SCHNABEL: Symphony No. 2. Royal Philharmonic Orchestra,...

SCHNABEL: Symphony No. 2. Royal Philharmonic Orchestra, conducted by Paul Zukofsky. Musical Observations CP2104. Written on successive “vacations” in the mountains of New Mexico, pianist Artur Schnabel’s Symphony No. 2 is hardly the work of a dabbler. A dramatic, four-movement, 60-minute work, it is couched in a sinewy, expressionistic, atonal idiom, intriguingly orchestrated. Though complex, even cerebral, it moves ruggedly, purposefully. As Roger Sessions noted of Schnabel’s symphonies: “The more one studies these scores, the more indisputable one finds their evidences of authentic genius, and the more captivated one remains.” Quibbles aside, Zukofsky (new chief at the Arnold Schoenberg Institute) and the Royal Philharmonic offer a solid, muscular, committed account.