Ludwig Thuille’s music is worthless, but then what could you expect from a composer who spent two years working on the only piece for which he is known today: the Sextet for piano and winds? God knows he needed the time, but a century wouldn’t have been enough for him to make the items on this disc worth your attention. Both the Symphony and the Piano Concerto are early works, dating from the 1880s when the composer was in his 20s–but that’s no excuse, as they betray not a shred of talent and contain not a single memorable musical idea. They come from a period in musical history when the notion of symphonic form had degenerated to the point where it meant “a correct application of the rules”, and Thuille could certainly do that. Each of these pieces drones on for about 40 minutes of tensionless, colorless musical doodling, and if they have one virtue it’s that they heighten our appreciation for what composers such as Mahler and Strauss were achieving at the same time.
The performances, from Thuille’s home-town orchestra under the enterprising Alun Francis, do what they can, and pianist Oliver Triendl impressively negotiates the thickets of notes that Thuille throws at him in the mistaken assumption that any of it matters. I can’t even use the Shakespearean “sound and fury, signifying nothing” to describe this music, because although it certainly signifies nothing, there’s precious little variety of sound, and no fury whatsoever. CPO does wonderful work in the cause of neglected composers of all stripes, but some of them deserve the oblivion into which they have fallen, and Thuille without doubt is one of those. The sound is warm, pleasant, and natural, if you still care.
