The Lost Generation
The Orchestra Now; Leon Botstein
Avie Records AV2684 (avie-records.com/releases/the-lost-generation-hugo-kauder-•-hans-erich-apostel-•-adolph-busch)
Leon Botstein (founder-conductor of Orchestra Now, a graduate-level, multi-year program at Bard College in Red Hook, New York) enjoys rediscovering and performing unfairly neglected works. Here, works by three composers of “the lost generation” – those born between 1888 and 1901 – receive their first available recordings.
Hans Erich Apostel’s Variations on a Theme by Haydn (1940) utilizes a graceful theme from Haydn’s Symphony No.103. Apostel’s variations, while not completely atonal, reflect his studies with Schoenberg and Berg. Despite their melodic aridity and astringent harmonies, listener engagement is maintained by Apostel’s imaginative changes of tempo, rhythm and orchestration.
Renowned violinist Adolf Busch composed his sentimental, cheerful Variations on an Original Theme for piano four-hands (1944) as a Christmas gift for his wife. Often played by his son-in-law Rudolf Serkin and grandson Peter, they’re heard here in Peter Serkin’s orchestration.
The CD’s major offering, Hugo Kauder’s 40-minute Symphony No.1 (1920-1921), opens with Bewegt. As per its title, it’s emotionally agitated, Brucknerian in sonority and drama. The following scherzo is a wryly rustic Mahlerian dance (Kauder dedicated the symphony to Alma Mahler), interrupted by a lyrically nostalgic trio. The gorgeous slow movement is very much in the Bruckner-Mahler mould, featuring long-lined, yearning melodies and noble, hymn-like crescendos. The finale, a passacaglia, begins skulkingly, with alternating playful and solemn variations before ending abruptly. Amazingly, it took 100 years since its creation for Botstein to conduct this fine symphony’s U.S. premiere at Carnegie Hall in 2022.
