - Pešek on Supraphon - gets a mention, and a glowing one at that! I have it in LP, so I can't really agree or disagree about the sound.

I enjoy the Jarvi set on Chandos, but I will confess to having been pleasantly surprised by the quality, both recording and musically, of the Naxos cycle. Malmö and Sinaisky end up being a fine combination.


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## Pugg (Aug 8, 2014)

If you want too explore besides his symphonies, ..his Quintet for clarinet, strings & piano in A major recorded by the Linos ensemble are very worth wile.


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## CnC Bartok (Jun 5, 2017)

That Quintet mentioned by Pugg is well worth hearing. It includes a set of variations on a theme by Josef Labor, which I believe used to be played out of context in their own, and were once well-known? His Hussar variations for orchestra are pretty good too.

On that point, Schmidt spent an inordinate amount of time writing that Quintet, among his very last. He could of course have spent his time more fruitfully (sic) finishing off the Nazi-commissioned cantata German Resurrection. 

He didn't. True, he once gave a Nazi salute, around the same time as the England Football team did the same. Being known as a composer by Hitler doesn't make one a Nazi, surely? He died in 1939, before the very worst, and the Nazis got rid of his wife, under their euthanasia programme, a couple of years after his death.

I don't think we should worry about his Nazi credentials. Myself, I feel about the same for Richard Strauss. Hans Pfitzner Is another kettle of fish.....


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## mbhaub (Dec 2, 2016)

Another work of Schmidt that is exceptional and hardly known is the Variations on a Theme of Beethoven. Beautiful, masterly writing. Nothing trivial about it. I've always thought it would be a great pairing on a concert with a Beethoven symphony. I've tried and tried to get several pianists interested, but they always hesitate: it's for left hand and why go to the trouble to learn something I'll never play again? Great work - several fine versions from CPO, Berlin Classics, Pan, Preiser,


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## Roger Knox (Jul 19, 2017)

*Petrenko conducting Franz Schidt's 4th Symphony!*



mbhaub said:


> Mehta re-recorded a lot of his analog recordings in digital sound and I kept hoping that he would redo the 4th in modern sound, but it hasn't happened. Petrenko is doing it in Berlin this month and I hope it re-ignites interest in Schmidt.


Thanks, mhaub, for mentioning the upcoming Berlin Philharmonic/Petrenko performance of Franz Schmidt's Symphony No. 4 this Thursday April 11, and on the 12th and 13th. La Peri by Dukas and the Prokofiev 3rd Concerto played by Yuja Wang are also on the program, which I have read will be repeated at festivals this summer.

Online at an extremely well-known video site is a recording from 2000 of the same symphony by the WDR Orchestra/Petrenko.


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## vesteel (Feb 3, 2018)

Just listened to Jarvi conducting Schmidt 4
First time I fully listened to this piece and I absolutely love it. They also did an encore playing Schmidt's Intermezzo which is also nice


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## TurnaboutVox (Sep 22, 2013)

The Schmidt symphonies are intriguing and I can remember feeling that way about them when I took out some LP recrdings from my local record library when I was in my teens - I wonder who the conductor and artists were, and what recording?

I bought the Jarvi / Chicago / Detroit set quite recently and still find them...intriguing, quite subtle, not that easy to get into. But this may be due to my hearing which, sadly, has deteriorated a lot since I was an LP-borrowing teenager. 

I do like the 1st and 4th, though I know what people mean when they say the Jarvi interpretations seem a bit unengaged in places.
Maybe I should after all have gone with Sinaisky and the Malmö SO.


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## DaveM (Jun 29, 2015)

TurnaboutVox said:


> The Schmidt symphonies are intriguing and I can remember feeling that way about them when I took out some LP recrdings from my local record library when I was in my teens - I wonder who the conductor and artists were, and what recording?
> 
> I bought the Jarvi / Chicago / Detroit set quite recently and still find them...intriguing, quite subtle, not that easy to get into. But this may be due to my hearing which, sadly, has deteriorated a lot since I was an LP-borrowing teenager.
> 
> ...


My favorites for the #1 are the Sinaisky and also Michael Halasz on Marco Polo (available at Presto), the latter with a slower tempo.


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## DaveM (Jun 29, 2015)

Duplicate post.


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## mbhaub (Dec 2, 2016)

TurnaboutVox said:


> The Schmidt symphonies are intriguing and I can remember feeling that way about them when I took out some LP recrdings from my local record library when I was in my teens - I wonder who the conductor and artists were, and what recording?


I guess it depends on how old you are! If they were on LP, up until about 1980 the only symphony available on record was the 4th in two recordings: the Moralt from 1954 and the Mehta from 20 years later. The 2nd and 3rd then became available in execrable sound on poorly made pressings from some super-budget label, Classical Excellence. They also had cassettes available. The performances were ok - the ORF orchestra and no doubt made from off-the-air recordings. Still, they were a godsend for those of use who wanted more Schmidt. Then pretty early in the CD era the 1st came out on Marco Polo. Finally, one could know all four of the masterful works. The first complete digital cd package came out on Opus with Ludovit Rajter, a Schmidt student, and the Radio Bratislava Orchestra. To say they struggled is being nice - there's not a single movement that isn't flawed in some way. But it was a work of love by the conductor. Now to see so much Schmidt available is just astonishing. Multiple recordings of practically everything, and yet still, after all this time, no commercial recording of the 2nd opera, Fredegundis!


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## KJ von NNJ (Oct 13, 2017)

I have praised the symphonies of Franz Schmidt on other threads. What I admire about them is the progression of style from 1 to 4. He was a marvelous orchestrator. I have been content with the Chandos set for many years but it's good to see newer recordings springing up. These works are very popular in Germany from what I have read. Practically standard repertoire, and deservedly so.


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## Templeton (Dec 20, 2014)

A very good live performance of the Fourth Symphony, which I have just discovered on YouTube - Frankfurt Radio Symphony and Paavo Järvi. Enjoy!






And as an additional treat, the Intermezzo from Schmidt's opera 'Notre Dame'.


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## manyene (Feb 7, 2015)

The 4th Symphony is unquestionably a masterpiece, both in terms of its structure and its expression. His use of a theme that comes up in various forms throughout the Symphony and is summed up in that trumpet solo at the end is very special, and there are very few slow movements in symphonies that convey the deep tragedy of this music. His earlier symphonies fall far short: I find the Third a rather opaque work, the First not particularly interesting, but the Second has some very interesting writing for the horns.


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## Roger Knox (Jul 19, 2017)

At the BBC Proms in London on September 1, 2018, the Berlin Philharmonic under Kyrill Petrenko will perform Franz Schmidt's Symphony No. 4. _La Peri_ by Paul Dukas and the Prokofiev 3rd Concerto played by Yuja Wang are also on the program.


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## kyjo (Jan 1, 2018)

manyene said:


> The 4th Symphony is unquestionably a masterpiece, both in terms of its structure and its expression. His use of a theme that comes up in various forms throughout the Symphony and is summed up in that trumpet solo at the end is very special, and there are very few slow movements in symphonies that convey the deep tragedy of this music. His earlier symphonies fall far short: I find the Third a rather opaque work, the First not particularly interesting, but the Second has some very interesting writing for the horns.


I wholeheartedly agree with you about the Fourth's greatness and its obvious superiority to the first three - although the Second is quite remarkable in its Straussian hyper-virtuosity (it's quite possibly one of the most difficult orchestral works ever written). The First is quite uninteresting, to be honest, and I'm not too familiar with the Third.


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## kyjo (Jan 1, 2018)

Roger Knox said:


> At the BBC Proms in London on September 1, 2018, the Berlin Philharmonic under Kyrill Petrenko will perform Franz Schmidt's Symphony No. 4. _La Peri_ by Paul Dukas and the Prokofiev 3rd Concerto played by Yuja Wang are also on the program.


Sounds like a great program! Wish I could attend.


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## mbhaub (Dec 2, 2016)

Well, if you can't attend you can listen to it live. The BBC broadcasts most - not all - of the Proms concerts live, and then have the concert available online for several weeks. Frankly, the sound on radio (or computer) is better than the sound in RAH which has got to be one of the worst concert halls in the world.

The 2nd symphony is absolutely among the most difficult things ever written. The wind parts are hard enough, but the string parts!! Holy moly, they're really nasty. In the Chicago recording you can even hear them struggle a times.

The 3rd is a masterpiece as far as I'm concerned. It takes time to absorb it, no doubt. But it's such a sunny, happy work. The 2nd movement is extraordinarily beautiful. If you play piano, well, get the piano reduction and play through it - you'll have a whole new appreciation of the ingenious construction of the symphony. It's too bad that it is so rarely played, done well it can lift you out of your seat just like Dvorak or Tchaikovsky.


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## MusicSybarite (Aug 17, 2017)

My favorites overall are the 2 and 4, indisputable masterpieces. I like the No. 1 very much and I didn't find it uninteresting, not to mention that lovely 2nd movement. The No. 3 is the strangest among the 4, I'm not saying it's bad, but maybe its harmony makes it more challenging.


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## Haydn man (Jan 25, 2014)

Just found this thread and will be giving Schmidt an explore via Spotify.
Great to read a thread with constructive discussion and suggestions to explore


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## Merl (Jul 28, 2016)

I'm with others here. I like the 3rd and 4th symphonies a lot. They deserve wider recognition.


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