Unsung Composers

Thanks to Ilja, we have an opportunity to hear this in a decent modern performance.

The download is available here: https://www.unsungcomposers.com/forum/index.php/topic,9529.msg97537.html#msg97537

Thanks for the notice. More well played Bendix is welcome.

Playing this file the sound is tonally unbalanced in unpleasant ways. I have pretty good computer audio playback systems. Is this the way the soundfile actually sounds or is something going wrong with my playback of this file?

Leaving aside the sonics of the soundfile, this Symphony 2 by Bendix must have been somewhat disconcerting in the context of the late 1880s symphony audience. It doesn't sound like Gade his teacher's symphonies. I have seen a few references in reviews of the Omsk recording to a similarity with melodies by Glazunov. However in 1888 Glazunov had only had his first two symphonies performed in Russia so I doubt he was much of an influence. In addition Glazunov's music is always well structured and not as wayward as the Bendix symphony. About the only connection I perceive there is a lack of obvious struggle or persistent tension in the music. As for Dvorak, the Bendix Sym  has little of the peasant earthiness or emotional immediacy of his music.

To my ears it already has a certain 20th C quirkiness in its quiet non-expressionist way. Are there any symphonies around this time which have a similar aspect or is this the earliest?

That's not uniformly true of Dvorak's music either, especially the earlier works. Anyhow, good question.

Louis Glass' First Symphony (in E major from 1894) springs to mind, which is also rather free in a formal sense. Like Bendix (and Carl Nielsen) he was a student of Gade, who appears to have instilled a sense of musical adventure in his students.

Thanks for this helpful info Ilja positing a specific source of Gade's relaxed mentoring for this rather enigmatic style that I am still trying to understand better. Yes most 19th C composition teachers were quite directive and rigid which produced the usual rebellions. So Gade must have been an outlier. Carl Nielsen would be a better known example too as you note. I will take a serious listen to the Glass Sym. But since the Glass is from 1894 the Bendix Sym 2 in 1888 is still the earliest example so far noted. 

The remaining unanswered question is how or why certain Swiss composers like Brun and Hermann appeared to follow along, at least in some works. Although since they were born later it is possible that they had heard selected works of these composers.

Update: Yes spot on!! great example with the Glass Sym 1 which is definitely in that wayward style of restrained romanticism . Thanks so much as I would have been agonizing over this puzzle for months or years trying to find out its proximate genesis. This may also provide an indirect path to the Sibelius Sym 3 and 6 which have always been hard to pin down in a stylistic progression. I have read a number of books on Sibelius and none provided a coherent explanation of why or where Sibelius got the idea for this surprising stylistic deviation of the Sym 3 in the early 1900s.

Mention has been made of influences upon Bendix from other composers, e.g. Liszt. Naxos' website has this paragraph:

Victor Bendix was highly respected as a composer, pianist and conductor. He had one foot in the Danish Romantic tradition (he was a pupil of Gade and J.P.E. Hartmann), but also took an interest in the Late Romantic movement abroad. He studied with Liszt, whose ideas one can hear in Bendix' Piano Concerto, the most virtuoso concerto of Danish Romanticism. Bendix wrote four symphonies with an international orientation and they are among the best from the period between Gade and Carl Nielsen. Carl Nielsen in fact had great respect for Bendix, and dedicated his great Symphonic Suite for piano to him.
https://www.naxos.com/Bio/Person/Victor_Bendix/25981

I am aware of the Liszt connection to Bendix but I hear that more in Bendix' piano works than the symphonies. The dedication of Nielsen's Suite to Bendix is very interesting. Bendix is looking like a much more seminal figure than I at least suspected. His first symphony seems more in the normative high Romantic style although with personal touches. The Sym 2 though goes off on a stylistically original Romantic tangent that he continued on symphonically and that seemed to influence others into the 20th C.

Looking on bookfinder I couldn't find any biography of Bendix in any language. Are there any known articles or research papers about him? Are there any concert reviews of his symphonies still extant?

Thanks very much to both of you for shedding some initial light on this mystery.

There is at least one dissertation I find which while not uniquely about Bendix mentions him in the title:
Leiska, Katharine (2012). "Skandinavische Musik in Deutschland um 1900 : Symphonien von Christian Sinding, Victor Bendix und Carl Nielsen zwischen Gattungstradition und Nord-Imagines"

Further searching found this book, though:
Cornelius, Jens (2021). "Victor Bendix, 1851-1926". OCLC 1445899469. "Victor Bendix (1851-1926) was a celebrity in Danish music around the year 1900. His skills as a composer, pianist and conductor set new standards in Denmark, and his symphonies were performed even by the Berlin Philharmonic. Yet he was regarded with some suspicion. Bendix was Jewish, a freethinker and a Wagner admirer, and thus a contradiction to the leading Danish circles. In addition, his private life was publicly known and was considered scandalous, not least when a mistress tried to murder him. Bendix was a student of Niels W. Gade and of Liszt, and he himself became a mentor to Carl Nielsen. This biography paints a portrait of a charismatic artist who found himself in the eye of the hurricane at a crucial time in musical history." (translation by Google Chrome)

Yes eschiss regarding the first one  I saw that but wasn't sure about the scope and focus of the work.

The second one had a confused listing on bookfinder seeming to suggest that a Victor Bendix wrote something about Jens Cornelius. Thanks for clarifying. This might be a useful source  but I know nothing about Jens Cornelius. He seems to have written a book about Ludolf Nielsen. too

Try the Jens Cornelius book instead if you can find it...137 pp. just about Bendix.

 

Quote from: eschiss1 on Sunday 22 December 2024, 01:03His skills as a composer, pianist and conductor set new standards in Denmark, and his symphonies were performed even by the Berlin Philharmonic.

That is a useful quote since it indicates Central European exposure at the highest level to his symphonies. Since the date of 1900 is given Bendix had written 3 of his 4 symphonies by then. So it is entirely possible for Swiss composers to have been exposed to them and / or read the scores. It also suggests that Sibelius may well have heard one or more prior to his Sym 3..

Thanks everybody for the sleuthing. Things are beginning to fall in place.

Quote from: Maury on Sunday 22 December 2024, 01:10but I know nothing about Jens Cornelius. He seems to have written a book about Ludolf Nielsen. too

I had never heard the name Jens Cornelius before either, but his website (http://www.jenscornelius.dk/) shows that he is a long-established Danish musicologist and author of several books. I look forward to delving into what promises to be a lot of interesting material.

Wheesht,
 
   Thanks for the Jens Cornelius website link. I note for the record it is not https compliant. Also he describes himself as a Musikjournalist. My Danish is very poor but that does seem like he works as a music critic/writer  of some kind rather than a musicologist although he has a degree. I don't see an academic affiliation either and he indicates he is freelance. He has written for various organizations and record labels and is working I think at Danish radio so I assume he is well known at least in certain Danish music circles. I would also note that the Bendix biography is only 137 pages long which doesn't indicate some intensive description of his works. That is not to say there is no possible useful info in it but it's not going to be a normal academic music biography either. I guess my concern would be that given Bendix' very raffish lifestyle that there would be many pages devoted to that rather than music analysis. 

Jens Cornelius is also the writer of the notes to the recent cpo recording of Bendix's Symphonies 1 & 3.

Yes that's what I got from his bio. He writes CD booklets for several specialty labels. I found the booklet notes OK but not great for the  Bendix Symphonies. Frustratingly he says that the Sym 2 was inspired by contemporary Russian composers he met n Germany but then doesn't mention any. For myself the music doesn't sound particularly Russian.

I believe there may be more to the Liszt connection than meets the eye. Something has to explain why one senses him 'thinking outside the box' in his symphonies.

In reply to Maury, I would argue that, without having read the biography by Jens Cornelius, it is moot to speculate whether or not this is a 'normal academic music biography' - nor should the apparent lack of an academic affiliation automatically be held against the author. A biography as a (more or less detailed) description of someone's life does not necessarily, in the case at issue here, have to include a detailed analysis of the works of that person.
It may well be that the number of sources available or restrictions on the part of the publishers resulted in the biography being a mere 137 pages long.
And yes, I am aware that some members of this forum would argue that it is the music alone that counts and that biographical aspects are of secondary importance at best. 

Mr Howe,

Bendix knew Liszt since the Sym 1 was approved by Liszt but this is not that surprising given its programmatic nature and the use of certain Lisztian techniques. But the Sym 1 is the most normative of his symphonies. It is only starting with the  Sym 2 in 1888 that I hear something quite novel that Ilja also seconded with the Louis Glass Sym 1, both students of Gade. Then we can throw Robert Hermann into the mix who apparently knew Grieg fairly well. Hermann's Sym 1 came out in 1895 one year after Glass. So something was going on in Scandinavia around 1890 that ended up producing these stylistically similar symphonies quite different from the standard symphonic fare of the time.

Wheesht,
 I understand that a composer bio doesn't need to have lots of music examples. The issue is that what we are talking about here is musical style. Reading the liner notes of Cornelius to the Dacapo Bendix CD he certainly recognizes stylistic shifts but doesn't go into much detail about it or its possible genesis. That's what I'm interested in though.

Note the OCLC listing I gave for the Jens Cornelius book when I mentioned it, which I'd hoped would be helpful... 1445899469 (https://www.worldcat.org/oclc/1445899469). No idea, not having seen the book, whether it's better than his liner notes, though at 137 pages it's certainly longer and Worldcat mentions unspecified illustrations. Apparently his book can be purchased online in print format for only $17.49 which compared to a lot of (I imagine) similar books is inexpensive.

Also, here's an article (in Danish- a translator thing is useful) based on Cornelius' book from soon after it came out. Doesn't answer your question but summarizes some of its content.. Pov.international (https://pov.international/victor-bendix-glemt-komponist-erotiske-eskapader/), Poul Arnedal, July 30 2021, "Victor Bendix: The Forgotten Composer and His Erotic Escapades"

Mange tak,Eric!

Quote from: eschiss1 on Sunday 22 December 2024, 13:12Also, here's an article (in Danish- a translator thing is useful) based on Cornelius' book from soon after it came out. Doesn't answer your question but summarizes some of its content.. Pov.international (https://pov.international/victor-bendix-glemt-komponist-erotiske-eskapader/), Poul Arnedal, July 30 2021, "Victor Bendix: The Forgotten Composer and His Erotic Escapades"

Yes in perusing his website I noted the several reviews of the Bendix book and saw this from POV a music streaming site. Their review title does suggest that the author was not doing much music analysis above liner notes in the book.  I have no doubt he did a competent job of doing a Bendix biography. He noted that he went through letters, newspaper accounts and the like. The photos are probably all that survived and reproduced adequately. I am sure there are no music examples. I do agree that the price is low and after the holidays I will try to get a copy but have low expectations at this point.

I took a listen to the rest of Louis Glass' symphonies per Ilja. My initial thoughts follow. (I may change my mind about Sym 4 and 5 with more listening.)

Sym 1 is in the style of the Bendix Sym 2
Sym 2 and 3 are normative high Romantic symphonies pre-Tristan
Sym 4 is tough to classify but it seems to be more in the category of what I faute de mieux call Poetic Romanticism although tending more in the direction of early Brun (Sym 2 and 3)
Sym 5 seems more like poetic Romanticism in the manner of Robert Hermann or later Bendix
Sym 6 is back to high Romanticism

In summary Glass Sym 1 is definitely in the Bendix Sym 2 style while Sym 4 and Sym 5 seem to be moving to a bit later Bendix style in his Sym 3 and 4 as well as Hermann and Brun. The rest are normative Romantic symphonies.

does one of them have a piano or chorus?

Symphony 2 has a male chorus and organ. That does tilt it to typical high Romantic style.  ;) 

Ilja said:  The problem with the Todorov recording (the whole set is rather more miss than hit, I'm afraid) of Glass' 4th Symphony is that it's played much too slowly.

I agree completely. I am just listening through them, concentrating on the sequential structure and basic material.

It was a bit of a trial listening again to the Glass Sym 4 which was stretched out to an hour by Todorov. However, I am convinced that it does fall into the Bendix style although significantly expanded. I think it is instructive to listen to the  Sym 4 Finale and compare it to a typical Romantic symphony Finale. This is the one movement where Glass actually fakes a typical romantic movement with its rhetoric. The Finale starts out with a forte brass outburst, not ominous just boisterous. This goes on for 90 seconds when the brass suddenly pause. Then they sputter out a few more notes mezzo forte then stop again, Then the violins begin with a variant of the brass melody and go on in melodic fashion for several minutes until the brass come back with another boisterous section which also sputters out. Then the strings start up again with the melody in genial fashion until they start picking up the pace. Suddenly there is a bit of repetitive content and the music builds slightly and then the movement ends quickly on a few cadential chords performed without much vigor as if the Finale was an opening movement.

The Bendix style is Romantic but in a way that constantly subverts typical Romantic rhetorical gestures that appear for example in Glass' own Sym 2.

Thankfully, the recent Raiskin (which I somehow forgot about) is a lot better (and shorter!). Todorov uses the same glacial tempos in the 2nd symphony, for which there's unfortunately no alternative yet. 

I wouldn't call it the "Bendix style", however. I haven't studied this era of Danish music very thoroughly, but I find some of those same traits in contemporary Nordic music, most notably Sinding's works. There was of course a fair bit of inter-Nordic interaction, so it might just have been the discovery of a similar musical language, much like the case of Brahms/Gernsheim/Fuchs/Dietrich.

Ilja,

 The reason I call it the Bendix style, referring to his Sym 2 onwards, is that I can't find an earlier example of it. If I or someone else does find an earlier example then I will call it by them.

As for Sinding, his symphony 1 of 1890 seems standard high Romantic style to me. It is only the Symphony 2 of 1902 where there is some leaning towards a less rhetorical style of Romanticism. That's 14 years after Bendix 2, 8 years after Glass Sym 1 and 7 years after Hermann Sym 1. Incidentally the Sibelius Sym 3 is now looking less surprising. 

Sometimes you just have to give up and say that a particular composer has come up with a (recognisable) style of his/her own making - an individual synthesis, as it were, of various other styles.

There's also the influence of folk music to consider here - and the reference to 'Summer Sounds from South Russia', whatever that might mean in practice.

Finally, it might also be worth comparing the two symphonies of Bendix's almost exact Danish contemporary, Peter Lange-Müller (1850-1926):
No.1 'Autumn' (1879-82): https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qs_OXczN89k
No.2 (1889 - v. lightly rev.1915): https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NiTtqC419QA

Mr Howe,

 I'm not sure if you were directing your comment to Ilja, to me or both. Yes pastoralism was an important aspect of standard Romanticism, both literary and musical. There was the Pastoral Symphony of Beethoven of course. I did note that the Bendix style did have a vague feeling of pastoralism in a post above but I am not sure that is really the case now the more I listen.

As I tried to show in my example of the Glass Sym 4 Finale there is a very direct subversion of Romantic style rhetoric though without overt satire. This softening of the tension and urgency of standard high Romanticism can approximate certain aspects of pastoral music but it is far from identical. The symphonies of Lange Muller are definitely along the lines of folk pastoral but he still employs Romantic symphonic rhetoric in restrained fashion typical of Romantic pastoral.This is not really the case with the Bendix et al style IMO.

I think composers by 1890 or so were starting to realize that the high Romantic style was becoming predictable. Some adopted neo Tristanesque chromaticism, others continued on unwilling/unable to change and other composers were experimenting.

Quote from: Maury on Monday 23 December 2024, 20:13The symphonies of Lange Muller are definitely along the lines of folk pastoral but he still employs Romantic symphonic rhetoric in restrained fashion typical of Romantic pastoral.This is not really the case with the Bendix et al style IMO

Well, I don't really agree. And I don't think there's a single Bendix style either. I trust that dacapo vol.2 will tell us more. I think the Glass connection is dubious (he's really half a generation later than Bendix) and I'd be looking further afield than Denmark, to composers such as Smetana or Fibich, as well as to Liszt and Wagner.

I accept people may not agree with me and I think there may be disputes about the exact nature and boundaries of Romantic pastoralism. But I did try to be specific in my comments so at least people can see why I am saying this.  Going back to my survey of Louis Glass symphonies I did make the specific point that there was an evolution in this style and that unlike the Glass Sym 1, which was only a few years after the Bendix Sym 2, the Glass Sym 4 (1911)and 5 (1919) seemed more similar to the early Brun style rather than pointing backwards to the Bendix Sym 2 of 1888.  And to be clear I am leaving off the High Romantic Bendix Sym 1 and starting with his Sym 2.

Quote from: Maury on Monday 23 December 2024, 20:13the high Romantic style

Please could you explain what you mean by this. Do you mean Brahms? Or his antipode, Bruckner, perhaps? Because, by 1890, there was already no such thing that could be adequately defined stylistically - only a period of time with very rough edges at both ends. Musical nationalism was well established, the Symphony as a form had been undergoing huge developmental changes over the course of the 19thC (think Berlioz, Liszt, even Rubinstein or Schumann), Wagner's revolutionary ideas were becoming pervasive (and not just in the field of opera), and the symphonic poem was a fixture across Europe, making the growth of programme (as opposed to absolute) music a major factor. Romanticism in music had yet to reach its apogee, in fact, as the influence of the 'New Germans' (Liszt, Wagner, etc.) had yet fully to play out.
   This extensive Wikipedia article may help us to trace the complex development of musical romanticism:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Romantic_music     (although - annoyingly - it completely ignores Raff, despite the plethora of names!)

As far as Bendix is concerned, he's one the milder experimenters of his period, soon to be overtaken and overshadowed in Scandinavia by Sibelius, Nielsen et al., which is why we should pay him particular attention. He wasn't an innovator in any serious sense, but stood on the brink of the end-period of the romantic movement dominated by composers born in the last third of the 19thC.
   This paragraph is worth noting, I think:
<<He was the only Dane present when Wagner laid the foundation stone of the Festspielhaus in Bayreuth in 1872. He also spent some time with Franz Liszt in 1872 and in successive years. He showed his first symphony to the great Hungarian. Liszt approved, not least because Bendix had conformed to his methods, combining an abstract four-movement form with a program, like a symphonic poem whose form Liszt pioneered. Bendix was obviously attracted by the New Weimar School of Music (the music of the future). It should also be noted that he conducted the first performance of Tristan in Denmark. He mounted the performance at his own expense, because the Royal Danish Theatre would not take on the responsibility.>>
https://musicwebinternational.com/2024/10/bendix-symphonies-nos-1-3-dacapo/

My instinct is to suggest that one should look for influences from the major composers of the period leading up to Bendix's creative years. Similarities with the works of others of his contemporaries are likely to be traceable back to the same influential figures in a process of parallel development. There are also individual factors to bear in mind: Symphony No.3, for example, has a particularly individual stamp in both its form (three movements) and content (its slow finale), perhaps pointing to some sort of personal adversity.

Some good points, Alan, but I would not underestimate Bendix's innovation - not to our ears perhaps, or even those of contemporary Germans, but certainly within the Danish musical world, where Schumann and Mendelssohn still served as templates and symphonic forms as a whole were still a relatively rare phenomenon (compared to (primarily religious) choral music and Lieder). Further progression by subsequent composers would perhaps not have been possible without this precedent.

I've also been pondering earlier remarks about folk music. That's clearly an influence, but I'd wager they were imported from Norway (Winter-Hjelm, Grieg, Svendsen) rather than Central Europe, considering the many intra-Scandinavian networks.

Quote from: Ilja on Tuesday 24 December 2024, 16:11I would not underestimate Bendix's innovation

Fair enough. But Bendix knew the music of Liszt and Wagner - and it's hard to avoid comparisons. The more profound innovator in Danish music in the later years of the 19thC was Carl Nielsen: his music is like a breath of fresh air. For those who don't know his 1st Symphony (1892), do give it a listen:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bSkaKDR1lQ0&t=62s

Mind you, Bendix is certainly worth investigating further. I'm really looking forward to dacapo vol.2.