Ernst Pepping wrote these works between 1939 and 1950, and his regressive style won’t win any awards for originality. The First and Third Symphonies as well as the Piano Concerto are all bright, peppy, neoclassical pieces, written in clear diatonic harmony, with some spicy dissonances thrown in now and then. Pepping specialized in choral music, and this shows in the abundance of counterpoint, which always sounds natural, particularly given his nicely decompacted orchestral textures–but by the same token there’s little of the drama and eventfulness that you expect in a symphony. The music ambles along amiably, and there’s certainly enough interesting detail and color to sustain the listener’s interest without ever suggesting special emotional depth. Among German composers, he resembles a sort of watered-down early Boris Blacher, if you can imagine such a thing, or perhaps one of the Scandinavians (Stenhammar?) without the ethnic charm.
That doesn’t mean that much of this music is not pleasant as far as it goes–or that going farther was necessarily a good idea. The darker Second Symphony, for instance, turns out to offer heaviness and gloom without being noticeably more compelling than any of the other works presented here. It simply turns dull. Pepping was right to keep things light, and ultimately he gave up composition entirely in 1968 (he died in 1981), realizing that his anachronistic style stood little chance of making any headway in the artistic climate of the time. The truth is, despite the obvious level of craftsmanship that he exhibits in these works, and even though Werner Andreas Albert and pianist Volker Banfield do their best for him, he wasn’t a terribly necessary composer. Do we need this music? Certainly not. Is it nice to have around? Sure, especially given CPO’s typically fine sonics and the solid musicality of the performances.
