The period of 1880-1920 is littered with forgotten composers who did not respond to the clarion call of incipient modernism, a trend many in hindsight view as historically inevitable. However, if one could travel back to 1910, one would learn that very idea the decade 1900-1910 would be best remembered by works such as
Debussy's La Mer, Scriabin's The Poem of Ecstasy,
Richard Strauss' Salome, and
Stravinsky's L'Oiseau de feu would have been viewed as tantamount to the lunatics taking over the asylum. Back then, all of these works represented a controversial extreme in the music of that day. Polish composer Mieczyslaw Karlowicz more represents the norm of that time, a composer whose work reflects the influence of early
Strauss, above all others, but utilizes an orchestral palette that is reminiscent of what
Erich Wolfgang Korngold would produce in maturity. Karlowicz would never enjoy maturity himself, as he died in a skiing accident at the age of 32 that some speculate may have been a deliberate act.
Karlowicz's six tone poems, composed between 1904 and 1909, make up the center of his orchestral output, and Chandos' Karlowicz: Orchestral Works, Vol. 3, explores three of them: Returning Waves, Op. 9, A Sorrowful Tale, Op. 13, and Episode at a Masquerade, Op. 14, in stable, very well-rehearsed interpretations by the
BBC Philharmonic under the young Italian conductor
Gianandrea Noseda. These recordings do not seem exceptionally inspired in terms of interpretation, but they succeed in delivering Karlowicz' goods. Returning Waves, Op. 9, is the earliest and the weakest of the three pieces, and there is a recurrent figure reminiscent of the motive in
Strauss' Till Eulenspiegel's Lüstige Streiche that pops in and out through the whole piece, wearing out its welcome quickly even as the music has more places left to go. Episode at a Masquerade, Op. 14, is like a better version of Returning Waves -- although the offending figure is still there, it is less prominent and the music has a chance to open up more to other vistas. The best piece is the shortest, A Sorrowful Tale, Op. 13, a dark, moody, and well orchestrated paean to terminal depression, said to have been inspired by the composer's own battle against thoughts of suicide. If his demise shortly thereafter was indeed the result of a deliberate accident, then Karlowicz's battle was a losing one indeed, and certainly there is no resolution of the conflict found in the work.
Karlowicz's music is interesting, very well crafted orchestrally, and emotional. Moreover, he does not seem quite in the same class as the composers mentioned in the first paragraph of the review, nor even in the class of Rudi Stephan, another orchestral composer of this era whom Chandos has recorded. Nevertheless, one is glad to hear this music, and this time Chandos has made a recording that is not too quiet or variable in volume to hinder the enjoyment.