German Music Folder

[JimL]

Killmayer

My heavens We are going deep into Modernism now

Prepare to be assimilated.... resistance is futile.  Bwah-hah-hah-hah!

Somehow, I don't think the Borg were into that whole "Bwa-hah-hah-hah" thing.

[Dundonnell]

Killmayer

My heavens We are going deep into Modernism now

Prepare to be assimilated.... resistance is futile.  Bwah-hah-hah-hah!

Well...I have downloaded and listened to the Killmayer

I shall refrain from further comment

[Lionel Harrsion]

Many thanks to britishcomposer for the Wolf-Ferrari sextet, which I had not come across before; it predates his official op 1 (the G minor violin sonata) and seems to me a pretty assured piece of writing for an eighteen year-old.  People who get exercised about that sort of thing might raise an eye-brow about him being slotted into the 'German downloads' section, though, considering he was born in Venice of an Italian mother.  His nationality does defy easy categorisation, I admit; but it can't be denied that his music is much more Italianate than Teutonic, can it?

[JimL]

Took the words right out of my mouth.  Wolf-Ferrari is a composer I always thought of as Italian.  Is that not the language The Secret of Susannah is in?

[britishcomposer]

German wikipedia calls him a 'deutsch-italienischer Komponist', though the English and Italian - and others - give his nationality as 'Italian'.
It was a 'gut reaction' to place him in the German folder but I see no problem in changing that if you like.

[Lionel Harrsion]

German wikipedia calls him a 'deutsch-italienischer Komponist', though the English and Italian - and others - give his nationality as 'Italian'.
It was a 'gut reaction' to place him in the German folder but I see no problem in changing that if you like.

If you'd put him in the 'Italian' section somebody would have observed that his father was German and that he seemed to achieve far more success with productions of his operas in Germany!  Given that, as I said, his nationality defies categorisation I shouldn't go the bother of moving it (although I'm not the moderator (for which I thank the Lord) so it ain't up to me).   

[eschiss1]

anyone for an "internationalist" or similar category?

[jowcol]

anyone for an "internationalist" or similar category?

Or, as Duke Ellington would have put it-- "Beyond category?"

[Alan Howe]

No, please....

[jowcol]

No, please....

Just Kidding.   if we got too detailed about categories, there would be one for each composer-- or each period for each composer...

[jowcol]

I have posted the Sinfonietta for String Orchestra in G-major and the Variations for String Orchestra by Wilhelm Petersen in the downloads section.




Wikipedia:

Wilhelm Petersen (15 March 1890 - 1957) was a German composer and conductor.

He was born in Athens and spent his childhood in Darmstadt. From 1908 to 1913 he studied in Munich with Friedrich Klose, Felix Mottl and Rudolf Louis. In addition to music he wrote lyric and dramatic poetry and was on the fringes of the circle around Stefan George. Petersen was an apprentice conductor in Lübeck under Wilhelm Furtwängler in 1913-14; at the end of the First World War he was active as a writer in the Expressionist movement in Munich but from 1919 devoted himself entirely to music. His early music is described as radically Expressionistic, but in the 1920s he progressively clarified his style, arriving at a monumental tonal style typified by his Grosse Messe, op. 27 of 1928-9, premiered in 1930 in Dartmstadt under Karl Böhm. From 1927 he was a lecturer in the Music Academy at Darmstadt, and in 1934 became professor of music in Mannheim. He died in Darmstadt.
Petersen's works include five symphonies, concertos, works for string orchestra, choral and chamber music, and the opera Der goldene Topf, premiered in Mannheim in 1941.

Random Snippet:
Bruno Walter writes of Wilhelm Petersen's works (in a letter dated February 11, 1958),
"... genuine musical invention, mastery of construction and a wealth of deepest feelings... I am convinced that the originality and substance of Wilhelm Petersen's musical language will finally secure a place in the public for his masterful works."


Bio Sketch by Wolfgang Mechsner, translation by Carol Saint-Clair
Wilhelm Petersen is one of the composers of the 20th century who followed their own path, alongside of – but not part of – the avantgarde. While it is true that he accompanied the revolutionary awakening of Expessionism with an appreciation of the necessity of developing new forms of expression, in 1925, after a short experimental phase at the edges of tonality, he found his way to a tonally-centered and formally clear musical language. The possibilities for further development of traditional music interested him, his own ethical imperative being oriented towards the large symphonic tradition of the 19th century. There it was less important for him to revive romantic subjectivity than it was to concentrate on the essence of what he called "primordial musical qualities".

His first three works with opus numbers belong to the tradition defined by Brückner, but between 1919-1924 he was preoccupied with contemporary music. Later Petersen left only a few of the works of this period in their original form (2nd Symphony, op. 4, the String Quartet, op. 8, and a piece for Violin and Piano, op. 11.), while others of the same time were redone, or removed from his lists of works. These are strongly dissonant pieces that have a thick, polyphonic character, yet never leave the realm of tonal music. The works that were composed after the "redirection of his creativity" (as Petersen called it) around 1925, show his striving to "let personal expression take a back seat to objective creation." A reestablished relationship to the individual extended harmonies was decisive: "Tonality as a power in the creation of the form took on more meaning for me, chromaticism and highly developed linearity were simplified for the benefit of a clearer sound-form."

After successful premieres of his first two symphonies at the beginning of the 1920´s Petersen became well known in Germany. His compositional abilities and the ring of truth in his personal statement were never doubted, however, he was considered to be "outside" the historically significant currents in composition. The few high points in his career in the public eye were the premieres of the Großen Messe, op. 27 under the baton of Karl Böhm (1930) and the opera Der Goldne Topf, (1941) After 1945 Petersen was almost totally forgotten.
Wolfgang Mechsner, translation by Carol Saint-Clair

[britishcomposer]

I am currently uploading Wilhelm Berger's 3rd Violin Sonata op. 70.
However, I cannot give you the performers, so there is some doubt if this recording has ever been released commercially.
I recorded from radio in the mid 90s. If you know of any commercial recording, please warn me! 

[Alan Howe]

Thank you so much for the Berger Violin Sonata No.3 - what a marvellous work from one of the truly outstanding unsung composers of his period.
BTW I know of no commercial release...

[Mark Thomas]

Yes, thanks so much for the Berger. I'll really look forward to downloading it when I get back home.

[Lionel Harrsion]

I agree with Alan -- I find Berger's Violin Sonata to be both masterly and beautiful.  It truly is astonishing that this composer is SO unsung.