Posted elsewhere by a.b. and transferred here:
Alan Howe
By the way: A new 3-CD-Box of Piano Works by Johann Rufinatscha is out now:
http://www.tiroler-landesmuseum.at/shop.php/de/cds_alle_/musikmuseum_13 (http://www.tiroler-landesmuseum.at/shop.php/de/cds_alle_/musikmuseum_13)
Marlies Nussbaumer was playing a Steinway D-Piano:
CD 1: Fantaisie du printem[p]s (Ms. 1854), Andante (Ms. 1892), Rondo capriccioso, op. 6 Allegro agitato, 6 Charakterstücke op. 14, Fantasie op. 15, 3 Märsche op. 4
CD 2: Sonate op. 18 d-Moll, Sonate op. 7 C-Dur
CD 3: Sonate op. 3 f-Moll, Sonate op. 9 F-Dur
Yours truly translated the sleevenote. It's a most exciting project.
Heavens! That "by the way" employed by a.b. is, I think, one of the most staggering understatements I've encountered for some time!
Is this 3-CD set newly issued, or am I a real dumbo in not previously being aware of it?
Would that rather modest author of the "sleevenote" be kind enough to tell us more? (And I'd guess "sleevenote" is yet another understatement!)
It's an entirely new set of recordings, Peter, so you hadn't missed anything! Unfortunately I can't tell you much about the set as I haven't heard it (yet), but I hope to be able to remedy that soon...
This set is an absolute must-buy, surely? As our resident Rufinatscha expert, Alan, do we know how much of his catalogue remains unrecorded? I appreciate that there are likely to be works, possibly major ones, which remain unknown and therefore uncatalogued; shades of Donald Rumsfeld's "unknown unknowns etc.
In a word: dunno! And I suspect nobody really knows...
Are these all solo sonatas? Because there are only 2 on his works list in Wikipedia! ???
Everything is for piano solo. You can't believe all you read on Wikipedia...
Seriously, though, this is a composer whose works are still being uncovered, so who knows what's still out there?
Anyway, here's the current chronology relating to Rufinatscha's solo piano music:
Sonata in F minor, Op. 3 Vienna: A.O. Witzendorf HMb November 1847
3 Marches, Op. 4 Vienna: Pietro Mechetti HMb March & April 1849
Grand Caprice, Op. 5 Vienna: A.O. Witzendorf HMb April 1851
Rondo capriccioso, Op. 6 Vienna: Spina HMb August 1852
Sonata (No. 2) in C major, Op. 7
Vienna: Pietro Mechetti sel. Witwe HMb Mai 1855
Sonata in F minor, Op. 9 Vienna: A. O. Witzendorf HMb November 1857
6 Charakterstücke, Op. 14 Vienna: J. P. Gotthard HMb April 1871
Fantasie in B major, Op. 15 Vienna: J. P. Gotthard HMb August 1871
Sonate in D minor, Op. 18 Vienna: Carl Haslinger HMb Juni 1880
(HMb = Hofmeister Monthly Review)
Op.9 is listed in HMB as being by "Jos." Rufinatscha, so I omitted it from the list on Wikipedia, as I recall. Is there evidence (not supposition or "gotta be", please?- we especially know how many 19th century composers there were...) that the work is actually by Johann Rufinatscha?
(Just as "Radecke, R." can be Robert Radecke- or his brother, Rudolf. Yes, I know too on the flipside how full and overfull of typos HMB and other magazines - and the sources they depend on, like the coverpages of the scores - are :) What evidence can mean in this context - is too general for this thread...
I'm quiet now.)
I see the problem, Eric.
This is the relevant section of the sleevenote to the new set of CDs:
Then there was Carl Georg Lick[e]l (b.Vienna 1801 – d. ibid. 1877) who came from a musical family and to whom Rufinatscha dedicated his Sonata Op.9; Licke[e]l became extremely well known as a virtuoso on the physharmonica (a type of harmonium very popular in the 19th century), musical arranger and as the author of a teaching manual for his main intrument. The slow movement of the Sonata Op.9 and that of the Piano Quartet in A flat major are clearly related to each other – proof of the extent to which Rufinatscha's piano writing was influenced by string-playing. The famous Hellmesberger Quartet in particular, who performed several works by him, also had a lasting influence upon him.
I know of Lickl, actually, composer and son? (apparently so!) of another composer (Johann Georg Lickl) (his father's 3 string quartets got a -very- good notice in Fanfare, I think...) etc. etc. ... have seen a Physharmonika-Schule (Op50, Diabelli? ca.1834, appendix published later) of Lickl's @IMSLP, if I am not much mistaken. How very interesting historically too.
(I love this stuff for the history/trivia too :( . ... apologies though.) Thanks!!
I don't know whether or not this may help, but the one work that I have in my collection by Rufinatscha IS the Sonate Op9, in the first edition published by A.O.Witzendorf. It quite clearly states on the title "Sonate fur das Pianoforte von Johann Rufinatscha Opus 9"!
Helps a lot, thanks. HMB goofed :)
Thanks to both Eric and Martin for your contributions here.
Well, my copy of the set has now arrived and I'm delighted to report that the music isn't played on a clattery historic instrument, but on a modern Steinway.
As for the music itself, I think it's fair to say that the way Rufinatscha develops his ideas is more interesting than the ideas themselves - which is not to say that they lack distinction (although he's not first and foremost a tunesmith here). In other words, it's the journey towards the destination rather than the stunning scenery at the outset that really captures one's attention. It's often quite serious music, this - putting one in mind somewhat of Brahms (although Rufinatscha is obviously from an earlier generation) - but I expect, as with much of his music, that these are compositions to live with, absorb and return to.
BTW there are nearly three and a half hours worth of music in this set. Much to listen to and come to terms with...
Quote from: Alan Howe on Thursday 06 September 2012, 19:02
I think it's fair to say that the way Rufinatscha develops his ideas is more interesting than the ideas themselves
I agree there's nowt wrong in that. It would put him in exalted company: one could say the same thing about Beethoven as often as not.
...and if I'm going to hazard a guess at this early stage, the truly great work in this set is the Piano Sonata in D minor, Op.18. More when I can articulate what I think rather better than I can at present.
I'm really looking forward to getting my copy of the set. Great news.
My copy arrived yesterday, but so far I've listened only to a few pieces of the first disc. I'm immediately captivated by the opening of the Fantasie du printem[p]s. No doubt this will be a most wonderful collection of piano music. I'm sure I will be excited about the four piano sonatas and will give my opinion in due course. The booklet is loose included and thus can fall out easily. I see that Alan has translated the German text into English...
I've listened so far to the first disc and the last of the four piano sonatas - the op.18 in D minor - which opens CD 2. The five independent pieces and sets of six character pieces and of three marches which fill the first CD struck me at first hearing as lacking the individuality which one associates with Rufinatscha. They are unfailingly melodious and often quite introspective in a way which reminded me of Schubert, but on the whole the influence of Schumann and Brahms (they span Rufinatscha's whole career) is surprisingly clear. I don't intend to be critical, because this is lovely music, beautifully crafted, but from many of the orchestral works which we now know one is used to more surprises and independence of thought. The D minor Piano Sonata is another matter. This is no conventional heaven-storming virtuoso piece. I'd characterise it is a rhapsodic, serious work with no empty pianistic pyrotechnics, although plenty of challenges both technical and interpretive. In terms of mood, the four movements are all ruminative to varying degrees, all moderately paced. I assume that's what Rufinatscha intended, rather than the excellent Marlies Nussbaumer's interpretation. Overall, the fourth of Rufinatscha's sonatas has impressed me as a sober and honest work, lacking any artificiality. It'll take some time to know properly and I'm looking forward to that. Added to which there are the three earlier sonatas which I haven't even sampled yet.
Over the past days I've listened to the 3 CD's more than a few times. In general I think that all four piano sonatas are interesting works with a substantial body and featuring delicate and emotional, not rarely sombre moments. But what strikes me is that I hear almost constantly Schubert on the background, albeit less powerful, virtuosic and inventive. Are these works written by the same Rufinatscha of the grandiose, majestic symphonies 5 & 6? Maybe I'm unfair.
No, I think you're being very fair, Peter. I hear a lot of Schubert too - and I also think that Rufinatscha is at his best in his symphonies, not in these sonatas, fine though they are.
Rufinatscha seems to be a composer who needs space to be express himself fully and the shorter span of these piano works doesn't give him that. I wonder what constrained him from writing for the piano on a grander scale? Presumably the conventions of the day? That said, the sonatas in particular aren't insignificant music and the fact that they don't scale the heights of the later symphonies doesn't detract from his achievement in my view.
What were the conventions of the day, though? Both Brahms and Liszt (for instance) produced some fairly large sonatas between 1860 and 1880... as did others on both sides of the "War of the Romantics", I think... (then again, I don't know when these works were composed, just published.)
I take your point Eric. What I was thinking that the ready publishing market for piano music from a relative unknown centred on the salon and that a 45-50 minute long four movement sonata from the likes of Rufinatscha would probably have stayed in manuscript.
Eric hits upon an important issue with Rufinatscha, i.e. knowing exactly when his music was composed. Thus, for example, we know from the sleevenotes accompanying this 3-CD set that the Op.3 Piano Sonata, published in 1847, was actually composed in 1835.
Even so, I find the piano sonatas to be almost 'private' music; all four carry dedications to particular individuals - Simon Sechter, Adolf Lorenz, Carl Georg Lick[e]l and Julius Epstein - but, far from being showpieces designed to show off the talents of their dedicatees, they are deeply serious and conservative in style.
We shouldn't forget, I think, that Rufinatscha's symphonies, while thoroughly individual, are also predominantly serious and conservative in style. Musically, Rufinatscha was more conservative than, say, Schumann - which explains the latter's description of the Op.3 Sonata as "quite absurd" (in German: "ganz albern" - which could also be translated as "quite inept/fatuous"). Remember Schumann was equally dismissive of the efforts of other more conservative composers, e.g. Moscheles and (Franz) Lachner.
Nowadays we tend to think of Schumann, perhaps, as being on the conservative side in the "Music Wars" of the mid-nineteenth century. And indeed, when compared to progressives such as Berlioz, Liszt, and Wagner, he was. What we forget in the process are the composers further to the musical right (as it were) and their attempts to preserve and extend the gains of the past, but in a respectful and conservative manner. That this was thought possible explains the compositional projects of composers such as Czerny, Lachner and Rufinatscha. For what it's worth, my take on what happened is that, ambitious though Lachner's and Czerny's attempts were to do this, both ultimately failed because they lacked the genius required. In Rufinatscha, however, we have precisely the sort of composer that we might previously have thought not to have existed at all - a composer to the right of those who came to be perceived as conservatives themselves, but who may yet have been a genius...
Interesting (though even Czerny's sonatas and other piano works were sometimes very ambitious- and while Spohr in his chamber works may have, I gather, wanted to go no further than Beethoven's early or middle quartets - probably early?... - Czerny might have been inspired a bit in his late sonatas by the Hammerklavier, for all I know- I need to look into that... And Ries also, quite possibly- I wonder; certainly he was, or claimed to be, there "at the creation" of that work, as the slow movement was modified - its first bar added- during publication).
Still, point taken :) )
An eye-opening and perceptive analysis, Alan, if I may say so. Thanks. I heard Schumann and Brahms in the piano music, and I still do, but maybe it's the same phenomenon we experience when we listen to Dietrich's Symphony and hear Brahms. In that case, what we hear is their parallel development of the heritage of Schumann. So, I guess that when I hear Schumann and Brahms in Rufinatscha I'm hearing all three's take on.... who? Schubert maybe, but can that be true of the Germans?
I just think that what Rufinatscha takes from the past is much less of a 'stretch', while somehow remaining individual - although this shows more in the orchestral music than in his piano works. What it shows is that it isn't just obvious innovators who can be geniuses.
No argument there! "Originality" is overrated...
Many thanks to the Rufinatscha fan community for their valuable comments! It is a pleasure to read that our recordings are discussed intensively. Greetings from Innsbruck!
He's even got a fan page on FB, MusFerd!
I have now started to listen to these works, starting with the sonata Op.3. If that is anything to go by, I am in for a treat indeed.
Cannot help wondering if Rufinatscha had heard or played the Beethoven Op.57, because that was the vibe i was getting. A dark work that gives you a glimmer of hope and then withdraws it again. Captivating stuff.
In the process of adding this to my feeble repertoire. Mechanically it is not demanding, but I intend to add a lot more fire to the last movement than in the recording, so perhaps I will struggle.
Thal
Thanks, Thal, for your positive reaction. And good luck with getting to know the music...
It has been pointed out to me that perhaps the Op.3 Sonata bears a greater resemblance to the Dussek Op.77, which would be praise indeed. Written in the the year of Rufinatscha's birth as well.
Thal
An afterthought: Could, perhaps, Rufinatscha's last Piano Sonata (D minor, 1880) be orchestrated? Is it possible that this is a symphony in disguise?
Could it be orchestrated? Clearly it could. Should it be? I suppose it depends whether you think the composer's intention is important. Rufinatscha strikes me as a serious, deliberate composer. If he had intended this fine, serious piece as a sixth symphony then why wouldn't he just have written a Sixth Symphony? Why disguise it? If it was a study for one wouldn't it have been laid out for four hands? Although I'd love to hear more orchestral Rufinatscha, especially after Herr Huber made such a good job of reconstructing the Third, personally I'd rather leave well alone and enjoy the Sonata for what it is.
Herr Huber's opinion on the matter might be enlightening. Interestingly, the D minor Sonata does indeed exist in a version for piano 4-hands...
Ahh...
It's still a Piano Sonata, of course...