Since reviewing Leon Botstein’s spectacularly well recorded account of the First Symphony with the London Philharmonic, I have had time to spend a few more hours with this fascinating if uneven work. Now, as before, sundry influences spontaneously spring to mind: Tchaikovsky at the beginning of the Scherzo; Brahms at 7'57'' into the Molto adagio (gipsy-style clarinet figurations reminiscent of Brahms’s Clarinet Quintet) and 3'25'' into the finale (broadly arched string writing against pizzicato basses), and then Richard Strauss at 14'59'' into the same movement, specifically the ‘Midnight Bell’ episode from Also sprach Zarathustra (which was composed four years earlier). The five-movement structure has its obvious models in Beethoven and Berlioz, but the scoring, although tending towards Wagnerian sonorities, is frequently individual, and so is the 23-year-old Dohnanyi’s command of symphonic argument.
As to comparisons, Botstein’s Telarc recording remains securely in the demonstration class, though this Chandos production is scarcely less impressive. In terms of tempo, it is rather a case of swings and roundabouts, with Bamert offering marginally broader readings of the first two movements, and Botstein lending a touch of extra breadth to the remaining three (Bamert takes longer overall). In terms of playing and phrasing, Bamert offers the more dramatic option, most notably at the beginning of the Scherzo and the furious fugato passage 12'00'' into the finale, where the BBC lower strings ‘dig in’ with a vengeance.
Choosing between the two versions is far from easy. Botstein’s recording is uncoupled, whereas Bamert and Chandos also offer us an excellent performance of the much later American Rhapsody (1950 as opposed to 1900 for the Symphony). Here, Dohnanyi’s sound world recalls the Delius of Appalachia and the Florida suite and his use of American traditional tunes reminded me of Charles Ives’s Second Symphony. If all this sounds as if Dohnanyi didn’t have an original idea in his head, it is certainly not meant to. The references are intended to focus superficial similarities but should not mask the fact that Dohnanyi had plenty to say, and said it well. Recommended.'