Friedrich Gernsheim (1839 - 1916) was a German Jew, classical composer, pianist and conductor. Sadly not much is known of him or his life, and his works are rarely if ever played, which is a real shame since if they are all as beautiful as this, his 3rd symphony, they deserve a wider audience and their place in the concert repertoires.
He has been very unkindly given the unofficial title of The Poor Man's Brahms which is grossly unfair. Listening to this symphony it is very clear that he and Brahms shared many similar compositional ideas about melody, orchestration, etc, but this symphony also reminded me very much of another German composer, Max Bruch. Perhaps we should just say that since they are all contempories of each other, they all conformed to the German Romantic movement of the time.
Gernsheim gave his third symphony the title, "The Song Of Miryam", as he wanted to reconnect with his Jewish heritage and faith. Miryam being in the Hebrew Bible the daughter of Amram and Jachebed, and the sister of Moses and Aaron. However, the symphony does not follow a story or narrative in any way and so cannot be said to be in the form of a symphonic poem or tone poem. In fact the symphony owes more of its flavour and melodic line to Handel's 'Isreal In Egypt'.
In this recording the symphony was played by The Orchestra of The Rheinland-Pfalz and conducted by Siegfried Koehler. The symphony is in the usual 4 movements and is beautifully constructed, and highly dramatic. You are immediately swept up in the pieces emotional journey. Exactly what the Romantic movement was all about!
Reviewer - Matthew Dougall
on - 1/6/20
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