Dip Your Ears, Addendum 48a

K.Höller, Orchestral Works, E.Jochum / BRSO DG Musica Nova K.A. Hartmann, Symphony No.6 et al., F.Fricsay / RIAS DG Musica Nova

“Musik… Sprache der Welt” is now on its second volume of a 10-CD box (DG 4775494, ~$100). These boxes are like a trip into the past of continental European recordings in the 50s. Since getting the entire second volume does not entail any savings over collecting the titles individually (try to make sense of that, if you will), I don’t know why anyone would want to go the way of the box -- especially since it contains some choices (Grieg conducted by Fritz Lehmann) that will appeal mostly to Euro-nostalgics. I’d pick the cream of the crop -- and apart from interesting Böhm and Jochum in standard fare like Dvořák or Bruckner, it contains a Jochum-conducted Höller CD (Symphonic Phantasie for Orchestra, op. 20 and the Sweelinck-Variations - DG 4775488) as well as the Karl Amadeus Hartmann 6th symphony (plus the final movement of the 4th, the finale of Wolfgang Fortner's 4th, and a good version of Blacher's excellent Paganini-Variations - DG 4774587), both of which I like very much. The sound is surprisingly vivid and the music is very intriguing. Anyone interested in music from that time, a music that combines Romanticism with the experience of war and destruction while working on a new (third) musical language that never really succeeded amid the struggle between pantonal modernism and anachronistic Romanticism, might like to dip his or her ears. At ~$10 or less a pop, it’s a wonderful off-the-beaten-path snag.