I’ve been listening to the nine symphonies of Wellesz and I have been having a different reaction to other posters at this site.
The story I got before I listened from reading here and even from reading the CPO disks sleeve notes was that Wellesz wrote 4 or 5 symphonies that were in the Brucknerian mould, and then in his last symphonies went atonal and 12 note.
When I listened to the first 4 symphonies I found them very strange, they are not in the least Brucknerian, despite a few Brucknerian gestures and the obvious references to Bruckner’s 2nd and 3rd Symphonies in No.3. I thought, if anything, that these symphonies harked back to an earlier Viennese period, although the influence of C20 neo-classicism was evident: Schubert meets Hindemidt, as you might say. There was none of the slow organic growth you get in the Bruckner symphonies.
I found them very well put together and easy to listen to, and enjoyable, but not particularly emotional. Sometimes I felt that they were a touch on the emotionally desiccated side.
When I got to the symphonies 5-9 I couldn’t believe that these were atonal/12 note works. They didn’t sound anything like avant garde music, they sounded quite a lot like the first 4 symphonies only a bit more crunchy and with fewer tunes.
I actually liked the symphonies 5-9 much more, here march rhythms, growling brass, sarcastic scherzi and intense string cantilenas come to the fore. By the time Wellesz gets to No.9 he has reached a kind of expressionist angst that really communicates. The Violin Concerto, which I have also heard, also has this expressiveness. I’ll be listening to the later symphonies more than the earlier ones I think.
