Messages

[Joseph Drechsler]

Joseph Drechsler (1782-1852) was one of 51 composers who (by invitation) contributed to the Vaterländischer Künstlerverein, an anthology of 83 variations on a waltz by Anton Diabelli. Of these variations, the most famous ones are Beethoven's 33 Diabelli Variations. Some other famous composers who had their variations included in the publication were Czerny, Hummel, Schubert, and even a 12-year old Franz Liszt.

But back to Drechsler. He was born in what is now the Czech Republic and today he is apparently best known for the song Brüderlein fein, which was part of a theatre piece called Das Mädchen aus der Feenwelt oder Der Bauer als Millionär. A full recording of this work is available, but I have not found it yet. The interesting thing about this work is that the playwright Ferdinand Raimund (who wrote the play) claims in his autobiography that he composed the melody for Brüderlein fein and other songs himself, according to the German Wikipedia. Furthermore, it's mentioned that Drechsler took these melodies by Raimund as a starting point for his own compositions for the piece.

The amount of recordings of Drechsler's works is very limited. Besides Der Bauer als Millionär, multiple recordings of Brüderlein fein and his Diabelli variation, there is a quartet for three flutes and alto flute. But here it pretty much ends, as far as I'm aware now.

Also of interest is the fact that Johann Strauss II was one of Drechsler's pupils.

Here's the full Wikipedia page in German. There's also an English one, but the German page is much more informative:
https://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/Joseph_Drechsler

Meanwhile this recording has been issued by the Bru Zane label on the 11th of November, as the 34th installment of their "Opera français" series.

Yes, I understand. I should've checked, apologies for that.

I gave the album a listen on Spotify today. The works featured are clearly some of his earliest works, so they are more conservative than Der Vampyr and Hans Heiling for which he is best known.

My favourite here is the ballet from "Schön Ella", which is incidental music. I found the waltz-like music to be very enjoyable to say the least. It's also a nice surprise to hear the overture to "Der Holzdieb" in much better sound quality, since the recording of the opera itself is quite old (from the 1960s if I remember correctly).

Anyhow, since this is volume 1, I'm very curious about what could be included on a volume 2. Perhaps some works of his later period?

On the 2nd of December, Naxos released what is apparently the first volume in a series "Overtures & Stage Music" by Heinrich Marschner (1795-1861).

More details can be found here:
https://www.naxos.com/CatalogueDetail/?id=8.574449

Starting on the 25th of September, there will be four concerts by the Veenkoloniaal Symfonie Orkest, an orchestra from the northern part of the Netherlands. The four concerts will consist of highlights from their repertoire, and special among these: the first performance of the first movement of Cornelis Dopper's 5th symphony (Sinfonia Epica). Three of these concerts will be given in the Netherlands (Emmen, Hoogeveen, Winschoten) and one in Germany (Haren (Ems)).

I wonder what the amusing anecdote about Nägeli relates to, because unfortunately I don't have Schnyder's autobiography.

I have not been able to find that much recordings of Nägeli's music, but there are a few on Spotify.
Those are mostly short songs, such as "Haingesang" and "Auf dem Zuricher See".

I'm intrigued by Tränentrost, a choral song apparently based on Beethoven's Op. 30 No. 2 (which is the 7th Violin Sonata). I'm going to give it a listen and try to compare the pieces to find the similarities, because I'm curious now. There's also a piano piece "Toccata no. 1", recorded by Jean Dube. But my favourite piece by Nägeli at the moment is "Der Mensch lebt und bestehet", a motet for male choir.

Furthermore, in my country (the Netherlands) the melody of "Freut Euch des Lebens" is used for the Sinterklaas song "O, kom er eens kijken, wat ik in mijn schoentje vind." It's a festive song about Sinterklaas leaving presents in childrens' shoes during the night.
So I've known the melody all my life, but only a few years back I found out it was actually of Swiss origin.

I don't know if you still have the Nägeli LP files, but I would be very interested in those.

Yes, I just noticed the new recording on Spotify. Looks like it was released two days ago.

I've never heard of this composer, so I started digging a little on Spotify.
There is a recording available of his operetta "La Laitiere de Trianon", but it's an arrangement for piano and singers.
IMSLP lists it as a piece for vocal soloists & orchestra though, so maybe it's a different arrangement that got released.
Arkivmusic describes the piece as an "opérette de salon".

I noticed that just two days ago, an album was released containing several Lieder by Marschner, on the Centaur label.
It think they're all world premiere recordings, I haven't cross-referenced everything yet.

A little while ago I found this live performance on YouTube of Nowowiejski's oratorio "The Discovery of the Holy Cross", and I absolutely love this piece.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=g-szNgI05ZA

Nowowiejski is definitely one of my favourite unsung composers.
I find it difficult to compare Nowowiejski's music to other composers, but for a Polish composer his music sounds quite German!
There's definitely a lot of Wagnerian influence here, Brucknerian (or perhaps Mahlerian?) orchestration, and some fragments here and there remind me of Richard Strauss too. I especially love the finale of this piece, because that's where you can hear Nowowiejski at his best. He pulls out all the stops with a grand finale!

I was checking Wikipedia's list of organ concertos, and a composer by the name of "Skitner" is listed there as having written one before 1802.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Organ_concerto#Skitner

Now, I have no idea who this mystery composer is. I've tried searching his name, but it constantly links back to the same pages. We only know he was a "Central-European" composer. Maybe someone on this forum knows more about this one? If it turns out this composer is not within our remit the thread could be closed again.

I've just listened to Samuel's 6th symphony as well. It sounds Wagnerian indeed, take for example the part around the 1:45 mark in the first movement.
I've also done some "sleuthing" and found this:

https://www.svm.be/content/samuel-adolphe

It's a biography of Adolphe Samuel, but it's in Dutch.
It also gives an insightful description of Samuel's 7th symphony, which is composed in five movements and would last around 90 minutes.
A performance in Cologne was conducted by Franz Wüllner, and one of the people present was Eugène Ysaÿe.
He would conduct it two months later in Brussels.
I haven't found a recording yet, does anyone know of one?

As a Novák fan, I'm looking forward to this!