Leon Botstein places his cards squarely on the table by insisting that ‘this fantastic and compelling piece of music has been unfairly neglected’. He certainly supports his claim with a convincing performance, magnificently recorded, and though I would challenge ‘fantastic’, ‘compelling’ isn’t too far off the mark. The symphony was composed in 1900, a time – as now – when the challenge of balancing the old with the new posited new levels of artistic responsibility. Dohnanyi tended to side with tradition, though his harmonic style is fairly pan-European.
The opening horn theme conjures Bruckner’s symphonic world, and the music soon flares to a heady climax before raindrop pizzicatos lower us to the lyrical second set (2'27''). The scoring borders on the Wagnerian (Dohnanyi makes great play with his horns and lower strings), though I found the first movement’s ‘extensive development’ (annotator Peter Laki’s term) somewhat overcooked. The slow movement occasionally hints at gipsy music, the Scherzo seems vaguely reminiscent of the parallel movement in Dvorak’s Fourth; there’s a very attractive ‘Intermezzo’ that calls on themes from previous movements (the solo viola part is especially appealing), and a powerful theme and variations finale.
Dohnanyi’s penchant for rich colours and unexpected key relations invariably holds one’s interest, though I would hesitate to rate this auspicious First Symphony a masterpiece. Its ultimate shortcoming is that it lacks distinction of the sort that charges Bruckner’s First, Mahler’s First, Rachmaninov’s First and even Reger’s long-winded Sinfonietta with their own unmistakable personalities.'