Unsung Composers

From this concert: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=J9nealW3gD4
As indicated, Kauder's 1st Symphony starts at 1:35:52. It can perhaps be best described as post-Mahlerian.

Concert Notes
Hugo Kauder's Symphony No. 1 
Notes by TŌN violinist Mae Bariff
https://ton.bard.edu/hugo-kauders-symphony-no-1/

Hugo Kauder (1888–1972), born in Tobitschau, Moravia—now Tovočov, Czech Republic—studied violin as a boy and moved to Vienna in 1905 to pursue engineering; yet, his passion for music endured. Such passion led to successfully establishing himself as a musician, conductor, educator, writer, and emerging composer in Vienna. He composed his Symphony No. 1 in 1920–21 and dedicated it to Alma Mahler. Premiered in 1924 by the Vienna Workers Symphony, the First Symphony received considerable commendation and subsequently earned Kauder the prestigious City of Vienna Prize in 1928. Socio-geopolitical factors forced Kauder  to leave Vienna in 1938—his compositions lost through war and displacement.

Composer/performer and college educator Karl Warner coordinated efforts to obtain autographed musical scores and performed an intensive editing and digitizing process to produce usable parts for performance. Warner also currently serves as manager of the Hugo Kauder Society. The Hugo Kauder Society aims to share Kauder's music with future generations of musicians and listeners. Thank you to Hugo Kauder Society board members Norman Dee, David Goldblatt, David Levy, and Helen and Nina Kauder; former Hugo Kauder Society staff Rona Richter and Rron Karahoda; The Kauder Family; and Austrian musicologist Karin Wagner for generously supporting this project. I conducted a written interview on October 12, 2022 with Karl Warner and an extract from the edited transcript follows:

How did you locate the score?
Kauder fled Europe with two suitcases full of his music. The Kauder family kept and preserved most of his autograph scores or arranged to place them in library archives. I found the First Symphony score amongst these about two years ago and started editing and digitizing the first movement without much thought given to how or when it might be performed. Helen Kauder located a box amongst her father's things that contained the original copied parts used for the 1924 performance of the Symphony. We also were contacted by someone in Germany who wished to authenticate an autograph Kauder score recently purchased at an auction. This turned out to be a two-piano draft/arrangement of the Symphony's first movement. So, fate seemingly intervened with all of this lost related material showing up again around the same time.

What did you find most interesting about the restoration process?
At first glance, Kauder's First Symphony is a somewhat conservative piece for 1920–21, but now it seems logical given where he went from there. Many hallmarks of his later style are in the work, in particular his ever-present mastery of organic motivic and melodic development and imitative counterpoint (often referred to as "Kauderpoint" by his students). Looking at the handwritten music makes those directly involved in its realization more immediate. The original hand-copied orchestral parts for the First Symphony feature notes and scribbles added by the musicians as part of their performance preparation. It is easy to imagine these pages being handled and placed on a stand long ago. A connection is made with [the musicians] even though they were of a different time and place. At the beginning, I trusted but didn't quite know what the inherent qualities of the piece were and if it would stand on its own as a "great work of art." I was encouraged by contemporary accounts of how well the piece was received when it was performed in 1924. As I got to know and experience the music, it always surprised me yet fulfilled all the expectations I set out with.

Did you encounter any challenges throughout the process?
I think I was naive at first about how long it would take or how difficult the work would be. Parts of the autograph score were difficult to read. Fortunately, we had backup sources available. Often I entered notes directly from the parts, although there were discrepancies and mistakes that needed to be correlated. I had to decide which additional performance markings to include. The autograph score has dynamic and tempo markings most likely made by conductor Leopold Reichwein. I wanted to keep Kauder's original notation as much as possible and tried to include relevant details added later that he likely personally approved.

Recent currents in music performance aim to perform music from less frequently heard and/or known composers in addition to their frequently heard counterparts. Indeed a significant body of compositions from less frequently heard and/or known composers exists. In this sense, why Hugo Kauder?
In 1946 musicologist Edward Lowinsky eloquently wrote the following about Kauder's music: "In much of our best modern music we feel the wild and hectic beat of our industrial machine age; its truthfulness rests in its reflecting the ever-growing mechanical aspect of our civilization. Kauder's music seems to foreshadow a new humanism. It turns from the mechanical aspects of life to the organic, from the external powers that shape our existence to the inner spiritual forces. Kauder is not alone in taking this direction. But he follows this road with an inner assurance which gives his music a rare quietness and power."

[Historically,] this particular generational group of Kauder's Viennese friends and colleagues is very important. The work of the Second Viennese School is well documented, but studying these lesser-known composers provides a fuller, more detailed picture of a thriving and diverse community. Kauder's generation was the last to inherit the immense legacy of a great musical city before all was disrupted and destroyed by the Nazis. I think audiences will experience all of this history flowing through the First Symphony. It is truly a "Viennese" piece, and one can hear reverberant echoes of Mozart, Haydn, Schubert, Beethoven, Brahms, and of course Mahler, whose music would have been very immediate and contemporary to Kauder.

Name a few things audiences can listen for in the symphony.
The first movement is built on the yearning, rising theme presented at the opening. Kauder organically builds powerful climaxes throughout the movement and expands the material through variation techniques including inversion ("upside-down" treatment of themes) and augmentation (rhythmic expansion of themes). The second movement was most likely not performed as part of the original premiere, and so audiences will finally hear this particular music for the first time. The music, set in buoyant rhythms with changing meters, is joyful and playful and at times demonic and intoxicating. The third slow, stately movement features beautiful arching lyrical lines that are built into several climaxes. In this movement, one most clearly hears the echoes of earlier Viennese composers mentioned previously. The music is introspective and contemplative, full of nostalgia and heart-felt longing. The fourth movement is an exciting technical tour-de-force, a masterful, strict passacaglia and fugue based entirely on the eight-bar steady chromatic line heard at the opening. The demonic, sulphuric character of the second movement returns, and one is constantly delighted as each new variation is presented over and builds upon the established, cycling, eight-bar harmonic structure.

This Kauder symphony is a real discovery! A pity the sound mix is so bad that it's almost impossible to enjoy the "soloists"
efforts (double bass pizzicato or Oboe) Let's hope cpo will produce this and more by Kauder in the near future - now that my appetite has been woken!

I'll have to listen to it again, but I must say that I found its dependence on Mahler a constant distraction.

I've uploaded a set of mp3s made from the YouTube video and it's available in our Downloads Board here (https://www.unsungcomposers.com/forum/index.php/topic,9013.0.html). If anyone can find more details about this, as Alan says, very Mahlerian work (key, movement tempi etc.), please let me know or post them here. Thanks.

To supply one detail, these are the movement titles:

1. Bewegt
2. Sehr mäßig bewegt
3. Sehr breit und betragen
4. Ruhig, streng gemessen

I have added the tempo markings to the details of the download. They're available in the concert programme.

3. Sehr breit und betragen > getragen

Aha! Yes, I wondered about that, but didn't have the courage to correct it! Thanks! ('getragen' means 'sustained')

'Sustained' is the perfect translation.

The recording has it as "betragen"*, which seems unlikely as you mention (and given that the English translation is "sustained"...), so this is undoubtedly correct.

* I guess it wasn't impossible in some poetic way, if implausible.

QuoteThey're available in the concert programme

Thanks Ilja, Wheesht and Alan. I hadn't seen the link to the programme. By the way, reading that now I see that the symphony's estimated duration was 30 minutes, but Botstein's performance lasted 39 and he took a full break between the second and third movements, although the programme indicates that they should be taken attacca.

I have added a note to the download details concerning the gap between the 2nd and 3rd movements.

Yesterday, I took some time to tinker with the recording of Hugo Kauder's symphony, and sped it up by 22% to get closer to the half hour or so that Mark mentioned. In my view, it doesn't lead to a rushed feel, better accentuates Kauder's rhythmic invention, and overall makes the work sound significantly less like a Mahler pastiche. I obviously can't upload it because of copyright reasons (I'm sure Botstein wouldn't approve) but Audacity is a free app (https://audacityu.org/), so everyone can try for themselves.

Hmm. I'm usually suspicious of estimated durations of works that either haven't ever been performed or were performed long ago.

I tried it and Ilja is quite right. Overall the work gains in individuality without ever feeling rushed. The first movement gains much needed momentum, the second becomes a proper, but not over-fast, scherzo and the third remains a slow movement but now doesn't drag. The only movement which isn't improved by the blanket speed-up is the finale. I thought it the weakest and least interesting in Botstein's performance and it remains so. Presumably the estimate of 30 minutes duration was based on metronome markings in the score, which begs the question why Botstein decided on a broader interpretation. Thanks for the insight, Ilja.

So is this a case of an over-careful performance under Botstein?

Maybe he wanted to emphasise Kauder's debt to Mahler, the broader tempi certainly do that somehow.

Personally, and this is of course pure speculation, it is my impression that Botstein observed the Mahlerian affinities of the work and "Mahlered it up" even further. The urge to "bend" an unknown work towards familiar territory is not an uncommon phenomenon among performers.

Edit: while I was typing, Mark posted a similar thought. Great minds and all that. Sorry.

Have we any idea what the (original) source of the 30-minute duration time is?

For comparison purposes, let's consider recordings of Brahms 4 (excluding period-instrument performances): Giulini in 1989 took 46:19, whereas Chailly in 2007 took 38:31 (there are no issues with repeats here). My guess is that most performances would come in at around half way between these extremes. So, is there any merit in positing a duration time for Kauder 1 of around 34-35 minutes? How might that sound?

Also: all recordings of symphonies from the broad romantic era exhibit a wide range of tempi, so why should we be surprised when Botstein comes in on the slow side here? (Unless there are other issues, such as the technical ability of the orchestra...)

The duration time estimate is given in the concert programme. Presumably that came from the person who produced the modern edition of the score from the manuscript (but it's only an assumption), who would have totted up the bars and applied the tempo markings. If Kauder used metronome markings then that might give a rough guide to at least what he thought it should sound like, even though we know how unrealistic some composers' metronome markings are. If Kauder didn't use them, though, then it's the editor's tempo guesses we're dealing with and something like "bewegt" is so vague, who knows what the tempo should be? I faced this problem with about 60% of Raff's unrecorded music when estimating durations for my catalogue. In most cases, where a recording has subsequently surfaced, I've been relieved that I'm not too far off the mark, but the longer the span of music the more unreliable they get. For Samson, for example, my estimate of 2 hours 30 minutes was exceeded by a full 30 minutes in the Weimar production, the tempi of which I didn't think unduly slow.

Of course I agree with what you say, Alan, about the general variability of timings and none of it really matters, except to say that adopting a generally faster tempo resulted in a more convincing work, at least to the ears of two of us! 

Frankly, I now find the first movement rushed. It's all so subjective, isn't it? I'd still like to know where that 30-minute figure originally came from. Until we know for sure I'm sticking with Botstein because it's a real-world performance.

Oh absolutely. I don't find the speeded up first movement rushed but to be honest I can't say that I think very highly of the Symphony, whether it be Botstein's actual performance or an artificially faster one. I have no real knowledge of Kauder but I see he composed a substantial catalogue. Did he have a worthwhile reputation in his lifetime?

With the unsungs, there is the general problem of the lack of a performance tradition, of course. Giulini's Brahms 4 is a very conscious departure from the performance standard of his time (which lay around the forty minute markt). With Kauder, there's no such standard, so a performer can be forgiven for just seeing what works. That does, however, make the whole thing even more subjective, and there certainly those that consider less known works as a free-for-all to just play with the orchestra. One particularly horrid Taneyev 4 in Rotterdam comes to mind, which started my since-justified loathing of Valery Gergiev.

Just one problem: performance traditions aren't uniform. It may be possible to calculate some sort of 'standard' given a large enough sample, but in reality there's always a wide range of (perfectly valid) approaches affecting all aspects of performance, including tempi. Consider, for example, the approaches to the slow movement of Beethoven's 9th - and how they're being affected by today's thinking on the matter.

What we really need to know is the reasons behind the choices made by Botstein. Suppose his timings are actually fairly 'standard' (whatever that might mean) and the figure of 30 minutes is the outlier (or some kind of pre-performance estimate)? How on earth can we know - unless we have chapter and verse from the man himself? And does it actually matter?

In the final analysis we only have one real-world recorded performance to go on. I'll stick with that - for now.

Don't know what his reputation was. Unfortunately of his symphonies only no.4, for 10 instruments, appears to have been published (by Seesaw Music) to date...

Update: I have emailed Botstein, so maybe we'll soon have an answer...

Thanks, Alan, it'll be fascinating to see what he says.

Quote from: Alan Howe on Monday 02 January 2023, 22:20Just one problem: performance traditions aren't uniform. It may be possible to calculate some sort of 'standard' given a large enough sample, but in reality there's always a wide range of (perfectly valid) approaches affecting all aspects of performance, including tempi. Consider, for example, the approaches to the slow movement of Beethoven's 9th - and how they're being affected by today's thinking on the matter.

A good point; however, while traditions may not be uniform, there is usually a certain degree of uniformity. Huge differences are, at least in my observation, the exception rather than the rule. And, in an age of constantly traveling conductors and globalized orchestras, increasingly so. There is a reason why, for instance, Celibidache's Bruckner performances evoke such strong reactions: they stray from an - admittedly vague - performance consensus.

From what I've heard, Botstein is generally quite conventional in his choice of tempi, sometimes faster (e.g., Schreker's Psalm 116) and occasionally slower (e.g., Dohnanyi's D minor symphony) than the "competition". It'd be great to hear more about his choices in this work.

Quotean - admittedly vague - performance consensus

I think you're making my point for me. A 'consensus' is often vague - to the point of meaninglessness. It's the lack of uniformity which has caused me to acquire so many different versions of works in the standard repertoire and which piques my curiosity when it comes to new recordings of works that have, say, only been recorded once or a few times.

QuoteHuge differences are, at least in my observation, the exception rather than the rule. And, in an age of constantly traveling conductors and globalized orchestras, increasingly so

Well, not all such huge differences are modern phenomena. Consider, for example, Knappertsbusch's extraordinarily slow Parsifal from 1952 (4:32:02) or Weingartner's almost HIP-swift Brahms 3 from 1938 (29:18).

Anyway, we'll soon know with regard to Kauder's 1st whether there's any substance to the 30-minute estimate. I suspect there isn't...

Here are the relevant parts of Mr Botstein's reply to my email:

<<The figure of 30 minutes in the concert program must have been an approximation by the writer based on the writer's perusal of the score. There is another possibility. The work was performed before the Second World War, but if my memory serves me correctly, even in the original performance, a movement was omitted. Our performances were apparently the first complete performances.>> (my emphasis)

<<As you no doubt realize, this was for all intents and purposes, a first performance of a new but old work without any performance history by a composer who is no longer alive. Tempo markings, structural strategies, and transitions all had to be adjusted without changing any notes in order to give the work what I thought would be the most persuasive reading. I am sure there were variations in the timings of the three performances themselves, particularly the one at Carnegie Hall, in part as a result of a necessary adjustment to the acoustics.>> (again, my emphasis)

Apparently we can look forward to a recording, but I'm omitting details until the release is actually announced by the label concerned.

I think we can now be sure that there's no actual substance to the 30-minute duration estimate. It was an approximation, not a recommendation - and wasn't based on any actual performance. In other words, it was merely an educated guess which wasn't borne out by the exigencies of real-world performance and should accordingly be quietly forgotten. We certainly shouldn't attach any claim of authenticity to the 30-minute estimate - however much we might subjectively prefer an artificially speeded-up version.

Any glance at the estimated durations of works listed at IMSLP will demonstrate the difficulties involved, especially with regard to compositions with little or no performance history. The same is true with Toskey's 'Concertos for Violin and Viola'. Take, for example, Hermann Grädener's 2nd Violin Concerto: Toskey's estimate is 30 minutes; however the recording on Toccata comes in at 38:03!  Sound familiar?

There's also no suggestion that Botstein 'Mahlered up' the performance.

Btw, Mr. Howe, you have responded well to his music in the past (judging from a skim of posts from 2015-7 or so) but I don't have any real knowledge of his music either!
Happy 2023!

I'm happy to let Mr Botstein have the last word.

Well... if he chooses to add a commercial recording of the oboe concerto I will not complain.

Not happening.

Quote from: Mark Thomas on Wednesday 04 January 2023, 08:09I'm happy to let Mr Botstein have the last word.

We'll have to, until someone else has a go at it.

Very unlikely, I'd've thought.

In any case, I think we've established the 30-minute figure as a 'guesstimate', i.e. as involving a mixture of reasoned  calculation and sheer guesswork - for which Botstein was in no way responsible.

Botstein's recording has now been announced - it'll be available on the Avie label from 24th May:
https://www.jpc.de/jpcng/classic/detail/-/art/the-lost-generation/hnum/11833381
More details here:
https://www.prestomusic.com/classical/products/9619812--the-lost-generation-apostel-kauder-busch

The timing for the Symphony is 40:09.

Good :)

Got my copy of this the other day. Very pleased they edited out the horrible false note that appears in the version that was in Downloads. I am currently absolutely obsessed with the noble, yearning theme in the third movement (very Mahlerian), played by the violins at the bottom of their register apparently (I had thought it was violas). Heart-melting.

Others here may not care for the accompanying Schoenbergian Haydn Variations by Hans Erich Apostel, but there's nothing to be scared of, I promise you! And the Busch variations make a very pleasant end to a well-filled disc.

Thanks for the review - very encouraging.

Hrrmph.  JPC now says it won't be available until June 14, and yet...

It will be interesting to hear Peter Serkin as an orchestrator. 

My copy has now arrived - and I note that Dave Hurwitz has reviewed the disc somewhat negatively, in particular the Kauder:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OTDyXCS5un8

Now I just want to raise a question here: how important is it not to rush to judgment on an unfamiliar piece of music - and especially if one is an influential critic? I know we all post our reactions to the music we hear on this forum, but (a) we're not pretending to be experts and (b) we have the great advantage of being a community of music lovers which provides for balance and differing opinions. I've often thought that Hurwitz's channel would be improved by inviting the other critics who work with him at Classics Today to participate in his videos.

And to return to Kauder: he's a post-Mahlerian, his music is more fragmentary than Mahler from the previous generation. In other words, he's attempting something different, I think, while consciously continuing the tradition. When I heard Hurwitz's critique I immediately wondered whether he should have listened a bit more carefully, preferably a few more times over a few more days, instead of rushing to judgment. The slow movement is absolutely glorious...

Am I being fair?

As to Apostel, I've only heard a few works of his, but he was after all a pupil of Berg (the first of his string quartets fills out a CD set of Zemlinsky's 4 numbered string quartets on DG) who edited a critical edition (I think) of the full score of Berg's Wozzeck. So maybe more for some of us (I might like it more) than others.

Quote from: Alan Howe on Saturday 08 June 2024, 18:58When I heard Hurwitz's critique I immediately wondered whether he should have listened a bit more carefully, preferably a few more times over a few more days, instead of rushing to judgment. The slow movement is absolutely glorious...

Am I being fair?

Still waiting on my copy, but I agree: when dealing with recordings, I always listen to something twice, with a decent interval between hearings, before venturing on a preliminary judgement.   

When dealing with unfamiliar music it is always useful to try to 'locate' a composition in its historical context; however, the danger is always to make comparisons to the work's detriment if it's not taken on its own terms.

Again, am I being fair?

I think so?... but to adapt a line from a movie I didn't actually care for, you had me at Hurwitz. (Sorry.) :)

According to my experience, what Hurwitz says is in no way correlated to what I hear. In my opinion he just talks ANYTHING and I often wonder if he has even listened to the CDs he reviews...

So let's return to Kauder's Symphony. What do friends think of it?

I've played this several times now over the past weeks. For me, I'd define it as a well-executed failure at finding a musical voice. There are clear influences to be found (Mahler, Wagner and Reger being the most obvious ones), but after forty minutes I'm still not much further in discovering what is that Kauder wants to express. There are glimpses here and there (such as at the beginning of the finale) but they don't really lead anywhere. It's all very well constructed, but eventually a somewhat frustrating experience for me.

Which makes sense, since that's not ultimately the "voice" he ended up most comfortable with at all (as one sees from samples, and complete perusal versions*, of his later scores at hugokauder.org (https://www.hugokauder.org/music-section/scores/).)

*Several of his string quartets in manuscript and typeset PDF, for perusal only, for example.

Could you describe that 'voice', please Eric?

Harder without having heard more of those works, but based on those I've seen, spare, experimental, sometimes very white-notes-of-piano (or transposed, of course- the first movement of his 13th quartet (1950) is in 5 flats rather than zero, but I don't see a modifying flat or sharp anywhere- or in fact until the middle of the F minor Presto second movement (page 5 of the typeset). I also don't see a real -barline- anywhere...)

It's almost as if Kauder is torn between fidelity to the tradition and yet also experimenting with the tradition. Here's some interesting commentary on his music:
https://www.hugokauder.org/about/reflections-on-hugo-kauder/
Also, this video introduction:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lZK1zwhDOa4

I think I'm slowly coming to terms with Kauder's Symphony. It has been the last movement that has puzzled me the most as not really belonging to the first three. It seems to me that it is in the finale that his quest for new contrapuntal methods is most apparent - and I'm not sure whether it's all of a piece with what comes before, especially that gorgeous slow movement. In other words, it's as if Kauder has one foot in a sort of compressed neo-Mahlerian idiom and the other in a future which he has yet fully to embrace.

What I admire, however, is Kauder's determination not to go down the atonal route of his contemporaries (and colleagues), but rather to forge a new enrichment of tonality through certain contrapuntal techniques. The passacaglia in the finale of the Symphony is a case in point.

But, oh that slow movement - it's just fabulous. It's as if the finale of Das Lied von der Erde has faded away and given birth to Kauder's movement.

I have been agnostic at best about Kauder's First, and remain so, but the slow movement is a thing of beauty. No question.

About the slow movement we are 100% agreed.

A thing of rare beauty, indeed.

You can hear that same hesitant motif appearing in the first two movements as well, before the slow movement, so I think the symphony has a coherence and integrity - until the fourth movement, that is, because I agree that the final movement just doesn't manage to pull it all together.

Thanks for that insight.

I have listened to the Kauder Symphony a few times now and agree that it has a sublime slow movement but suffers a bit from "the finale problem".  It makes one wish that the surrounding movements would somehow live up to its promise, the way the beautiful slow movement of the Mahler Fifth is surrounded by equally engaging music.

By the way, I just finished listening to the Euclid Quartet/Centaur recording of his first four string quartets. The first two also have a bit of that finale problem, but this disappears with the third and fourth. The first is the most German sounding, in the sense of early Schoenberg or Berg, while the third and fourth could almost be by an American composer from the generation of Aaron Copland.  They showed a path of compositional development, each one a bit more interesting than the one that proceeded it.