Webern: Im Sommerwind

[david johnson]

I confess that I've never really paid attention to Im Sommerwind, but yesterday I listened to it twice and enjoyed it greatly.
You all like it?

dj

[Archaic Torso of Apollo]

I don't know yet! But thanks for the reminder. I've got a recording (Sinopoli/Dresden), but confess I have never listened to it - probably because I thought it wasn't "real Webern." Am I being stupid? 

Time for that first listen I think 

[The new erato]

Nice and reasonably inoffensive music IIRC.

That may make it "not real Webern" but eminently usable under other circumstances.

YMMV of course.

[Cato]

I first heard it in the late '60's through its premiere recording (Ormandy and The Philadelphia Orchestra, I believe (?)) and was thoroughly charmed.  I actually heard it on a hot day, and it seemed to match the weather!

If I recall correctly, Schoenberg examined the score and was not real impressed, but Webern kept it anyway among his papers, and showed it to his students as an example of his own development from Mahlerian/Straussian influences.

Perhaps members will agree with my completely subjective impression that Im Sommerwind, even though it is the earlier work, has an affinity with Mahler's Ninth Symphony.

[jochanaan]

It's a lovely piece.  I've got both the Ormandy/Philadelphia and Sinopoli/Dresden recordings, and I see it as a fascinating example of "the road not taken."  Webern might have stayed in the late-Romantic idiom like this and become a minor master, but he took "the road less traveled by" and became a prophet.  Still, you can already hear the transparent textures and extreme tonal sensitivity that mark his later atonal and serial compositions.

There also exists an early song by Edgard Varèse that somehow escaped the warehouse fire that destroyed all his other early music, called "Un grand sommeil noir," a haunting, impressionistic setting of the Paul Verlaine poem--another "road not taken" piece.

[bhodges]

Another fan of this little gem here, too.  First heard it as the "filler" on Chailly's recording of the Brahms Second Symphony.  (Each of his Brahms symphonies was coupled with something from the Second Viennese School.)

Since then I've been lucky to hear it live several times.  A gorgeous treat, that sort of reminds me of Delius.  If it's "early Webern," no matter. 

--Bruce