Dohnanyi from Tallahassee

From August 9, 2014:

Before coming across this disc I knew Florida State University as the American home of the great physicist Paul Dirac, who spent the last decade of his life in Tallahassee. Now I know that FSU attracted another world-class talent, the composer Erno Dohnanyi, who also spent his last decade there, as composer-in-residence until 1960. Oh yes, I just remembered something else I know about FSU: the Seminoles beat the Auburn Tigers for the National NCAA Men’s Football Championship last January.

This disc has home-field advantage: it features the Florida State University Orchestra under conductor Alexander Jimenez. The symphony is in the full- if not over-blown Romantic idiom of the mid-19th Century. Its themes are lofty and its architecture is grandiose, though the construction is careful. Indeed, the composer completely overhauled the work in the mid-50s, reining it in from an hour to only 50 minutes. It all seems exceptionally well-argued, if at times a bit bland. That’s not to say there aren’t felicitous bits; I loved Dohnanyi’s presentation of the Bach theme he uses for his final movement variations. And the mocking Burla third-movement is often a lot of fun.

As to interpretation and orchestral playing, this disc comes a close second to the mid-1990s Chandos disc with the BBC Philharmonic under Matthias Bamert. The Chandos disc has a more substantial filler in the marvellous Symphonic Minutes, though the Naxos disc’s Two Songs are lovely, and baritone Evan Thomas Jones is excellent. The sound in both discs is excellent. I wonder if Naxos will record the first Symphony with the FSU Orchestra & Jimenez, to go up against another excellent Chandos/BBC/Bamert disc.