Ludwig Thuille

[wunderkind]

David:  I have the ASV disc of two Piano Quintets.  Also own a CD of Thuille's Sextet and Trio. They both are quite fine - much better than the orchestral music which, as noted above, generally is boring.  Thuille's talent appears to have been in the chamber music department.

[Mark Thomas]

He also wrote at least a couple of operas, the second of which, Lobetanz, I have as a recording of a radio broadcast. It was very popular for a few years and it's easy to see why. It's very, um, pleasant.

[edurban]

Thanks wunderkind, I think I'll check out the quintets.

Mark, I can imagine some of the qualities of Thuille's operas, as the Romantic Overture was originally the curtain raiser to the opera Teuerdank, which Thuille ultimately supressed.  Delightful stuff.

Thanks to everyone, David

[Pyramus]

I've just come across Ludwig Thuille (and thanks for the pronunciation tips - I shall say "twillah"). I'd never come across his name until a week ago, when our chamber music group suggested we look at his sextet for piano and wind later in the year, in which case I will be getting the piano part.

I've just listened to it on YouTube and it's quite an attractive piece worthy of performance. We will only have time to look at one movement and, as I'm the one with the most notes to play, I usually get to choose! I'll report back on how we get on.

He's variously described as German and Austrian. As he was from South Tyrol, surely Austrian is correct. Since 1918 it's been part of Italy - the home of tennis star Jannik Sinner who's Italian but with a German-sounding name.

[Ilja]

To assign modern nationalities to pre-1918 people is inherently risky. In the case of Thuille, he worked mostly in Munich, and while he's Austrian it'd be most accurate to describe him as "Southern German", part of the same circle as people like Richard Strauss. Certainly not Viennese, Italian or Berlin.

For me, the tragedy of Thuille is that he's not all that good in the "prestigious" genres. The Symphony and Piano Concerto are nothing to write home about; quite conventional and bereft of much originality. The chamber music is a lot better, and he proved his orchestral skills through his Romantische Ouverture of 1897.

[Theodore S.]

I heartily disagree - I find Thuille's Piano Concerto in D major to be an excellent piece of music; it's how I got to first know and admire his music. The writing is very clean and the themes are very attractive, reminiscent of Saint-Saëns' Piano Concerto no. 1 in the same key. (And if anyone knows where one can access the score or manuscript, I would be very grateful.)

[Ilja]

Yesterday, I gave both the concerto and the symphony another spin, because my unfavorable opinion was based on only a few listens several years ago and I felt I'd been too quick in reproducing it without doing the proper homework.

Having heard both pieces again, I do feel forced to revise my view. Particularly the Piano Concerto is a much finer piece than I remembered it to be, and I genuinely enjoyed listening to it again. I still feel that there are a few weak spots; particularly the first movement has its static moments, but these are really minor squibbles. Unfortunately, the pianism of the usually reliable Oliver Triendl is a bit leaden here and there, most notably in (again) the first movement. A slightly lighter touch might've elevated the piece even further.

The symphony is a different matter. Although my impression was still more positive than the first time around, it's also nothing special, and overall I'd qualify it as perfectly average for a symphony of its era. It contains some good themes, but also suffers from a certain emotional uniformity, which is exacertabated by Thuille's less than inventive instrumentation. Contrast this to the far greater dynamic variation and instrumental colour in the Romantische Ouvertüre of 1897. What doesn't work in the symphony's favor in this particular performance (Bolzano-Trento Haydn Orchestra with Alun Francis on cpo) is that the chosen tempi are sometimes on the overly slow side. This affects both the first and (particularly) the Menuetto third movement; as an experiment I sped the latter up to 80% of its original running time, which did wonders in injecting it with a bit of dance-like "bounce".

The score of the piano concerto is apparently kept in the Bayerische Staatsbibliothek. Should you not be able to go there, my experience is that the scanning fees of the BSB are quite reasonable. Should they prove not to be in this case, give me a DM and I'd be happy to photograph it for you when I visit in January.

[eschiss1]

Worldcat suggests they have three autographs by him, one maybe the original corrected by another hand (134 pp) one a fair copy of the other (148 pp) (BSB Mus. ms. 16525 and 16524 resp.) plus also 16523 which is a autograph manuscript reduction (96 pp...) all from 1881.