Comments on On An Overgrown Path: Mahler's forgotten assistant

"It brought some other composers to a virtual halt...

2007-03-28T22:18:00.000+01:00

"It brought some other composers to a virtual halt, the great Zemlinsky here coming to mind." (JMW)

John, this is, of course, a very important point when one is considering both Zemlinsky and Schoenberg (as well as others) in the U.S. (Kurt Weill perhaps provides a counterpoint to the loss of compositional productivity; but one must question what non-Broadway composing Weill might have returned to had he lived longer.)

The Library of Congress hosted the Boston-based MONTAGE Music Society, last October, in an interesting program opening with Schoenberg and Zemlinsky settings of symbolist poems of Richard Dehmel; followed by the North American premiere of Zemlinsky's Cello Sonata and the Steuermann piano trio transcription of Schoenbert's "Verklarte Nacht."

And earlier this month (March 2007), Vienna's ARON String Quartet gave an interesting program featuring Haydn SQ in D minor, op. 76, no. 2, the Schoenberg SQ #3 (premiered at the LOC), and Korngold's String Quartet no. 3 in D Major, op. 34; which was apparently a late 1945 holiday gift to his wife, in which he broke his long self-imposed silence on composing 'serious' music (excluding film music) until Hitler was out of power.

The Schoenberg and Korngold were interesting contrasts; with the Korngold incorporating themes from "The Sea Wolf" and other film scores that Korngold had recently completed.

There have also been a handful of Eric Zeisl chamber music premieres in Washington over the past decade supported by that composer's family (which is also largely based in Los Angeles, I believe).

In this week when Christopher Rouse has premiered a new Requiem in Los Angeles, it should perhaps be recalled that Eric Zeisl won an Austrian State Prize for his Requiem Mass of 1934 (but could not get it published, since he was Jewish); and that he went on to compose a 'Hebraic' Requiem, which I was quite impressed with when it was locally premiered at the Washington National Cathedral a few years back.

Eric Zeisl's "Requiem Ebraico" (1945) is dedicated to the memory of "his father and the countless victims of the Jewish tragedy in Europe" and apparently has been released by Decca/London Records performed by Lawrence Foster (cond.), Deborah Riedel (soprano), Della Jones (mezzo-soprano), Michael Kraus (bass-baritone) and the Rundfunk-Sinfonieorchester Berlin and Rundfunkchor Berlin. The Zeisl work is paired with Franz Waxman's "The Song of Terezin."

I believe that the earlier 1934 Requiem, composed in Vienna, awaits a recording; which could conceivably be accomplished with one of the fine Ukrainian orchestras and choruses, if not orchestas and choruses in the U.S. Or perhaps the Austrian ORTF could back the concerts and recording project, since it appears that they have not done so as of yet. [Zeisl died at the age of 53.]

http://www.schoenberglaw.com/zeisl/

http://www.schoenberglaw.com/zeisl/rec.html

John, thanks for that additional information.Garth...

2007-03-28T20:30:00.000+01:00

John, thanks for that additional information.

Garth also spotted my mistake about the sub-title for Weigl's 6th Symphony, and I've corrected it, together with the wrong statement about the premiere recording of the quartets.

Email in from John McLaughlin Williams:I'd add a ...

2007-03-28T19:34:00.000+01:00

Email in from John McLaughlin Williams:

I'd add a couple more notable students: Csielaw Marek and Peter Paul Fuchs. Marek is better known, but Fuchs was an estimable composer in his own right, and was Bernstein's assistant at the US premiere of Peter Grimes. Two corrections: The 6th Symphony has no subtitle; Old Vienna is a separate work, a suite of waltzes done Wiegl's way, which is to say, with a minimum of schlagobers. The Artis Quartet recording is excellent, but it's not the world premiere recording. That was done by The Christopher Quartet in 1988, as I recall in association with Indiana University. An amazing thing about Weigl is that immigration didn't slow him down. It brought some other composers to a virtual halt, the great Zemlinsky here coming to mind. Weigl was fertile till the very end, and indeed wrote some of his best music in exile.

Trivia note: I did the music preparation and Finale engraving for the BIS recording of the 6th Symphony.

Karl Weigl's grandson (also named Karl Weigl) lives in California and the family sponsors a Karl Weigl Foundation.

Well Bob and John, I hope that the CD is not dead ...

2007-03-28T18:59:00.000+01:00

Well Bob and John, I hope that the CD is not dead yet (as reported this week, over here, at the New York Times and Slate), because I --based upon John's recommendation --just placed a CD order for Karl Weigl's Symphonies #5 and 6. I have Weigl's String Quartet's with the Artis SQ Wien, which you pictured, but his Symphonies had somehow escaped my notice the past five years. I noticed immediately that Weigl's Symphony #5, The Apocalyptic, was dedicated to the Memory of Franklin Delano Roosevelt. I am also trying to recall what Weigl works I have heard at the Library of Congress, the Austrian Embassy, and the U.S. Holocaust Memorial Museum [ and none, I am virtually sure, in Berlin or Vienna].

Thank you both for the excellent blogging and commenting, which helped restore my European-American classical music animal spirits this otherwise culturally overcast day. (Google even helped me with a discount on my otherwise 'yellow-alert' CD purchase!)

Best wishes to you both.