The latest installment in CPO’s Atterberg series presents two powerful and thematically unified three-movement works. Symphony No. 2 begins with an innocently buoyant folk melody that folds into a portentous brass fanfare. This two-part musical idea will appear at key points throughout the first movement, each time heightening the drama. The sprawling second movement, where Atterberg weaves a scherzo into the structure of a slow movement, originally was the symphony’s finale, and indeed there is a marked sense of summation as it draws to a close. So it’s surprising to hear the third movement launch so violently with its brass eruptions and swirling strings, prefiguring the malevolent sweep of the composer’s “West Coast Pictures” Third Symphony.
The Sinfonia funebre begins with a striking clarion call, a brief descending chord progression from the brass and winds that will prove to be the key motif for the entire work. After a highly contrasted first movement, featuring themes of a distinctly Nordic character (bringing to mind the early tone poems of Sibelius), the second movement follows without a break. This serene funeral march, one of the most beautiful in the symphonic literature, resembles in mood and orchestral coloring some of the more transcendental passages in Wagner, and evokes an inward, silent mourning. The first movement’s clarion call heralds the start of the finale, and this arresting figure takes on tragic significance as it blares forth at each dramatic nexus, in a manner not dissimilar to the finale of Mahler’s Sixth.
As before, Ari Rasilainen presents stellar performances of both works, with ravishing playing (the brass especially) by the Frankfurt Radio Symphony. CPO’s wide ranging recording contains the dynamic extremes of this music while still rendering much inner detail. This is a marvelous addition to an important series that everyone should hear. Now only the Ninth remains.
