I listened to this one on Sunday, in between a session of Warhammer 40,000: Space Marine 2 and loading the dishwasher.
Right off the bat, I liked the mood of the opening movement (‘Adagio cantabile’) — stately and serene, but somehow slightly off. The melody it keeps returning to has some off-color notes that give it an interesting hue. Time seems to compress and expand slightly as long notes give way to smooth runs of shorter ones, giving it a feeling of gently rocking back and forth. A noticeable element of this movement is the occasional tolling of low bell-like notes, backed up by the horns (0:42, 2:30, etc.). Camilla said this made her imagine a city waking up in the morning. The more I listen to this movement the more I like it.
The second movement (‘Allegro’) was mostly noticeable for its high, rapidly scraping strings. It gets dramatic in a fun way, with a crescendo bursting into a satisfying chord progression, but these moments have a tendency to suddenly go quiet and lose momentum. For good, loud, classical drama, though, this does the job well.
The third movement (‘Menuetto con trio’) seemed to match the courtly vibe of the first movement, but was a bit meandering and never quite caught my ear.
Then, as has become a pattern here, we come to the ‘Presto’ finale. The opening seconds hooked me in — quiet, fast and tense before fully opening up. From there, the frequent twirling of the strings tended to dominate my attention. Another particularly good finale.
That was a pretty decent one overall — two good fast movements, an interesting, likeable slow movement, and a redundant, slightly boring slower movement for good measure. I wanted to give this one 4 stars out of 5, but it didn’t feel like it could really earn a 4 while having an entire movement I frowned upon. So I’m giving it 3.5 stars.
Version listened to: Hogwood
Length: 21:56
Next up: Symphony No. 18