Bernard Zweers - Symphony No. 3 "To My Fatherland" (1890)
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| Hans Vonk |
I. In The Dutch Forests - 00:00
II. In The Country - 14:12
III. On The Beach and at Sea - 29:14
IV. To The Capital - 44:55
The Zweers is a symphony of Brucknerian length across four graphically titled movements. These are: I In the Dutch forests; II In the country; III On the beach and at sea; IV To the capital. In this work Zweers has come a long way from the heavily Germanic orientation of the first two symphonies. He now deploys a brilliant palette of poetic ideas and colouristic devices. There's more than a dash of passionate Tchaikovsky here, a flurry of Rimsky there. The effect sometimes recalls Louis Glass's much later Fifth Symphony and the colouristic tone poems of Glazunov (The Sea and The Forest) and Ludolf Nielsen. There's some simply glorious wr
iting for the brass and the last movement harbours plenty of glowing examples which also give off a pleasingly grating bite. I had wondered if it would be all rather suite-like but there is a symphonic steel to Zweers' writing which makes this more than a merely well-crafted pictorial indulgence. This is a symphony of lavish duration but of well conceived and executed ideas deployed within their span for potential pleasure and no further.
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| Bernard Zweers (Photo credit: Wikipedia) |
