Bruckner's favorite pupil, Hans Rott, was late nineteenth century Austrian music's great unfulfilled hope. Trained as an organist, Rott started 80 works in his brief compositional career but lived to complete only 23 including the Symphony in E major and an Overture to a projected opera called Julius Caesar. After his symphony was laughed at by its first audience, rejected by professional conductors, and rebuffed by Brahms, Rott -- already a sensitive soul -- went mad in months and died in an insane asylum four years later at 26.
Mahler acknowledged Rott was a "genius" and "the founder of the new symphony as I understand it," but
Mahler also admitted that "what he intended is not quite achieved yet -- it is as if one takes the wide swing, and still clumsy, does not fully hit the aim."
In this 2003 recording,
Sebastian Weigle and the Münchner Rundfunkorchester make it seem as if Rott not only failed to hit the mark, he took a long, long time with the swing.
Weigle's performance is about the same length as Gerhard Samuel's, but it seems much, much longer. Part of it, of course, is Rott's Symphony -- a ramshackled piece of work filled with quotes of Wagner and Bruckner and occasional swipes from Brahms -- and part of it is the performance that seems to end a dozen times before it finally goes out in a blaze of folly at the final coda of the interminable finale. The Münchner Rundfunkorchester, although apparently a capable band, runs out of enthusiasm in the slow movement, energy in the Scherzo, and patience in the finale. While students of late nineteenth century Austrian music will want to hear the additional works on the program -- the bombast Julius Caesar and Brucknerian Orchestral Prelude -- few will disagree with
Mahler's final judgment.