Paul Büttner - Symphonies Nos. 3 & 4

Paul BÜTTNER (1870-1943)

Symphony No.3 in D Flat major (1910-1914)

Symphony No.4 in B minor (1917-1918)

Berlin Radio Symphony Orchestra

Christopher Ward

Recorded: 2024/25, Berlin, Germany 

Review:

Paul Büttner was a victim of the Nazis; he was not Jewish, but his wife was. In 1933, he was stripped of his position as director of the Dresden Conservatory, and his work was classed as undesirable. The Dresden People’s Newspaper, a publication of the Social Democratic Left, was also banned, so his job as music critic vanished, and with it his one remaining source of income. After his death in 1943, his wife was placed in ‘protective custody’, from which she escaped by feigning poisoning and hiding in a horse stable. The communist East-German Government remmbered Büttner, naming a music school after him. After the fall of the GDR, his name and work fell into desuetude, and have only recently been disinterred.

Büttner was of working-class stock, and financial considerations precluded formal music education. He earned his living by performing on the oboe and viola. Only later did he have formal lessons with Felix Draeseke, an exponent of Liszt and Wagner within the New German School of Music. It was the performance of the 3rd symphony by Arthur Nikisch leading the Leipzig Gewandhaus that catapulted Büttner into the limelight.

The first movement of the third symphony is designated Bewegt, mit erhabenem Ausdruck (animated, with exalted expression). There are many influences. It is not difficult to detect Beethoven, Bruckner and Wagner in its more powerful and foreboding moments, counteracted by the daylight of Robert Schumann. The memorable principal melody rises out of the depths of the orchestra. As the movement develops in its dramatic and rhapsodic way, there is a prefiguration of the storm of the last movement.

It is in the second movement Einfach und innig (simple and heartfelt)that Brahms makes his appearance. The opening woodwind plays a slow dance, gradually accelerating only to have Brucknerian chords appear, intermingling and melding the whole.

The last movement is my favourite: Leidenschaftlich und stürmischn (passionate and stormy) is a very apt description. This is very definitely stormy music, but it is a storm of surges and swells that collapse into quietness, sometimes silence. It is striking and exciting; the power of the storm is underpinned by subtle strokes on the tam-tam, to telling effect.

The fourthh symphony followed shortly afterwards. The initial sketches and first full version are from 1912, with a final revision in 1919. Such lengthy gestation suggests that Büttner’s compositional skills evolved after the reception of the third symphony. It is a large work, 48 minutes here. The 14-minute first movement, Mäßig bewegt (movement and energy but without haste), opens quietly. It sounds sombre but soon blooms into a flowing melody on the strings which underpins the entire movement, only to be interrupted by lowering brass. Influences abound; there is even a brief waltz. The music seems to be unable to settle into an unfractured whole. Just when you think that he is to give the listener a continuous style for a couple of minutes, a different group of instruments interrupts. It is clear that he is a master of rich orchestration.

The second movement Scherzo presto is quite fierce; frequent meter changes create a sort of lurch to the rhythm. It only calms as it reaches the trio, where Büttner reintroduces the principal melody of the first movement.

The third-movement Andante maestoso opens beguilingly, with strings then woodwind and brass, to lovely effect. A funeral march episode intrudes, but the movement concludes as brass and cellos round things off smoothly.

The last movement Allegro (flammend) begins with the clearest reminiscence of Bruckner: it is difficult not to be reminded of the opening of the last movement of his eighth symphony. To quote the booklet: “The blocks of Brucknerian heaving and stamping, of singing and rapture come in ever closer succession.” Mahler makes a brief appearance as well, with trills of nature as in his third symphony. The movement proceeds with horns alternating with quieter sections, and themes from the first movement make an appearance as one is led to expect a final grand peroration. Things sound very majestic indeed, with a brief brass-dominated climax, tapering down as the work finishes serenely.

The booklet, in German and English, presents a biography of Büttner and a brief descriptions of the two symphonies. As usual, these are supplemented by information about the excellent conductor and the truly splendid orchestra. The superb recording shows off the orchestra’s sections in a manner that I cannot imagine bettered.

Jim Westhead (Music Web)