Felix Draeseke's other Symphonies

[Rainolf]

Great to see this lively and passionate discussion here!

In general I think of Draeseke as a very rewarding composer for them who study his music well into the details, and I would advice everyone interested in his style to take his scores and follow the harmonic and the contrapuntal procedures closely. There are some pieces (e.g. the finale of the Violin Duo-Suite) that really punish the players if they are not fully aware what they have to do. What is challenging is the often high tempo of the events, regardless if the music is slow or fast. But if you know these events by heart and you succeed in bringing them together into coherence the music will lose much of its "difficult" character.

Because no existing recording of any of Draeseke's symphonies can be called really appropriate, it is the more on yourself to dive into the scores. Speaking of myself, I only came to understand the development section of the first movement of No. 1 after doing my own reading and playing sessions at the piano. Neither Hanson nor Weigle really make the music "go" here for my ears.

Because the Thuner See was mentioned: Draeseke Society member Manfred Eibl has created modern editions of several previously unpublished orchestral works. Next to the Thuner See there are: Der Traum ein Leben, Feenzauber, Academic Festival Overture, and Germania-Marsch. If you are interested in the scores, let me know, I will help you.

[eschiss1]

Agreed, though I'm glad I have a nearby library that was able to loan me the score of the Comica, I would not have been able to afford it.
(I'm -still- confused as to its key, did the composer himself describe it as being in E minor?... The "innocent ear" would say G major )

[Alan Howe]

This essay hedges its bets: 'e-minor/G-major': https://www.draeseke.org/essays/sym4.htm#en

[Rainolf]

Your ears are not wrong. It is in fact a symphony in G major: Both first and last movements end in this key. But Draeseke creates a kind of masquerade by using elements of E minor at prominent places. The first movement begins with an E minor chord that opens a subdominant cadence to the main theme in G major. The exposition ends in B major, the dominant of E minor. In the recapitulation the second group opens in E minor (turning to the dominant of G major). The opening of the main theme of the last movement is built in a very similar way to the introductory bars of the first movement: Dominant of E minor - subdomaninant cadence - G major. An argument that the last movement can not be in E minor could be made by looking at its second theme, which is in clear E major. If Draeseke had really thought of E as the main tonality he would not have written both themes of a sonata exposition in it. But it fits very well into the "masquerade" scheme of the whole work: first movement exposition G-B, last movement exposition G-E --> if you look at the keynotes you have an E minor triad...

[Alan Howe]

Thanks! Great to have an expert on hand to explain Draeseke's compositional processes.

Concerning the Violin Concerto: is there any possibility of a recording using Wolfgang Müller-Steinbach's orchestration?

[Ilja]

Dave adds his 2 cents to our discussion.

[Alan Howe]

I suppose we should be grateful for the mention, but I wonder how much of FD's music he really knows...

[eschiss1]

Rainolf: it's not so much whether the outer movements end in that key as whether the first movement is based on that key. And to my ears even the first subject of the first movement is arguably in G major. (Basically, unless you have a slow introduction, which can be ignored, the key of a sonata-form work is -usually-, I think that which its first movement's keys can best be interpreted around- this is where Schoenberg's book "Structural Functions in Music" is a good and interesting and useful read, I think.)

[eschiss1]

GoranTch- I hope you enjoy both works, and hope to hear your thoughts on them...

[GoranTch]

Because no existing recording of any of Draeseke's symphonies can be called really appropriate, it is the more on yourself to dive into the scores. Speaking of myself, I only came to understand the development section of the first movement of No. 1 after doing my own reading and playing sessions at the piano. Neither Hanson nor Weigle really make the music "go" here for my ears.

While, speaking for myself, I am capable of thoroughly enjoying both Weigle and Hanson recordings of the symphonies and I think they are both good enough to introduce any open-minded listener to the richness and depth of these grand works, I very much agree with going into the scores as the way to really deepen and enrich one's "symphonic Draeseke experience".

I will never forget listening to Weigle's Finale of No.1 with the score for the 1st time - only from there did I truly begin to appreciate the beauty and sophistication of that fabric of secondary voices which Draeseke so masterly weaves throughout that movement. The score suddenly made the details which I was only hearing as a kind of a "background" come to life in a very immediate and "three-dimensional" way.

[eschiss1]

Unfortunately the Draeseke.org essay which contains some nice music examples from the Wollenweber scores from the 2 viola sonatas contains none from the Larghetto of the first sonata (the music example "example 4" meant to be the beginning of the Larghetto is actually example 1 - the opening of the first movement - duplicated, for some reason.

Apologies for the self-quote, but following up briefly: I tried reporting this at the site, the site reported an error but wouldn't elaborate. Tried a different browser, same result. Not an important thing, that, and they do offer a "snail-mail" alternative for comments that I think they're trying in this manner to encourage...

[Alan Howe]

I have the unfortunate impression that nobody either in the US or in Germany is really interested in actively promoting Draeseke's music to the wider classical music-loving public. I am afraid that this has largely been the case since the passing of Dr Alan Krueck back in 2010. We are fortunate to have much of his music on CD, but there are yawning gaps that no-one seems determined to fill.

[eschiss1]

I hope someone here got to attend the Draeseke song concerts in late June that are the only exception I can think of to an unfortunate rule - and that they were really well performed!

[Alan Howe]

Such ventures are, of course, to be welcomed, but they need to be linked to recordings so that they can reach a much wider audience.

[Alan Howe]

If you don't know Draeseke's Symphonic Prelude to Penthesilea, Op.50 from 1888, do try Hanson's recording:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mKyL2iP8a0s