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I. Modéré
4 mm. after reh. 2 - 14 mm. after reh. 2 |
Skills & Techniques: Accuracy, Finger Fluency, Loud Playing, Marcato Style
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Horn 1-2 (F)
Horn 3-4 (F)
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BBC Scottish Symphony Orchestra (1998)
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Philharmonisches Orchester Freiburg (2019)
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Composer & Composition Information
Albéric Magnard (1865-1914)
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Albéric Magnard guided his career as a composer in a manner that seems in retrospect to have intentionally restricted any chance that his works would gain adherents and enter as part of the active repertory. Born to relative wealth and social prominence in 1865, the son of the editor of Le Figaro, Magnard pursued a musical career after training in the law. Following a trip to Bayreuth in 1886, Magnard decided to devote himself exclusively to music. He was determined not to exploit his family’s standing and influence on his own behalf. Although he studied with Massenet and later with Vincent d’Indy, he did little to cultivate the support of fellow composers or the leading performers of the day.
He spent his time quite apart, composing, except for some teaching at d’Indy’s Schola Cantorum, the rival institution to the Paris Conservatoire. Periodically, Magnard would self-finance a concert of his own music. In this manner, Magnard maintained a principled distance from all of the rival factions and byzantine politics within the Parisian musical establishment. He published his own music with a small radical socialist publishing house and he had his last symphony, No. 4 (1913), performed not by a major institution but by a nearly all-women’s orchestra (unfortunately with disastrous results). Magnard’s politics were profoundly idealistic and he stood steadfast on the side of Dreyfus, writing a powerful “Hymn to Justice” in 1902 for the cause. That alone set him apart from d’Indy and many colleagues who sought to remain distant from the controversy that divided and obsessed French society for generations. For Magnard, writing music was at all times an ethical act. Beauty and justice, in his view, were aligned. Art needed to serve the cause of rectifying social injustice and promoting the truth. The text is reprinted from the American Symphony Orchestra where more information about the composer can be found. The image is reprinted from Hyperion. |
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Symphony No. 4 in C-Sharp Minor, Op. 21
There was an interval of more than ten years between this work and the score of Symphony No. 3 (1896), a gap largely explained by the time devoted by the composer to his operas Guercœur (1897-1901) and Bérénice (1905-1911). Magnard composed his Symphony No. 4 in 1912-1913. He conducted its first performance, on 2 April 1914, at the head of the Orchestre de l’Union des Femmes Professeurs et Compositeurs. Although his choice of this phalanx of women clearly showed his progressive tendencies, the performance appears to have been unsatisfactory. It was not until 16 May 1914 that the work became a real success when performed again by conductor Rhené-Baton, several months before Magnard’s tragic death. Although the symphony is relatively bright in tone, despite its minor key (full of accidentals, like Symphonies 2 and 3), its overall mood does not reflect the inner landscape of the composer, who admitted: “The optimism of the Fourth Symphony is abominable, because no work ever gave me more difficulties or was written in a more complete state of depression.”
The text is written by & reprinted from Bru Zane Mediabase where more information about the composition can be found.
The text is written by & reprinted from Bru Zane Mediabase where more information about the composition can be found.
Notable Performances/Recordings:
BBC Scottish Symphony Orchestra (2009)
Malmo Symphony Orchestra (2000)
BBC Scottish Symphony Orchestra (2009)
Malmo Symphony Orchestra (2000)