1907 Swiss Music Festival (Fassbaender, Goetz, Marteau, Berr, Niedermann...)

[Wheesht]

While looking for something else entirely, I came across an article in The Musical Courier about the eighth Swiss Music Festival [Tagung des schweizerischen Tonkünstlervereins], held in Lucerne in June 1907. I found it fascinating because so many composers are mentioned here that I'd never heard of before. Here are a few names (of members of the Swiss composers' association) and  works performed at the festival:

Pierre Maurice (1868-1936) - The Island Fishers, Mood Pieces for orchestra (he has Wikipedia entries in German and shorter ones in French and Catalan)
Peter Fassbaender (1869-1920) - "German Mass" for mixed chorus and orchestra (he also wrote eight symphonies  and he does have a German wikipedia entry).
Hans Kötscher - Concerto for Cello and Orchestra
José Berr (1874-1947) - "Er ist's", chorus for female voices and piano (strangely enough, he has an entry just in the Spanish language wikipedia)
Gustav Niedermann - Two orchestral sketches on Gorki stories
Two somewhat better known composers were also featured:
Hermann Goetz - "Nenie", ode for chorus and orchestra
Henri Marteau - Quintet for Clarinet and Strings (Marteau also appeared as a performer, both on piano and violin)

[Alan Howe]

I see what you mean!

[JimL]

We have a very scratchy download of the C Major Violin Concerto by Henri Marteau in our archives, I think.

[eschiss1]

those wanting to hear some works by Marteau can also hear his 3 string quartets @ IMSLP, courtesy of user matesic, and can hear some other works of his in our archives too (solo violin sonata, some other things, iirc.) I think it may be his cello concerto in B-flat, not his violin concerto in C op.18, that's there, but I'd have to check...

[eschiss1]

Ah, oic. Yep, the violin concerto was in the batch that included the violin solo sonata, the Sonata fantastica op.35, the Pastorale e rondino alla tedesco... (both of which I have written down as op.35- ok, that looks wrong. May need to fix...)  Ah I see again. The IMSLP list, based off of the more or less authoritative Yale list, does give both of those as op.35... His clarinet quintet's been recorded a few times, recently with the quintet by Ewald Straesser, another composer who interests me.

I think I have a work by Paule Maurice on my iPod somewhere.  I've heard of him -somehow- (blast, I'm only 45 senility should be at least a few days off...)  ah- there. "Tableaux de Provence"... ah no, you said Pierre Maurice. Hrm. ... Paule's dates are 1910-67. Ok, that's... interesting. ... probably a coincidence and not an interesting one... unless Pierre had a child named Paule...

Niedermann's dates would appear to be 1881-1957; not much online biography I see. Hans Kötscher (1877-1925), born in Düsseldorf, was a violinist, leader of the Basel Symphony Orchestra (quote from a Schoeck bio: "The concert featured Hans Kötscher, the leader of the Basel Symphony Orchestra, playing Schoeck's pre-Leipzig violin sonata, woo 22, with the composer...")

[Wheesht]

Online biographical information on some of these composers is indeed hard to find if at all available. The first concert apparently lasted nearly four hours. The Concert Fantasie for Violin and Orchestra by Karl Heinrich David (1884-1951) was reviewed favourably by Eduard Trapp in an article about music festivals of 1907 in "Die Musik" (Berlin, 1906/7, No.19) as were the two pieces by Niedermann and the concerto by Kötscher. Two Romances for Violin and Orchestra by Jacques Ehrhardt (1857-1949, music director at Mulhouse in Alsace) and Eugène Berthoud (born in Lausanne in 1877, a pupil of Marteau and later a violin teacher at the Conservatoire in Geneva) were a great success with the audience, but – according to the critic – that was largely due to the fact that they were played by Marteau himself with his usual mastery. The second concert was mostly vocal works, most interesting among which, still according to the review, were Lieder by the brothers Emil Lauber (Neuchâtel) and Joseph Lauber (Geneva), but the two most successful works in the concert were Marteau's Clarinet Quintet, dedicated to the famous clarinettist Richard Mühlfeld, who was to play at Lucerne but died shortly before the concert, (Marteau's best work as a composer so far) – and the Variations for Piano on a Hebrew Theme op. 1 by the 18-year-old Emil Frey. Apparently Frey wrote about 100 works, but most of them were never printed. One part of his musical estate is held at the Zentralbibliothek in Zurich, the other at the Basel University library. The reviewer also highly praises Friedrich Klose's Double Fugue for Organ and calls it a mighty work that must fascinate the listener.

[eschiss1]

Joseph Lauber (1864-1952) one finds a bit about on German Wikipedia and there are 2 works and a collection by (or of folksong but edited by) him @ IMSLP. Emil Frey- name sounds familiar, perhaps his works have been recorded anyway from those collections - actually, I see at least 66 published opus numbers, several of them self published (Selbstverlag), but others published by the Brothers Hug and by Simrock (e.g. 2nd cello sonata, published by Simrock with ©1925), listed in Worldcat(.org), by Frey. Many of them, it's true, seem not to have been picked up elsewhere than in the Swiss libraries... so you're probably right about the most were never printed, but a number seem still to have been printed, and "Selbstverlag" generally, I think?, means printed by an engraver at one's own expense rather than "in manuscript".

Ah, I see why his name sounded familiar. See IMSLP if you will.

(BTW I see that the variations set Op.1 referred to was published by Simrock in 1911, according to Worldcat, though without an opus number.) (But yes, I think I also see, as I thought I did, at least one CD recording of his music listed, too It has: Schulthess' variations op.1; Robert Freund's notturno Op.2; and Frey's 2nd piano sonata op.36 and fourth piano suite (of at least 6, the 6th being op.66) Op.58. Andrew Zolinsky, piano; "Piano Music from Zurich, 1870-1930." 2006 CD on the Guild label.)

[Wheesht]

There was a concert a year or two ago in Zurich where Luisa Splett, a young Swiss pianist (who has been mentioned in this connection here on UC) played Emil Frey, but I was unable to attend.
I have Joseph Lauber's Double Bass concerto (on a CD with Brun's Symphony no.2) - this has also been mentioned here. I would love to see/hear more of the more substantial (also orchestral works) performed, and recorded!, in Switzerland – perhaps I should just go on dreaming... But, in December, Mario Venzago and the Berne Symphony Orchestra are playing Juon's Symphony in A and there will be an entire Juon week in Bern, so I should not be ungrateful I suppose.

You are probably right about the Selbstverlag being more than just a manuscript. The Basel library catalogue lists 203 items.