German composers seem duty-bound to write “Tragic Overtures” and “Tragic Symphonies”, and so far only Brahms and Mahler (in their very different ways) have succeeded in living up to the term’s potential. Ernst Boehe (1880-1938) comes awfully close as well, and I wouldn’t be surprised if posterity ultimately vindicates his effort. Written in an idiom somewhere between Brahms and Strauss, Boehe for the most part sounds refreshingly free of the usual problems that beset conservative German, British, and American music from the turn of the last century: a fear of exploiting orchestral color to its fullest, a pedantic approach to form, and an emotionally inhibited expressive range. The overture opens with an impressively brooding funeral march, moves to a sturdily symphonic allegro with a heroically questing second subject, and reaches an aptly pulverizing climax that leads to an excellently timed coda. At 18 minutes, the piece may be a bit long for its material, but it certainly delivers the goods.
Boehe composed four tone poems inspired by The Odyssey, and three of them (a fourth will appear in a succeeding volume) are included here: Departure and Shipwreck; The Island of Circe; and The Lament of Nausicaa. Scored for large orchestra, the music brings to mind Sibelius’ Four Legends, though it dates from a decade later. Boehe’s style lacks the primal quality that makes the Finnish master’s music so distinctive (though he shares with Sibelius a fondness for idiomatic and evocative bass drum writing), but each of these three works reveals an abundance of characterful melodic and textural invention. The advertised Shipwreck has the necessary violence without becoming obvious, and Circe’s charms, deliciously touched in on the high strings and harp, never sound tacky as Boehe gets beyond the obligatory sweetness to hint at darker undercurrents. In short, here’s a composer who really knows what he’s doing, and so for that matter do conductor Werner Andreas Albert (typically secure and authoritative), the enthusiastic and willing Rheinland-Pfalz orchestra, and CPO’s engineers. A find.
