German resurrection. A festive song

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German resurrection. A festive song is a cantata by the Austrian composer Franz Schmidt that is only completed in the short score , based on a text by Oskar Dietrich (Vienna 1939).

Emergence

After Austria was annexed to the German Reich , Schmidt was - through the mediation of his friend, the organist Franz Schütz , who was entrusted with the management of the Vienna Society of Music Friends from 1938 to 1945 - from the National Socialists who had ruled since 1938 from a delegation under the then Gauleiter of Vienna, Odilo Globocnik , visited and allegedly under threat of a performance ban (otherwise "his work would be hushed up in the Greater German Empire") to write a celebratory composition, the title of which he originally planned thanks to the Ostmark to the Führer . His advocacy of the annexation of Austria and his admiration for Hitler cast doubts on the need for such a threat. Schmidt used a. a. his Fuga solemnis for organ and wind parts, which in turn uses Haydn 's imperial hymn . Schmidt originally designed this Fuga for the opening of the main RAVAG building on Argentinierstrasse, which should have taken place in 1937, but only took place in 1939 under the National Socialist regime.

Schmidt worked on the composition of the cantata from autumn 1938, but left it unfinished when he died on February 11, 1939: the work was completely set to music and written in the short score, but only around a third of the orchestral score was worked out. Schmidt's pupil Robert Wagner was commissioned to complete the missing orchestration, about which he expressed himself in fairly detail in the text book for the premiere and also recorded the history of its creation from his perspective.

plant

The cantata consists mainly of a series of large and small orchestra-accompanied vocal numbers, which are interrupted by an interlude of the orchestra and an interlude (Fuga solemnis for organ and brass) . The following choir groups and solos are in dialogue:

  • The returning army (choir, tenor and bass)
  • Angry women (choir, soprano and alto)
  • The False Leaders (Solo Quartet)
  • People (chorus)
  • The Rufer (high bass)
  • Youth (choir, sopranos and elderly)
  • An unemployed (bass)
  • A woman (soprano)
  • Two women and two men (solo quartet)
  • The unsaved Germans abroad (small choir)
  • The Third Reich (large choir)
  • Greater Germany (both choirs together and solo quartet)

In contrast to his oratorio The Book with Seven Sieges , Schmidt left no introductory text for the cantata. The editor Robert Wagner wrote explanations for the text printing of the Universal Edition on the occasion of the premiere, which he described as "analysis of the work".

premiere

In the version by Robert Wagner, Schmidt's German Resurrection was then premiered on April 24, 1940 in the Wiener Musikverein under the conductor Oswald Kabasta , with the performance being broadcast live on Austrian radio . Participants in the premiere were Margarete Teschemacher (soprano), Gertrude Pitzinger (alto), Hans Hoffmann (tenor), Hans Hermann Nissen (baritone) and Hans Songström (bass), the Wiener Singverein , the Wiener Symphoniker and the organist Franz Schütz, from Nazi regime appointed head of the Society of Friends of Music and commissioner of the composition.

Reception history

Schmidt was usually described as "apolitical" by his contemporaries and students. The extent to which he was taken over by the National Socialists and the press, which had been brought into line by this cantata, he has never seen. However, he had not only agreed to the extension of the work from an originally small cantata to an opus of almost oratorical proportions, but also set the text to music in full. However, he wrote a letter to the client, the Gesellschaft der Musikfreunde in Vienna, saying that he felt too weak and that the project was "presumptuous". He "reserves the right to cancel the construction". After Schmidt's death, the client entrusted his student Robert Wagner with the orchestration of the finished design.

Reviewers of the premiere such as Friedrich Matzenauer in the Wiener Neuesten Nachrichten (April 25, 1940) greatly appreciated the performance of the "beautifully worked through performance of the difficult and new task setting work" and came to the conclusion:

“The big Schmidt premiere is over. It was an event in the musical life of Vienna. But the fact that the great years of German history, the rise of the empire and the return of the Ostmark are also shaped in the work of the Viennese master gives him a very special status, especially since the master’s art is worthy of the greatness of his experience. We can be particularly proud of this work by Schmidt, it really counts as an artistic 'thanks from the Ostmark to the Führer'. "

After the Second World War, it was no longer possible to think about repeated performances because of the clear political orientation of the work. It was only after decades that, on the initiative of the Franz Schmidt Society, the connections between the origins of the composition were thematized again and historically differentiated.

output

  • German resurrection. A festive song for solos, choir, orchestra and organ. Text by Oskar Dietrich. Completed by Robert Wagner based on precise sketches by Franz Schmidt. Piano reduction with vocals by Robert Wagner. Vienna: Universal Edition 1940.

literature

  • Reiner Schuhenn : "Franz Schmidt's oratorical works: On the genesis of the" Book with Seven Seals "and the" German Resurrection ": memories, contemporary press reports, obituaries, Franz Schmidt's" Other Foreword "to" Organology "", Vol. VIII of the series " Studies on Franz Schmidt ”, Verlag Doblinger ; Vienna 1990.
  • Hartmut Krones : "One Reich" ... "One People" ... "To Germany's Greatness" - Large intervals for large content in Franz Schmidt's "German Resurrection". In: Carmen Ottner (Ed.): Music in Vienna 1938-1945. Symposium 2004. Studies on Franz Schmidt XV. Vienna 2004, pp. 145–149 ISBN 978-3-900695-87-3 .
  • Gerhard J. Winkler : "German Resurrection" - plan and form of a tribute music. In: Carmen Ottner (Ed.): Music in Vienna 1938–1945. Symposium 2004. Studies on Franz Schmidt XV. Vienna 2004, pp. 113–140 ISBN 978-3-900695-87-3 .
  • Ders .: Franz Schmidt, Haydn's “Gott erhalte” and the organ. In: Julia Bungardt, Maria Helfgott , Eike Rathgeber, Nikolaus Urbanek: Viennese Music History: Approaches - Analyzes - Outlooks; Festschrift for Hartmut Krones. Vienna, Cologne, Weimar 2009, pp. 565-580.

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ Reiner Schuhenn, Franz Schmidts oratorische Werke , Vienna 1990, p. 49: Comments by Dr. Neumann, a confidante and personal physician of Franz Schmidt, passed on by Paul Katzberger in the chapter on the genesis of the work.
  2. ↑ Ulrich Drüner, Georg Günther: Music and "Third Reich". Case studies from 1910 to 1960 on the origins, climax and aftermath of National Socialism in music . Böhlau Verlag, Vienna 2012, p. 61 .
  3. ↑ These manuscripts are kept in the music collection of the Austrian National Library (Vienna) under the shelfmarks Mus.Hs.31773 Mus, MS 773, Mus.Hs.31772 Mus, the digital copies are available online.
  4. ↑ Part 1 and Part 2
  5. ↑ In his review of the premiere in the Österreichische Volks-Zeitung (p. 8, April 26, 1940), Hanns Salaschek regretted that Schmidt's request to cast boys' voices in the youth choirs was not met: “Also the at least expected addition of the bitter, There were no unfinished boys' voices: a shame for a 'youth choir'! How would the boys of the Hitler Youth . and the DJ . sung into it! "
  6. ↑ Quoted from: German Resurrection. Universal Edition No. 11.206 Made in Germany.
  7. ↑ Part 1 and Part 2
  8. ^ German resurrection. Universal Edition No. 11.206 Made in Germany.
  9. ↑ Proof of the premiere
  10. ↑ For example by Alfred Uhl , cf. Joachim Reiber, web link.
  11. ↑ Manuscript in the archive of the Gesellschaft der Musikfreunde. Quoted from: http://diepresse.com/home/meinung/feuilleton/sinkoviczzwischentoene/5233323/Nicht-nur-Kindes-auch-Vaterweglege-sollte-ein-Delikt-sein
  12. ^ WorldCat