London Mozart Players & Matthias Bamert - William Herschel: Symphonies (2003) [Hi-Res]

Not many people know that the great astronomer who discovered Uranus was also a composer. William Herschel, born in Germany in 1738, served in the Hanover Guards and after a posting toEngland he decided to return and settle here.He had a lively musical career, at first as abandsman, then as a violinist and composer, organising concerts in the north-east and then in Yorkshire before settling in Bath as an organist in 1767. He then moved increasingly towards astronomy and in 1782, just after the discovery of Uranus, he was given a pension by the king to enable him to devote himself to his telescopes.

It was no great loss to music. I have heard and enjoyed some of his concertos and chamber works, but these symphonies, frankly, aremodest stuff. Herschel’s German background can be discerned in some of the invention, notably in No 2 and perhaps No 8, but for the most part he essays the frothy, up-to-date Italianate manner of the 1760s. There are quite a number of ingenious ideas, and the scoring is unusually full – a former wind player, he wrote sympathetically for the band instruments (one movement’s themes are designed around the capacities of the horns). But the music is full of predictable sequences, foursquare in its rhythms, often dull harmonically, very repetitive and anchored to regular cadences. And there are some uncomfortable, awkwardly managed modulations (try the Adagio of No 2). Well, you may find things to enjoy, for example in the cheerful minuet ofNo 14 or the lively outer movements, both in 3/4 metre, of No 12. But there are hundreds of 18th-century symphonies superior to these.

Matthias Bamert’s lively direction and the highly professional playing of the London Mozart Players provide Herschel with the best imaginable advocacy, and we may be grateful to Chandos, in its Contemporaries of Mozart series, for giving us the chance to hear his music; but no music of the spheres here, I’m afraid. -- Stanley Sadie, Gramophone