OTTO KETTING (b.1935): Symphonies Nos. 3 and 4 (Netherlands Radio Philharmonic Orchestra; Otto Ketting, Jaap van Zweden [4]), Printemps for String Orchestra (Netherlands Radio Chamber Philharmonic; Thierry Fischer).

Description: This release jumps a long way forward from the 1960s where the above disc left off; the Third is from 1990. By this time, Ketting's style had jelled into a very recognizable personal idiom, and this substantial three-movement work has more thoroughly absorbed the contradictory elements of Bergian expressionism and Stravinskyan mechanism that vied for attention in the composer's younger years. This piece might well be described as neo-romantic (especially the slow movement, with its Mahler references), though the tension between atonal and richly tonal material remains a trademark of Ketting's brand of dramatic expression. The Fourth (2007) is a serious and monumental single-movement form with very pronounced tonal tendencies, and a slow-stepping main theme that returns obsessively at intervals, suggesting a passacaglia intermittently surfacing as an underlying background structure. Printemps is a nostalgic, atmospheric, relatively conservative and instantly accessible work, with echoes of Ravel and Berg.