Laurent Albrecht Breuninger, Alun Francis - Weingartner: Violin Concerto / Schubert: Symphony No. 7 (2009)

Anyone approaching this album with an appreciation of Felix Weingartner's place in music history will be curious to hear it, either for the famed conductor's own Violin Concerto in G major, or for his idiomatic arrangement of Franz Schubert's sketches for the Symphony in E major, D. 729. Both works should stimulate interest, because the concerto is a solid half hour of lush and virtuosic post-Romantic music that wowed its audience at Fritz Kreisler's dazzling premiere of it in 1912, and the symphony is one of those rare and competent completions that Schubert lovers crave. Weingartner's style was derived from mid-19th century German Romanticism, and while much of his rich orchestral colors and extravagant swells of sonority are reminiscent of Richard Strauss, the dominant influence in the concerto is clearly Johannes Brahms. This may not be readily apparent in the flashiest passages, which are brilliantly executed here by violinist Laurent Albrecht Breuninger, but the melodic flow, counterpoint, and harmony all have a Brahmsian cast that bring warmth to what otherwise might seem an exercise in violin pyrotechnics. Weingartner's approach to the Symphony in E major was more self-effacing, and because many passages in Schubert's short score were completed, his contribution was mostly a fleshing-out of sections that were left in one or two parts. The orchestration is a little thicker than Schubert would have chosen, but on the whole Weingartner got the sound fairly close to that of the Symphony No. 9 in C major, "Great." The performances by the SWR Rundfunkorchester Kaiserlautern, conducted by Alun Francis, are as full and radiant as any could wish, and CPO's reproduction is top-notch.