I recently came across the music of the Hungarian-American composer Gabriel von Wayditch (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gabriel_von_Wayditch) (1888-1969), who (rather extraordinarily) wrote fourteen grand operas, several of which are over five hours long. You can hear snippets of the only existing recording of his music here (http://www.allmusic.com/album/gabriel-von-wayditch-the-caliphs-magician-suh-and-sah-jesus-before-herod-mw0001347783).
In case there are any music engravers here, I am looking for people who would be willing to help typeset Wayditch's manuscripts. They are in the possession of New York-based composer Frank Oteri (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Frank_J._Oteri), and he and I are in the process of scanning the manuscripts. Typesetting them will be a Sisyphean task, so it would be much appreciated if anyone would like to help. Please comment if you would be interested in volunteering!
Interesting. From the two operas in the YouTube link, Wayditch's style was late romantic at least during the WWI years (they date form 1917 and 1918), although the later one is certainly more advanced in its language. It would be interesting to see whether he maintained this, or whether his idiom continued to change as the century progressed.
If GvW wrote a violin concerto, I would typeset the manuscript and make it available through my violin concerto project website:
https://www.tobias-broeker.de/rare-manuscripts/violin-concertos/ (https://www.tobias-broeker.de/rare-manuscripts/violin-concertos/)
So did he compose a violin concerto?
Best,
Tobias
Unfortunately, he did not! There are fourteen grand operas, two small songs, and various small arrangements or chamber pieces with materials derived from the operas, but no violin concerto, unfortunately. Let me know if you might be interested in helping with any of those!
Hmm. There's an awful lot of Strauss in The Caliph's Magician: Suh and Sah. Bears investigation, though...
Sorry, no, there are so many violin concertos out there having no support without me, so I leave the operas to you. Good luck with your project!
The Wikipedia entry on Wayditch says of his idiom: "Though the early operas were post-Romantic in style, the later works are much more modern and are heavily dissonant. " If that's so, it would put all but his earliest pieces outside the scope of this forum, of course.
I've ordered the 2-CD set on VAI Audio, so we'll see...
I've listened to the second of his operas, The Caliph's Magician of 1917. As you say, Alan, it's heavily influenced by Richard Strauss' Salome and Elektra, and I was also reminded very much of Schreker. The vocal writing sounds punishing for the performers, but there's melody there and Wayditch's massive orchestration is inventive, although the ear is given little respite. All in all, I felt like I'd had one slice too many of a very rich cake!
Quote from: violinconcerto on Wednesday 04 October 2017, 05:05
Sorry, no, there are so many violin concertos out there having no support without me, so I leave the operas to you. Good luck with your project!
Thank you!
Quote from: Mark Thomas on Wednesday 04 October 2017, 07:40
The Wikipedia entry on Wayditch says of his idiom: "Though the early operas were post-Romantic in style, the later works are much more modern and are heavily dissonant. " If that's so, it would put all but his earliest pieces outside the scope of this forum, of course.
I am not sure how the Wikipedia author came up with this, given that almost none of his music exists (either as typeset scores or as recordings)! But I would imagine that at least a third of his music is in the Romantic vein, and quite likely considerably more than that, given the massive scope of his opera.
Eretnekek is something like eight hours long, and the
unfinished orchestral score (he apparently died while orchestrating it—the piano reduction is complete) is already 2,850 pages long!
Well, as ever with obscure composers whose lifespans stretch beyond the bounds of UC's stated remit, it's a matter of evidence...
I haven't bothered to read the Wikipedia article's references, but maybe the author took his opinions second hand from them? Of course, the fact that Eretnekek is eight hours long doesn't mean that it's a romantic score, it could just as easily be a particularly interminable modernist one! To my ears there's a distinct shift in the idiom towards modernism between The Caliph's Magician of 1917 and Jesus Before Herod of 1918, which is borderline Romantic at best. One might expect subsequent operas to follow in that direction but, as Alan says, it's all speculation until we can listen to or read the scores.
Yes, both fair points.
Hopefully someone here is enthusiastic enough (and has enough free time to donate) to help with the enormous task of typesetting the manuscript scores! (If you perchance know of any other avenues or outlets where there might be such enthusiasts, please let me know.)
Very interesting!
As Dimitrie Cuclin composed long symphonies, Gabriel von Wayditch composed long operas!
Though stylistically I think Cuclin and Wayditch are very different.
"it's a matter of evidence..."
... well, that should be true of Wikipedia as well. I absolutely do not mean that they should be taking some absurd sort of stance on musical aesthetic issues, but they do have site-wide policies regarding original research, etc. ...
You're quite right, of course, Eric.
I'm listening to The Caliph's Magician - and a rather exhausting listen it is too. I'm afraid this sort of thing falls in my operatic blind-spot; there's so little respite from the restless chromaticism and strenuous vocal writing. As I've said before elsewhere, I much prefer what the Italians were doing in this period.
The thought of multiple hours of this sort of thing in an even more chromatic idiom fills me with absolute horror. I can't see von Wayditch making a come-back any day soon.
Not to mention enduring it sitting in one of those bone breaker seats in an opera house.
I'm a little more favourably disposed towards The Caliph's Magician than Alan is. He's right that there's no respite for the ears (or the singers), but it's a score full of orchestral colour, even if it is applied by the bucket load, and there's as much melody in it as Strauss put in Salome or Elektra, say. I found the companion piece, Wayditch's next opera Jesus before Herod, much heavier going. Despite being less than half the length, it seemed to go on for ever and the self-conscious "modernism" of the score was jarring, especially as it feels as if it's been bolted on later to keep up with the times rather than integral to the music - rather like some Prokofiev scores do. Once again, the ear is assaulted with volume, with only a minute or so's balm of a sweet "Alleluia" before it all crashes on to the end.
Alan's second paragraph has the vital point: if one tires of all this stridency after less than an hour, how on earth can Wayditch's later monster scores hope to endear themselves to audiences?
I think the idiom is actually post-Straussian. I can remember long stretches of both Salome and Elektra - but to my ears there's nothing comparable in The Caliph's Magician.