Is Fuchs really worthwhile? Is Romanticism really dead? Is the age of miracles really past? At best, Robert Fuchs is a pedant, a poetaster, a bore, and a thoroughly third-rate composer. His Symphony No. 1 was premiered by the Vienna Philharmonic in 1884 and it's been downhill for classical music ever since. Listen to the coda of the opening movement's cadence. It was corny then, it's still corny now, and it'll always be corny. His Symphony No. 2 was premiered by the Vienna Philharmonic in 1887, but it might as well have ...
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Is Fuchs really worthwhile? Is Romanticism really dead? Is the age of miracles really past? At best, Robert Fuchs is a pedant, a poetaster, a bore, and a thoroughly third-rate composer. His Symphony No. 1 was premiered by the Vienna Philharmonic in 1884 and it's been downhill for classical music ever since. Listen to the coda of the opening movement's cadence. It was corny then, it's still corny now, and it'll always be corny. His Symphony No. 2 was premiered by the Vienna Philharmonic in 1887, but it might as well have been 1837 for all the breathtakingly banal tunes and reactionary forms. Imagine a bad rewrite of Schumann's "Rhenish" and you have some idea of what to expect. But the age of miracles hasn't really passed because here, nevertheless, is a 1994 recording of the First and Second symphonies of Robert Fuchs by Manfred Müssauer and the Moravian Philharmonic in splendid sound by Thorofon. Müssauer has the strength of his convictions and the Moravian plays like it's willing to live up to his...
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