Comments on On An Overgrown Path: Furtwangler and the forgotten new music

Graener's "Flute" was also recorded by Toscanini. ...

2007-08-20T17:59:20.782+01:00

Graener's "Flute" was also recorded by Toscanini. (Nov 1938). I have it on a CD on the Dell'Arte label. It is 15 minutes long. Pastiche baroque.

Thank you for your article.But as I know, the Berl...

2007-05-19T05:50:08.882+01:00

Thank you for your article.

But as I know, the Berlin Philharmonie Hall was bombed out after the very time of January,1944. For Wilhelm Furtwangler recorded the "Sinfonia domestica" and Beethoven's "Violin Concerto" on Jan.9-12.1944 in the Philharmonie Hall.

Any way,Welcome to my blog:

http://musicandart.blog.sohu.com/

Stockwell, I really don't want to re-open this par...

2006-11-04T06:44:03.466Z

Stockwell, I really don't want to re-open this particular debate. The facts about Furtwängler are on record, and my account reflects them. He was an extraordinary musician who made naive, and deplorable, political decisions.

The balance is between a handful of lives alledgedly saved against the millions that we know were taken by the regime that he fraternised with. Toscanini and countless others took the tough decision, and any medals should go to them.

Sadly, today, more damage is done to Furtwängler's reputation by fanciful justification of his behaviour than by the facts. Discussion of Furtwängler's role as an advocate of new music now very welcome here.

I'll keep this short, which will be difficult. I'...

2006-11-04T02:08:11.380Z

I'll keep this short, which will be difficult. I'm doing a documentary film about Wilhelm Furtwangler and, without being another apologist for him, I have to point out that he agonised over whether to stay in Germany and that Arnold Schoenberg - among others - implored him to stay and offer some sort of lifeline to others without the means or opportunity to get out. Furtwangler aided people in a way that would not have been possible from the outside. He arranged for visas, distributed money, and interceded as best as he could. He saved lives; for me, this outweighs the perpetual shadow which people insist needs to be permanently part of his history. Simply saying "The fact is he remained in Germany as Director of the Berlin Philharmonic through the darkest hours of the Nazis" and leaving it at that avoids looking into what he managed to accomplish by making this much-damned decision. I do not consider his political compromises "deplorable" since they resulted in the survival of the Vienna Philharmonic and over 80 known people who testified that they survived the war through his efforts. We're long past the time for wringing our hands over Furtwangler's decision to stay when he "should've" cut and run. I think the guy deserves a medal for what he did, not condemnation for having done it from within Hell itself. And don't get me started on "Taking Sides"!

I see that Walter Braunfels (1882- 1954) opera P...

2005-10-19T20:57:29.793+01:00

I see that Walter Braunfels (1882- 1954) opera
Prinzessin Brambilla, Op. 12, (1909) was released yesterday on Marco Polo. The production is from the Wexford Festival. Perhaps someone saw the opera or has heard the discs.

The composers for whom you could not find any info...

2005-10-14T22:05:47.713+01:00

The composers for whom you could not find any information are listed in both Grove and MGG (first edition).

Höffer has an umlaut in his surname, and as you noted, Zilcher's Christian name was Hermann. The Grove entries follow (both the general entries and the opera entries). The former has a rather large entry in the MGG, so the Germans might not consider him obscure.

I must say I enjoy visiting your site from time to time. It reminds me of the 13 years I spent in London, that splendid musical city. (I am an American now back in Chicago.)

After reading this item just now, I wonder if you...

2005-10-09T22:48:56.313+01:00

After reading this item just now, I wonder if you're familiar with bill osborne' s many articles about the vienna philharmonic. i presume you are. if not, here's his and abbie conant's web site
http://www.osborne-conant.org/
which includes a stack of stuff that seems to me would be of interest to you:
http://www.osborne-conant.org/articles.htm

Just popped in to FNAC in Avignon looking for Tour...

2005-10-07T16:39:48.863+01:00

Just popped in to FNAC in Avignon looking for Tournemire Le Mystere d,Orgue - unsuccessfully.

They had two Ernst Toch CDs in stock.

Sent from, Nimes - French keyboards are hell.........

Apparently, Wladimir Vogel's THYL CLAES, SOHN DES ...

2005-10-06T21:43:37.650+01:00

Apparently, Wladimir Vogel's THYL CLAES, SOHN DES KOHLENTRAEGERS. Episches Oratorium in 2 Teilen für Sopran, 2 Sprechstimmen, Sprechchor und Orchester (1938-45) has recently been performed by the Basel Sinfonietta anc Chorus. Can we hope that the recording of the performance of this major oratorio -- a parable on Hitler's rise to power -- will soon be released?

See analysis (in German) by Jacques Wildberger at

http://www.sinfonietta-archiv.ch/PPL/Saison87/S5%20Text.htm

http://www.basilsinfonietta.ch

I also have in my collection Walter Braunfels's sa...

2005-10-06T20:29:59.796+01:00

I also have in my collection Walter Braunfels's sacred-drama/oratorio "Verkündigung" (The Annunciation), based upon Paul Claudel, which, as you know Pliable, Dennis Russell Davies recorded with the Cologne Symphony and Chorus in 1992, for EMI. However, I recall the text was only in German so one must first find the Claudel play in French or English, if one's German is limited. Also, this work was from 1945, following twelve years of "internal exile" by the composer (similar to Karl Amadeus Hartmann and others), and not from the "pre-War" period.

And I recall that composer-conductor Paul Kletzki's Symphony #2 (1928) received a world premiere recording in 1998 on the Musica Helvetica label under Dmitri Kitaenko. The final movement sets the resigned poem by Karl Stamm which translates as "Sleep, Sleep, O World".

Three photos from Spoleto USA's 2005 American prem...

2005-10-06T19:40:30.896+01:00

Three photos from Spoleto USA's 2005 American premiere of Walter Braunfel's "The Birds" are available at:

http://www.spoletousa.org/2005review/2005Photos.php (photos 5-7)

Thank you, Pliable. This article will take a whil...

2005-10-06T19:00:43.000+01:00

Thank you, Pliable. This article will take a while fully to digest... Here are a few first impressions.

From your list, the names of Max von Schilling, Ernst Toch, Walter Braunfels, Karol Rathaus, Wladimir Vogel, and Ernst Pepping are ones immediately familiar to me.(I am also trying to recall the name of an aristocratic German opera composer who lived in Berlin-Dahlem much of his life, and whose operas have recently been issued on CPO.)

Max von Schilling, who died in 1933 and who taught Furtwangler composition, composed Mona Lisa in 1915, and subsequently saw the work performed at the MET. This opera is available, I believe on CPO. He also wrote three earlier operas.

Walter Braunfel's The Birds, based upon Aristophanes has been available on London CD for some time. It was also performed at the Spoleto Festival USA this past summer:

http://www.spoletousa.org/events/event.php?category_id=2&event_id=48

Karol Rathaus also has a London CD available. This Polish, and nominally Jewish composer, ended up in New York. His archives are available in Queens, New York City:

http://qcpages.qc.edu/Library/info/krarchive.html

Swiss composer Wladimir Vogel is represented on some largely Swiss CD labels. I've been intrigued by his name ever since musicologist Robert P. Morgan, in his 1976 program book to the first (and only) New York Philharmonic-Juilliard Festival of Contemporary Music, cited Vogel's "Til Eulenspiegel" as an outstanding, but unknown, twentieth century masterpiece. (I think the work has another name that I can't now think of.)

Ernst Toch, as you cite, ended up in Los Angeles, and has been championed by Michael Tilson Thomas in L.A. and San Francisco. His archives are at:

http://www.library.ucla.edu/libraries/music/mlsc/toch/

Ernst Pepping largely is now known for his Protestant sacred choral music. He is published by Schott Musick. I have a double CD of his choral music.

Finally, I was interested to learn of the premiere of Schoenberg's Variations, which I had forgotten. Schoenberg was apparently both hopeful and apprehensive when he was appointed his professorship in Berlin. (Vienna had become for him a baroque city, lost in the past.) But as Schoenberg's 1923 letter to Wassily Kandinsky revealed, he gravely feared the anti-semitism of "Hittler" [sic].

Having met Schoenberg's son Lawrence this past Tuesday, I would be remiss not to give here the link to the Vienna Schoenberg Center:

www.schoenberg.at