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Editorial Reviews

Of all the releases in Hänssler's Günter Wand-Edition, this may be the most significant. It's not that the other releases have been in negligible, but they have to a large extent duplicated repertoire Wand had recorded commercially. Not so this disc: of the five works here, only one had been previously recorded by Wand. Even more importantly, two of the five works here were pieces with which Wand was intimately familiar while the other three were works he knew and loved as well as he knew and loved the repertoire with which he is more often associated, the symphonies of Beethoven, Brahms, and Bruckner.

Wand had given Olivier Messiaen's "Trois petites liturgies de la Présence Divine" its German premiere in 1951, and he continued to champion both the work and the composer for the rest of his life. Similarly, Wand had known Wolfgang Fortner well and premiered several of his major works, and although Fortner's "Aulodie for oboe and orchestra" was not among those premieres, Wand did subsequently perform the work many times with its dedicatee, oboist Lothar Faber. Thus Wand's 1966 recording of the "Trois petites liturgies" has a devotion and an authority that few non-French performances can match and his 1966 recording of "Aulodie" has a commitment and an affection that no other performance can touch. Of the three Webern pieces included here, only the "Fünf Stücke für Orchestre" was ever commercially released by Wand, while the recordings of the "Sech Stücke für Orchestre" and the "Cantata No. 1" have never before been available.

As music, the "Trois petites liturgies" is an early but ecstatic example of Messiaen at his most wholly individualistic; "Aulodie" is a mature but angular example of Fortner at his typically atonal; and the "Fünf" and the "Sech Stücke" are early but anguished examples of Webern at his most excruciatingly Expressionistic, while the cantata is a late but still agonized example of Webern at his most concentratedly dodecaphonic. With the Bavarian Radio Symphony, Wand's performances are consistently polished and intensely passionate. Hänssler's air check sound is slightly compressed dynamically but quite clear texturally. James Leonard, All Music Guide

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