August Enna (1859-1939)
Violin Concerto in D major (1896)
Symphony No.2 in E major (1907)
Anna Agafia (violin)
Bogotá Philharmonic Orchestra/Joachim Gustafsson
rec. 2022, Teatro Taller Filarmónico, Bogotá, Colombia
Dacapo 8.224753 [65]
August Enna’s legacy has, in recent years, been primarily in the hands of cpo. The Second Symphony and Violin Concerto were recorded over a decade ago though the more exploratory may have come across Kai Laursen’s recording of the concerto as part of his mammoth 26 Danish concerto release on Danacord. In the case of the Enna concerto the recording is sonically compromised and unfortunately Laursen isn’t, for once, on especially good form.
Dacapo now enters the lists with its coupling of the two works – cpo didn’t couple them in this way – but it proves something of a disappointment. Violinist Anna Agafia is an accomplished, nimble soloist but her tempi are decidedly lacklustre, and this has a detrimental effect on a work that already courts danger with its post-Vieuxtemps passagework. She takes 30 minutes whereas Laursen took 23 and Kathrin Rabus on cpo took 26. No one really wants to judge a performance by the stopwatch as there is room for flexibility in all works but the finale in particular hangs fire. Elsewhere there is a fatal lack of urgency as the soloist seems to want to graft a burdened weight to the writing which in all honesty it simply can’t bear. I wish she had swung lithely through the first movement passagework instead and her ardour is often in direct opposition to the nature of the music itself which is fairly lightweight. The other demerit is the recording in the Bogotá concert hall which is quite recessive and never forward or defined enough. The percussion sounds cloudy too, and it all means that the orchestra sounds smaller than I assume to be the case.
The Second Symphony conforms to the tempi in the cpo performance which suggests that conductor Joachim Gustafsson has been amiably indulgent to his soloist in the concerto or, to put things more positively, has provided necessary support to Agafia though he may well have had other ideas as to tempi. The 1907 Symphony – the First is lost – is a well-proportioned work of 35 minutes, that conforms to the late Romantic four-movement layout. It’s also pretty nondescript. The highlight is a crisp Scherzo though the slow movement has a fine striding phrase and lively old school descending thematic writing – all very light-hearted and un-Nordic. Once again there are sonic problems, notably in the bass which lacks clarity.
Enna lacks a personal profile and there is, unfortunately, little if anything that is distinctive in much of his music. Regrettably, this disc is not going to help matters.
Jonathan Woolf
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