FRANZ MIXA (1902-1994): Icelandic Rhapsody, Symphony No. 2 in A Minor, Tritonus diabolus domitus.

Description: This Austrian composer (also the husband of soprano Hertha Töpper) spent the decade of the 1930s in Iceland as a teacher, conductor and administrator and his 1949 Rhapsody is the most tonally conservative, neo-Romantic work on this program. The gray skies, uneasy pulse and anxiety-ridden personality of the 1956 symphony (ah, the year of the Soviet invasion of Hungary!) will make you think of Allan Pettersson and the nearly omnipresent snare drum will also suggest Nielsen's Fifth but that insistent instrument was shared by Dane and Swede. Although there is a more optimistic fast-movement finale, this 33-minute work should please all collectors of the tormented Swedish composer. The 12-minute "Meditative Fantasy" of 1977 takes the tritone - that famous "diabolus in musica" and leads it through a gradually moving progression into a powerful tonal climax. Donau Philharmonie Wien; Manfred Müssauer.