The Krakow Philharmonic under Roland Bader deliver generally efficient performances of both the Weill symphonies. However, the avoidance of merely prosaic note-spinning is remarkable in the case of the First Symphony, whose rambling, single-movement cyclic form hovers somewhere between the derivative and the outwardly plagiaristic. Originally based on Johannes Becher's play, sub-titled A people's journey toward God, much of the basic material seems clearly derived from Schoenberg's Chamber Symphony No. 1. The symphony's thematic potential is usually limited to fragmentary melodies such as that for the violins at 9'38'', which sounds curiously Mahlerian, whilst the horn solo several bars later could easily have been lifted straight from the closing paragraph of Ein Heldenleben! The real weakness of the work, then, is found in the fact that the material is never fully developed, as in the fugato section at 15'35''; and yet, for all its rhapsodic grotesquerie, this is a surprising statement for a 21-year-old composer.
The Second Symphony of 1934, composed during Weill's exile in Paris, returns to a three-movement plan, in which the material is handled more traditionally. Bader responds adroitly to Weill's terse and idiomatic writing, which is readily identifiable with the sardonic tawdriness so typical in the music of the stage collaborations with Brecht. Indeed, there is much originality in the progress of the pessimistic stance of this symphony, and the caustic severity of much of its content.
Unfortunately, these performances are not well served by the recording, which has been made in an over-resonant acoustic; many key details are lost while climaxes become hopelessly congested and over-blown. However, any recording of the symphonies represents a valuable addition to the sparse Weill discography, and the accompanying notes by Heinz Geuen give scholarly insights into both the historical background and genre of these works.'