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Hello -- You wrote a nice review in August of the Radio Symphony Orchestra Frankfurt (now called the HR Symphonie Orchester [HR = Hessischer Rundfunk]) recording of Schoenberg's Gurrelieder in the Alte Oper, Frankfurt (above).
As it happens, Detlev Kittler, the engineer for the recording lives at the other end of our five-house row here in Frankfurt Praunheim. He's 75 now, and long retired from HR, but was delighted to receive a copy of your article. He also volunteered that he had previously recorded the RSO Frankfurt in the Gurrelieder under Erich Leinsdorf. It's a concert recording, not a studio recording, but Hr. Kittler said that he preferred the recording by "the Austrian". (I can imagine that Leinsdorf captures the Wiener Espressivo elements well.)
He has promised to share a copy of that recording with me, and I"ll let you know about it, if you're interested. Perhaps HR could be persuaded to re-release it in some format?
Best regards,
Daniel Wolf Frankfurt
I notice that among many fine recordings, Detlev Kittler engineered one close to Daniel's heart -Ensemble Modern's 1991 sessions for Morton Feldman's For Samuel Beckett. And more on recordings of Schoenberg and the Second Viennese School here.
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As we finished, he suddenly said: "I hope these new harmonies will work, but I'm not sure. We will see. You know, I have no confidence in myself ..." When I protested that this was impossible, he gently responded: "But I don't. I know I should, but I don't. I'm basically doing all I do in the most amateur way, just trying to realise something that I imagine in my ear, in dreams. I use techniques, of course, but I forget them after writing and I have no overall scheme or permanent procedures. People of my generation truly believed that music could be explained and structured in a pseudo-mathematical way, but I never believed that."
And the answer is ......
A number of readers emailed in the right answer, and they were split pretty well equally between those that recognised the composer behind the quote, and those that pasted the quote into Google. The prize of a virtual bottle of champagne goes to the Frankfurt-based Californian composer Daniel Wolf who blogs on the esteemed Renewable Music for this answer:
Hello -- the mystery quote is definitely from Ligeti. The subject matter is his late concern with harmony based on mixed spectra and the false modesty and over-polite slight on his contemporaries is typical Ligeti. A great composer, but one who should have never given interviews!
But he did give interviews, now read about György Ligeti's Private Passions
Any copyrighted material on these pages is included as "fair use", for the purpose of study, review or critical analysis only, and will be removed at the request of copyright owner(s). Report broken links, missing images and other errors to - overgrownpath at hotmail dot co dot uk
