Hoffmann Symphonie et ouvertures Willens - CPO777208 - CPO - Classique - Nos labels - par CPO

On savait que l’auteur des fameux « contes », le héros d’Offenbach, était aussi un compositeur mais on n’avait jusqu’à présent peu eu l’occasion d’entendre ses œuvres. Voici un CD qui répare cet oubli. Sa symphonie (1806) est de fort belle facture et montre que Hoffmann possédait un vrai métier de compositeur et ne manquait pas d’une inspiration certes marquée par Haydn et Mozart (en hommage à qui le poète se fit appeler « Ernst Theodor Amadeus ») mais non dénuée de valeur. Plus encore, ses deux ouvertures, dont celle d’Ondine sur un texte de La motte Fouqué regardent vers le premier romantisme, celui de Weber, avec un réel talent. Savoureux complément, la rare symphonie de Witt, dont une autre symphonie a parfois été attribuée à tort à Beethoven est une découverte ravissante ; le compositeur signe dans les années 1790 une partition fort joliment troussée et qui s’achève par un finale sur le « ça ira » remarquablement enlevé. Ravissantes découvertes mais dont le charme est largement redevable à la Kölner Akademie, aux timbres goûteux et aux harmonies pimentées, menée avec esprit et brio par Michael Alexander Willens. Un disque pétillant, original et savoureux. (Richard Wander)

E. T. A. Hoffmann is rightly regarded as one of the great writers of German romanticism but not as one of this epoch’s great composers. Nevertheless, this jurist by training and later Prussian Kammergerichtsrat repeatedly attempted to earn his livelihood as a composer and conductor because for him music was the most romantic art and thus the highest of all the arts. In his more than seventy compositions representing almost all the musical genres, Hoffmann demonstrated his knowledge of the compositional trade. For quite some time I have been interested (not least because I also studied German literature) to make at least some of his musical oeuvre available in audio form. This month we are releasing Hoffmann’s Symphony in E flat major and his two overtures to Undine and Aurora. From 1804 to 1807 Hoffmann was employed as a Regierungsrat in Warsaw. He later viewed these four years as the happiest time of his life: although his duties as a jurist were strenuous, he had enough time to compose and to dream of his career as a musician. It was in Warsaw that he also composed his only symphony, which he himself conducted during its premiere in 1806. Haydn was his clearly audible source of inspiration, and yet it has a Hoffmannesque character all of its own. Along with his Undine, it is surely his most successful work musically. This gem shines in this interpretation on original instruments.