If you know Marx only
as the impressionistic-romantic so influenced
by the coagulation of Debussy and Scriabin
you will be shocked, to say the least,
by these, amongst his final works. The
Partita and Sinfonia began as works
for quartet and are available in that
form on ASV played by the Lydian Quartet.
Marx then expanded them for string orchestra.
The Alt-Wiener Serenaden was
written for "large orchestra."
All are profoundly backward-looking
works, what in the old days one would
routinely have condemned as conservative.
They look more to Haydn and Palestrina
than to any contemporary frame of reference
though there are hints of Brahms and
Reger, another Marxian lodestar, in
the Sinfonia.
The Alt-Wiener Serenaden
was written during 1941 and 1942. It’s
tempting to ascribe some extra musical
significance to the fact that it is
so immersed in the late eighteenth century
along with the Haydnesque-Straussian
(that’s the Waltz King not Richard)
Menuetto. The most engaging is the last
of the four movements, a well-scored
Scherzo in March form – capricious,
full of fresh air. The Partita in
Modo Antico is the only work of
the three to have been written before
the outbreak of the War; significantly
perhaps Marx arranged it for string
orchestra in 1945. It employs the mixolydian
mode to a considerable degree, his erstwhile
romantic orchestration not simply stripped
down but utterly rejected in favour
of pieties and a kind of intimate communing
with the past. In its Phrygian way the
Adagio reminds one of the Tallis Fantasia
though its threnody, if that’s what
it is, is wistful.
The Sinfonia in
Modo Classico (1940-41, arranged
1944) strikes much the same note; Haydnesque
classicism with a mildly Regerian slow
movement which does at least touch a
deeper, more ambiguously winding note
– a kind of wayward lyricism. The finale
is back to the Eighteenth century –
modo classico indeed.
Performances are spruce
and bright. The Bochum Symphony is a
touch lightweight and at one or two
moments things aren’t quite together
but there are nicely taken solos for
the string principals and woodwinds;
very appropriate in terms of weight
and colour. I should add that this is
apparently a world premiere recording
of the Serenade and premiere recordings,
in string orchestra guise, of the other
two works.
Jonathan Woolf
see also review
by Rob Barnett
Bochum Symphony Orchestra/Steven Sloane 
