German Verismo opera competition 1893

[eschiss1]

G.D.: when you say you've tried to Google them, is this a shorthand for "Google + VIAF + Musicsack-Archive (this site)", for starters? (+ Wikidata, but VIAF usually includes a link to that?)

[tpaloj]

I find that using google books search and limiting searches to 1800-1899 (1900 and newer are usually restricted from access) usually comes up with interesting results from old newspapers and journals where occasionally even minor composers are mentioned.

Deutsche Zeitungsportal is also a useful resource for regional newspapers: https://www.deutsche-digitale-bibliothek.de/newspaper

[eschiss1]

Fair enough, and don't ignore the Nekrolog of various journals (small obituaries) - I wouldn't trust too much Google Books scans if you have the misfortune as I do of living in the US, they seem to have the most capricious reasons for making books published well over a century ago only accessible in snippets, but some of these same books can be accessed at other sites, like MDZ, in more fully digitized forms.

[G.D.]

I admit that my efforts have been pretty superficial and variable, and no, I haven't even consistently checked with VIAF, or overlooked it if there is no immediately available information. I don't have immediate access to many of the databases (and little experience using them); I am just hoping to identify the obvious ones and identify which ones will require further work.

I might mention that one source that keeps popping up on MusicSack is Frank, Paul & Altmann, Wilhelm Kurzgefasstes Tonkunstler Lexikon: fur Musiker und Freunde der Musik (and often as the only source for an entry). Unfortunately, I don't have access to a complete version of that: Internet Archive provides only parts, and the wrong parts. Moreover, that someone appears in Frank & Altmann might not mean that they are a real person: As far as I understand how it worked (it's just a catalogue of composers with birth place and institutional affiliation if available), the authors would scour various sources, and If anyone submitted an opera under the pseudonym "Harry Smith" to the Coburg competition, then Altmann might dutifully record an entry for "Smith, Harry", and the name would then get a listing on MusicSack; it doesn't necessarily mean that "Harry Smith" refers to anyone.

One example of a mystery I could have easily solved with more effort is no. 23, Leopold Bauer: Indeed, just a casual check with ccm would have given me an entry for one Leopold Bauer (1873-1925), who studied music with Josef Labor and later made a career as a schulrektor in Vienna, and who at least wrote a number of male choruses. I suppose that one is a decent fit – an ambitious young composer who eventually settled into a different career path.

As for entries I have thus far deemed mysterious, I think eschiss1's suggestion for Franz Rosenkranz sounds plausible: Friedrich Christian Rosenkranz (1818-1903) was a (by then retired) military bandmaster, trombone teacher and conductor of the Bad Nauheim civil orchestra. Though he was on the older side in 1893, he was certainly a comprehensively trained musician, and one can imagine an ageing bandmaster and spa orchestra composer who'd long nurtured aspirations to produce something more serious than marches, quadrilles and arrangements, who'd accordingly been working on a grand opera for years, who saw the competition advertised, and who sent off his score, not caring too much about the "verismo" part of the assignment – maybe just in the hopes of getting someone to take a look at his life's work. As for "Franz"/"Friedrich": I mean, if he just signed off with "Fr. Rosenkranz", then mere clerical sloppiness might have turned it into "Franz". (There are other examples of clerical sloppiness in the list, cf. entry 106.)

[G.D.]

As for Robert Horst, yes, you are right, eschiss1: VIAF has a listing for Robert Eduard Wilhelm Horst (1858-1931). So he was definitely a real person, but one who might have left preciously few records of his life (I am, however, unable to access the necessary archives; there might be more there); there is nothing on RISM, for instance.

But I can't quite let go of my "Nils-Irmelin" hypothesis quite yet, though; in fact, viewed with some bias, one might easily end up thinking "the plot thickens" at this point: After all, the only thing I can conclude with some certainty about Robert Horst's career, based on the meagre sources I can see, is that he was definitely enrolled as a student at the Leipzig Conservatory. Of course, so was Delius, and they were probably there at around the same time.

Ok, it might look like an elaborate conspiracy-theory-like thing now, and I apologize for that, but I'll try to justify my speculations. As my point of departure: I can't shake the feeling that with Irmelin just completed and given his well-documented desire to make an impact on the German operatic scene, it actually seems surprising that Delius didn't submit the score (or a truncated version of it) to Coburg.

But how would he have gone about actually doing that? Submitting the opera under his own name or even revealing his own name to the judges would be out of the question. It would have immediately doomed his submission: though the competition wasn't officially restricted to people from Germany or Austria (as long as the libretto was in German), there is quite obviously an element of nationalism at work here that Delius would have been very much sensitive to: how would the judges look, in this effort to initiate a German verismo tradition, if an Englishman ran off with the prize?

Above I suggested that the solution might have been to use a pseudonym. But that is, in fact, implausible: One thing is using a pseudonym for official lists; another thing is to hide one's identity from the judges, which Delius would have needed to do, and which would have been hard given the need for correspondence and (presumably) verification of credentials. It seems that the only option available, if Delius wished to participate in Coburg, would have been to borrow the identity of a real (and willing) German conservatory-trained musician, someone he was acquainted with from Leipzig and who would go along with the scheme, and who might not have had any great aspirations as a composer himself (but had the right credentials). Robert Horst might have fit the bill.

I admit that this is very speculative, but the title of the opera (and the Leipzig connection) makes it difficult for me to let it go. A scheme like this doesn't seem out of character for Delius either.

Well, looking at the score itself would immediately settle the issue.

[eschiss1]

Well, as Nielsen song fans will also say, sometimes the prospect of a Irmelin conspiracy seems practically rosy.

[eschiss1]

Looks like the second new recording of works of his to be released in three years (the other, in 2023, a new recording of his symphony in D minor with two other works). Neat!