Gernsheim and Brahms Festival at Bard

[edurban]

I just read that Bard is putting on a little festival devoted to the two above-mentioned friends and colleagues (one program, repeated twice) this month at Bard.  On Friday the 18 and Saturday the 19, TON (The Orchestra Now) will perform Gernsheim's Zu einem Drama, 'Song of Miriam" symphony (no.3) and Brahms piano concerto no.1.  Tickets are mostly free, but must be reserved.  "Miriam" is advertised as the U S premiere.  Botstein conducts.  (I'm assuming there are panels and discussions, but I can't find any details.) Best, David

[scottevan]

>I'm assuming there are panels and discussions, but I can't find any details.

Indeed there is: "The Life and Legacy of Frederich Gernsheim" panel discussion, 11 am (East Coast Time) Sat. Sept. 19th. Panelists include Gernsheim scholar Enrique Lombrozo and festival director Leon Botstein. 

Yes, apart from the orchestral concert Friday, Sept. 18, repeated the following evening, all events are free, with an RSVP requested.   https://ton.bard.edu/gernsheim/

Interesting that Brahms was the subject of very first Bard Music Festival, well over 30 years ago!

[John Boyer]

I just read that Bard is putting on a little festival devoted to the two above-mentioned friends and colleagues (one program, repeated twice) this month at Bard.

Actually, there are three programs, per Scott's earlier post:

Friedrich Gernsheim receives his own mini-festival at Bard College, upstate New York from September 18-20.

September 18, "Zu einem Drama," the 3rd Symphony ("Song of Miriam") and Brahms first Piano Concerto

September 19, the Piano Quartet #3 and Piano Quintet #2  preceded by a panel discussion, "The Life and Legacy of Friedrich Gernsheim"

September 20, the String Quartet #2 and String Quintet #2

There is a charge for the September 18th orchestral concert (repeated the following day) but the chamber music performances are *free*, RSVP required.

https://ton.bard.edu/gernsheim/

[Ilja]

This festival was also discussed in this thread, see Post 40 and onwards.

[scottevan]

The festival is two days away; I'm local so will definitely be there. Hope to see others on this forum there as well!

[John Boyer]

Enjoy!  Bard is about two hours west of me.  In my younger days I would certainly have gone.  I will look forward to your report.

[Ilja]

I saw the livestream yesterday (or rather: last night), but bowed out before the Brahms. It's really good to see Gernsheim's orchestral stuff in the almost-flesh, as it were. The TON YouTube channel will doubtless put the concert (or tomorrow's) online soon.

TON is a strange band; their sound is really solid, but it was difficult to miss that there were some ensemble issues yesterday, and it felt a bit under-rehearsed. Botstein also looked quite frail; the only time I saw him live was twenty years ago, at which time he struck me a conductor who makes the most out of their physical presence; now he looked a bit bogged down, but there are perhaps extra-musical reasons for that.

As you might expect with any amateur orchestra, the overall pace was on the leisurely side; not so much in Zu einem Drama, for which it took exactly the same time as the recent Bäumer recording (which I also think is too slow), but more so in the symphony. Gernsheim is one of those composers whose relatively straightforward-sounding music hides the fact that the scores are fiendishly complicated, and with a lot of interacting moving parts. And of the symphonies, Miriam is possibly the most difficult. To their credit, they pulled it off despite the odd stumble here and there, but my nails never entirely left the palms of my hands. Still, it was great getting to see an orchestra play these pieces.

[terry martyn]

As I said on the other thread about the concert, I stayed up - and awake! - for the two Gernsheim pieces.  The adagio was, in my opinion, taken at the right speed and sounded beautiful. Musing  about the whole experience in the light of day, I thought that the young violinist who introduced the Gernsheim hour could perhaps have actually talked about Grtnsheim, rather than recapitulating Bible stories.  It has even made me wonder, and I'm sorry to have to say this, whether the choice of Gernsheim's Third Symphony (which I like but it's not my favourite) had political undertones.

[John Boyer]

Botstein also looked quite frail

He's 80 years old.

[scottevan]

> I will look forward to your report.

Happy to oblige; I wanted to wait until the 3 day festival was concluded before I chimed in.

Of the four events, I was most impressed by the final program, the String Quartet #2 and String Quintet #2. During the panel, the Gernsheim scholar Enrique Lombrozo said it was his discovery of the string quintets that sparked his interest in the rest of Gernsheim's catalog, and which, incidentally, led to the creation of the festival. However, it was the quartet that made even more of an impression on me. The quality of playing in each piece was exemplary, which I've come to expect from Bard's chamber programs in the sonically perfect Olin auditorium.

The previous day's program, the Piano Quartet #3 and Piano Quintet #2 was very nearly as good, but perhaps because of the placement of the piano (and possibly my seating) I found more a unity and focus with the purely string pieces. Again, the playing was top notch, all by individual members of The Orchestra Now (TON.)

Which brings me to the first event, already mentioned. The Orchestra Now is made up of graduate students from music conservancies around the world. At a glance, it didn't appear that any of them were beyond their mid-twenties; it's certainly the most youthful full-scale orchestra I've seen. I do agree with Ilja, though - it did sound like there were some ensemble issues, particularly with the horns and woodwinds, much in evidence in both the tone poem and the symphony. I admit I found "Zu einem Drama" a bit meandering, making it seem longer than it actually was. I found more to savor in the "Song of Miriam" symphony. While much has been said about Gernsheim's similarity to Brahms, I was struck by some orchestrations and thematic development that brought Dvorak to mind, particularly in the slow movement.

>I saw the livestream yesterday (or rather: last night), but bowed out before the Brahms.

I hope this pillar of the repertoire will eventually be uploaded to TON's YouTube channel; it may be one of the best piano concertos I've ever seen in performance. Pianist Orion Weiss somehow made this warhorse seem fresh, perhaps the standout being the Adagio (slow movements are usually not my favorite; this performance convinced me otherwise.) As an encore, Weiss performed a solo piano piece of Gernsheim's, though I didn't catch the name of it.

Content-wise, much could be said about the panel discussion, but you'll get a good flavor of the conversation from a look at the printed program. Here's a link where you can discover more about Gernsheim than you can imagine:

https://fishercenter.bard.edu/wp-content/uploads/2026/09/gernsheim-program.pdf

The extensive correspondence Gernsheim continued during his career, particularly with his close friend Max Bruch, was a key topic, as was the deliberate erasure of his legacy by the Nazis once they were in power.

Mr. Lambrozo made a good point that, after a few recordings of Gernsheim's music in the late 90's (the 3rd symphony was one of the first out of the gate) there's been a relative explosion of recordings in the last fifteen years or so, evidence of a genuine and growing interest in his work.

Probably the best thing I can report is that this mini-festival is just the opening salvo of a multi-year initiative to bring more performances of Gernsheim's music to a live audience. During the music festival proper in August, I had a moment to thank Maestro Botstein in person for his efforts on the festival throughout the years. The first composer honored was Brahms; in a way, honoring his friend Gernsheim brings that full circle.

[John Boyer]

Thank you for that detailed report! Truth be told, on Saturday morning I was tempted to hop into the car and catch the afternoon chamber concert, even though I would have not arrived in time for the panel discussion.  I recall attending a symposium at Smith on the bicentenary of Berlioz that was informative and enlightening (except for the addresses delivered in French 🤔).

Anyway, I'm glad the performances went off well and that you had a nice experience. I enjoy Gerstein's string quartets and quintets...the piano quartets, too.  I will probably begin cycling through them tomorrow morning as my next listening project, as I have forgotten which were my favorites.

[terry martyn]

Well now, so it's the start of a multi-year Gernsheim project at the Bard,as the printed programme shows.

[Ilja]

Thank you for this extensive report. And I'm gratified that the A minor Quartet made a similar impression it did on you as it did on me - which I why I included it as one of my top-three chamber pieces in our topic "Unsung chamber music: which pieces should get heard more often?" (see reply #2).

Your impression of this Zu einem Drama reflects mine, and also holds true for the recent Bäumer recording. The older one (released on Sterling) with the SWR Rundfunk-Orchester Kaiserslautern under Klaus Arp is much better, more dramatic (an obvious plus) and much more spritely. I guess one can say this about all of Bäumer's Gernsheim recordings: they're good, but never the best (with the the exception of the piano concerto, where his is the only one available). It sounds like he tends to over-emphasize the lyrical, Brahmsian association at the expense of Gernsheim's own, crisper style (for want of a better word).

The extensive correspondence Gernsheim continued during his career, particularly with his close friend Max Bruch, was a key topic, as was the deliberate erasure of his legacy by the Nazis once they were in power.

This aspect keeps being under-appreciated in the discussion of how canon is established: once something is away, it's very difficult to get back. Many think that the Nazis stopped playing some music and after 1945 everyone continued as before, but the only composer that truly survived was Mendelssohn. Even the perception of Bruch as a Jewish composer (thanks to Kol Nidrei) did great damage to his legacy, from which it never truly recovered.

[scottevan]

>I'm gratified that the A minor Quartet made a similar impression it did on you as it did on me - which I why I included it as one of my top-three chamber piece in our "Unsung chamber music: which pieces should get heard more often?

Yes, "each single note seems to be exactly where it needs to be" is very much how I felt while listening to it. A friend, who'd admitted she didn't warm to either of the Gernsheim orchestral pieces in the opening concert, felt that the composer "completely redeemed himself" in her opinion once she heard the string quartet.

To each their own, of course (I found much to like in the orchestral works) but a point can be made that there's a compactness to Gernsheim's chamber pieces that I don't hear as much in his other works. While my mind tended to wander in the concert hall, I was (almost) on the edge of my seat while listening to the string quartet. Agreed, it's a work that absolutely deserves to be in the chamber repertoire.