Any opinions on this composer?
She was a student of Reger and won the Arthur Nikisch Prize for composition in 1910.
Quite prolific:
9 symphonies, 3 Piano Trios, 1 Piano, Violin and Viola trio, 2 Piano Quartets 6 String Quartets
Also unusual combinations:
Tonstück for 8 wind instruments in E Major, Op. 60
Trio for Piano, Horn and Clarinet, Op. 103
Two pieces for Violin, Viola, Cello and Harp, Op. 111
Quintet for Clarinet and String Quartet, Op. 119
A number of recordings are listed by jpc here...
http://www.jpc.de/jpcng/home/search?fastsearch=senfter&rubric=classic&pd_orderby=score (http://www.jpc.de/jpcng/home/search?fastsearch=senfter&rubric=classic&pd_orderby=score)
...by the sound of it the music is pretty cluttered harmonically - one can tell she was a pupil of Reger. Not sure I would listen to it with unalloyed pleasure...
Hrm. Rather than place this in the Women unsungs thread (though perhaps I should?) -
I still think it would be great to see what a Reger student would do with full-scale symphonies (9 of them apparently, details unknown about no. 9 -
details at p. 418 of http://books.google.com/books?id=IvoQQU1QL_QC (http://books.google.com/books?id=IvoQQU1QL_QC), search for Senfter ) - also 3 violin concertos, one piano concerto (there at least, with the concertos, we know Reger's take. Of course this is assuming Senfter sounds like Reger.)
(Also, Reger's sinfonietta is a full-scale symphony, but... details. :) )
"She composed in a late-Romantic style and the formal design of the symphonies reveals the influence of Bruckner" - not unusual I find among Romantic-influenced 20th century composers. (Early Wellesz...)
I recall, though I can't find this in Google Books scans, finding a Senfter symphony (no. 6 in Eflat I think???) mentioned (as having been recently performed, or about to be performed) in an issue of the Neue Zeitschrift I was looking through at the university library (yes, I used to do that.) Somewhere in my notes I think (unless I scanned them in before my hard drive got wiped and didn't back them up) are the issue and page.
Eric
The CPO clips make her sound like Reger at his worst. Like stirring mud!
I'm glad I'm not the only one who doesn't care for Reger. I thought it was just me! ;D
Quote from: John H White on Tuesday 29 June 2010, 21:25
I'm glad I'm not the only one who doesn't care for Reger. I thought it was just me! ;D
I gather it's a lot of critics too ;) (Not me, I quite like a lot of his music. I've definitely seen a lot of negative criticism, it's certainly not just you.)
I have uploaded a recent broacast of Johanna Senfter's Sextet op. 44.
I haven't listened myself yet but maybe someone is interested.
Don't feel bad; Reger is for grown folks!
Definitely interested in the Sextet.
Her 4th Symphony is on YouTube. Two contributors have provided the movements.
QuoteReger is for grown folks!
And for the
very patient.
Though it depends- if that extends to Reger's earliest works too, I suppose I'd be interested in the why of it :)
Thanks fr the Sextett, Mathias, much appreciated.
A brief scan of the 4th on YouTube impresses me tremendously. Its heady stuff, though, sounding like Bruckner, Mahler, Rott and Reger, difficult to follow. But very imposing and of the same quality. The recording which is used on YouTube does not seem to be available on the internet. Pity there is no piano or organ concerto.
Ah, that reassuring, Gerhard. I completely agree with that summation but was reluctant to say it.
In my own mind I had it as 'abbreviated Bruckner', and I rather like it.
Senfter's piano concerto op.90 was published in 1998. I am aware of also concertos by her for violin and for 2 violins.
This article (http://mugi.hfmt-hamburg.de/en/Artikel/Johanna_Senfter) on Senfter might interest you. There is a long and presumably complete list of works.
Three things about it I want to point out:
- This presentation cites as Senfter's models Bach, Brahms and Reger and the way it is written implies strongly that this is how she herself saw and described the situation. No mention of Bruckner whatsoever.
- Interesting parallels to Emilie Mayer's biography: Reger was as enthusiastic about his female student as Loewe--Mayer's first teacher--had been about his. Both women never married. Both women were financially independent by family background (the money even came from the same business in both families: pharmacy), though both had to economize in later years, Senfter a lot more than Mayer after the Second World War.
- In her sixth symphony she used the Horst Wessel Lied as a counterpoint to a Bach chorale. This was pointed out by a critic after the war and immediately rendered her unsung for the rest of her life--unfairly I'd argue, especially when people who did much worse suffered only minor or no career damage (though her backward looking style was also contributing to her getting forgotten). Everything points to her being politically naive rather than an active supporter of the regime. To me the conjunction Horst Wessel Lied and Bach chorale is in exceedingly bad taste apart from politics and even for the 1930s. I think it is a good reason not to perform the 6th symphony nowadays.
However here is a case where there is a clear marker as to how and when someone became an unsung composer. Before the war her works were regularly performed and she would not have been considered unsung.
On another topic: I was surprised not to find Johanna Senfter on IMSLP. Is it really not there or is my search skill so bad? She would have to be the most important composer of the last 500 years who is not there.
Very few of her works were published before 1965, which doesn't help. Remember IMSLP deals in music which is either public domain (somewhere) or contributed by someone with legal right (and it looks like there is a project to slowly edit and publish her manuscript works, that her estate - or whoever has legal right to her music - is unlikely to be donating any works for public CC reading (see eg the Vivian Fine and Willy Ostijn categories @ IMSLP.)
QuoteI'm glad I'm not the only one who doesn't care for Reger. I thought it was just me! ;D
'Twas always thus... From Boston SO program notes for 31 Jan 1911: "Reger is still a much-discussed man. Some regard him as the greatest living composer, for there are passionate Regerites; others admit his facility, and find no other quality in his voluminous works."
Music aside, he shall always be warmly remembered for his retort to a newspaper critic who had savaged his latest premiere: "I am sitting in the smallest room of my house with your review before me. Soon it will be behind me."
...and yet, and yet: there are works by Reger that would be among my desert island choices.
QuoteThis presentation cites as Senfter's models Bach, Brahms and Reger and the way it is written implies strongly that this is how she herself saw and described the situation.
From Boston SO program notes for 11 Jan 1911 (by Philip Hale): "Dr. [Hugo] Riemann said that Reger has won his reputation by expressing his own individuality in a language that comes from deep study of Bach, Beethoven, and Brahms."
My guess is that during Ms. Senfter's formative years the antagonism between post-Schumann classicists and post-Liszt New Music types was still sufficient to prevent a list of influences from including both Brahms and Bruckner -- even if she, like so many others, was influenced by both.
Quote...and yet, and yet: there are works by Reger that would be among my desert island choices.
"Der bestirnte Himmel über mir und das moralische Gesetz in mir."
I think Reger was aiming in the same general direction as Kant, using different means.
I've absolutely no idea what you mean by that. I understand the German and, if I thought about it, I might be able to work out what Kant meant, but as for how it applies to Reger...
Your German is far better than mine, else I wouldn't have kept the original for its flavor.
Speaking of which, Riesling might be a nice flavor to discuss this over. But since that's not a possibility, let me keep it short and just opine that ...
Just as Kant believed it fundamentally important to try in his Critiques to find conclusive arguments linking the laws of physics and morality, so Reger in his music sounds to me as though, in following the profound laws of musical consonance and dissonance (as found in Bach, Beethoven, and Brahms), he was consciously attempting to construct fundamentally moral artworks -- ones that might wear well on, say, a deserted island.
I'm lost, sorry. That's pseuds' corner stuff for me...
Quotehe was consciously attempting to construct fundamentally moral artworks
I don't understand the concept of morality as applied to art. Art is neither moral nor immoral. It just is.
I suppose the closest one can get to morality in music is beauty, but I don't have the competence to go further down that road...
Quote from: Gareth Vaughan on Monday 15 August 2016, 11:30
I don't understand the concept of morality as applied to art. Art is neither moral nor immoral. It just is.
This is rather radical, don't you think? Especially if including all art forms, e.g. the novel or the drama where morality plays an outsized role. Or opera for that matter--if the libretto is any good.
For music in particular the connection is not so easy to establish. What we know though is that quite a few composers saw their work in moral terms, Beethoven for example or Shostakovich (please allow him to be mentioned; he is such a good example here) not to mention the many who wrote music for the church with conviction (Rheinberger?).
It's easier to see the moral dimension in music when words are added, but what of purely instrumental works?
I do think there is nothing humans can do that has no moral dimension. Example: When you listen to music you don't have time to harass other people nor to do any good thing to them. Moral dimension.
Also: Music used to be a community activity--with the exception of personal practice on the instrument. And I think this means a moral component. There is the relationship between musicians who play/sing together. The one between teacher and student. The one between performers and the audience (from someone's living room to the concert hall or the theatre). This has changed with the advent of recordings, but to me a live performance is still the "real" thing though I appreciate the options a CD player gives us.
I think we are using "moral" in different senses. I meant that I don't see how moral judgements can be applied to art.
I think Gareth meant music 'in and of itself'. I certainly did.
Yes, Alan. I probably wasn't being clear. Thank you.
And with that, back to Senfter...
Senfter, like her teacher, grew up in an artistic world in which it was widely assumed that music was an effective means of moral suasion. Of Furtwängler, for example -- a contemporary of Senfter's -- one biographer writes: "Furtwängler believed to the depth of his soul that music was a force for moral good, a route out of chaos that would assist the cause of humanity. In 1943, he wrote: 'The message Beethoven gave mankind in his works ... seems to me never to have been more urgent than it is today.'" Whether or not such a belief is pretentious claptrap, as Alan thinks, it was widely held among German musicians prior to World War I. In mentioning morality above I was merely alluding to that well-known historical fact, not introducing personal opinion.
QuoteThe message Beethoven gave mankind in his works
Well, there's only a 100% clear message if words are attached. Otherwise music can merely
suggest...
As for Beethoven/Schiller's message itself, I have my doubts.
Well, Stravinsky said that "music can express nothing", while others contest that "music expresses that which needs to be said but cannot be put into words". Perhaps the reason why vocal music often, at least for me, is less attractive than purely instrumental music. Exceptions abound, of course; 'Das Lied von der Erde' is almost unbearably expressive, to name but one. But Beethoven IX, Finale? Not his best music, in my humble opinion...
Senfter is interesting enough, judging from the little I know (4th Symphony). CPO? Adriano? Someone with a a pot of gold?
All best,
Gijs
I readily agree; Senftner is worth a LOT more investigation, which I'd love to do personally.