The ongoing Naxos survey devoted to The 18th Century Symphony now reaches its second volume of symphonies by Johann Baptist Vanhal (1739-1813), a musician of humble peasant stock who went on to become one of the most influential and successful contemporaries and rivals of Haydn and Mozart in Vienna. These accounts of three Vanhal Symphonies in B-flat, D minor, and G major are from the City of London Sinfonia under the direction of concertmaster Andrew Watkinson. The 1997 recordings are brightly lit and amply reverberant. The playing is serviceable, but has neither the technical refinement nor the vitality that Mathias Bamert and the London Mozart Players have made consistent attributes throughout their vastly more expensive Chandos “Contemporaries of Mozart” series. Their only Vanhal disc so far does not offer the same repertoire, however.
Some 1300 works are attributed to Vanhal, although to date no more than a handful of his symphonies and chamber compositions have found their way onto disc. Vanhal’s style and idiom are predictable: it’s the expected late-18th century fusion of decorum and classical equilibrium, yet there are some surprises here too. Consider the three-movement symphony in D minor (c. 1773). Its choice of key would suggest it to be a retrospective glance at the world of “Sturm und Drang”, yet the use of five horns (the most encountered in the scoring of any 18th century symphony) looks forward to the dramas of the Beethovenian epoch and beyond. It is a startling and urgent work, reflecting in part, I suspect, the religious mania to which Vanhal is known to have succumbed. But the slow movement becomes an oboe concerto in all but name, and is affectingly played here.
The G major work is known from several printed editions to date from around 1775. The scoring and scale are less ambitious but the work is still engaging enough to merit inclusion here. It receives an adroit, assured performance with only passing concerns regarding string ensemble arising during the finale. The earliest work in this Vanhal trilogy is the B-flat symphony written at some point in the early 1760s. Although the performance overall is polished and incisive, it also suffers from occasional ensemble insecurity, most evident in the faster outer movements. The D minor work, incidentally, has been recorded by the Munich Philharmonic Chamber Orchestra and Michael Helmrath on Orfeo. It’s a more disciplined and refined account, in better sound than Naxos offers, but this budget disc should commend itself readily to all with an interest in the genesis and personalia of the Classical symphony.
