Emil Nikolaus von Reznicek

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Emil Nikolaus von Reznicek

Emil Nikolaus Joseph, Freiherr von Reznicek (born May 4, 1860 in Vienna , Austrian Empire , † August 2, 1945 in Berlin ) was an Austro-German conductor and composer .

family

Emil Nikolaus von Reznicek wrote of himself "I am to be treated as a Slavo-Romanesque composer with German culture, who was born in Vienna. In fact, he came from a Bohemian family from the Berauner district . His grandfather was the military bandmaster and composer Josef Resnitschek (1787–1848) His father was the kuk Feldmarschallleutnant Josef Reznicek (1812-1887), who had been raised to the Austrian knighthood on January 4, 1853 in Vienna and on January 2, 1860 with a diploma from February 1, 1860 in Vienna to the Austrian baron . His mother, Clarisse Fürstin Ghica -Budesti (1837–1864), came from the Romanian nobility . Emil Nikolaus von Reznicek was a half-brother of the painter Ferdinand von Rezniček (1868–1909) and father of the journalist, writer and German resistance fighter Felicitas von Reznicek (1904 –1997) and adoptive father of the sports journalist Burghard von Reznicek (1896–1971), son of his wife Bertha from her first marriage.

Life

Location of Reznicek's house in Vienna's Josefstadt, Buchfeldgasse 19, corner of Florianigasse

Reznicek was born in Vienna and grew up in materially carefree circumstances. Nonetheless, according to his own memory, he experienced a difficult youth when he could not get along with his stepmother after the early death of his mother. At times he was deported to boarding schools. In this situation he found music early on, which became an existential necessity for him. From the age of eleven he received piano lessons based on the Viennese classics. In 1873 his uncle Eugen Ghika introduced him to Richard Wagner's music. Johannes Brahms noticed him and invited him to join the Singverein after his voice broke . This did not happen because the family moved to Graz in 1874. There he received his first composition lessons from Wilhelm Driver; the first compositions were also composed during this time. Reznicek graduated from high school in Marburg an der Drau in 1878 . After he was drafted for unfit for military service, the father suggested a career in the diplomatic service. Reznicek therefore studied law at the University of Graz from 1878 . At the same time he received musical training (1878–1881) in Graz from Wilhelm Mayer ( WA Rémy ), who was also the teacher of Wilhelm Kienzl , Felix Weingartner , Ferruccio Busoni and Richard Heuberger . After failing the first law exam (probably on purpose), his father gave up his resistance and allowed a career as a composer. According to Mayer's advice, he finished his studies (1881/82) at the Leipzig Conservatory under Carl Reinecke and Salomon Jadassohn . In the 1883/84 season he was an intern at the Graz Theater with Alfred Skraup. At that time he married his first wife Milka von Thurn-Valsassina (1864-1897). Then he was theater music director in Zurich , Stettin , Jena , Bochum and Berlin (1884/1886). Through his engagement at the summer theater in Szczecin he lost a large part of his maternal inheritance: from then on he was dependent on living from his own income. In Mainz he was a very successful second conductor alongside Ernst Steinbach in 1886/87. From 1887 to 1895 he lived in Prague, first as a composer for the German Theater under Angelo Neumann , then as military bandmaster of Infantry Regiment No. 88. In this position he was released after a duel . While he was waiting for new civilian clothes, he wrote (1892/1893) the opera Donna Diana , the premiere of which in Prague in 1894 led to his decisive breakthrough as a composer.

Berlin memorial plaque on the house at Knesebeckstrasse 32, in Berlin-Charlottenburg

After trying to succeed Eduard Lassen as Kapellmeister in Weimar in 1895 , he spent a year as a privateer in Leipzig. From 1896 to 1899 he was court conductor in Mannheim . He turned down the offer to go to New York City as chief conductor of the Metropolitan Opera and the Symphony Orchestra . In the summer of 1897 he became a widower; but got to know his second wife Berta Juillerat-Chasseur (1874–1939) relatively quickly, whose father was the editor of Mannheimer Morgen at the time. The fact that Berta was of Jewish descent on her mother's side was to put the family in great distress after 1933. When Reznicek met his future wife Berta, she was already living apart from her first husband, the painter Edgar Meyer , but was not yet divorced. The fact that the young couple still lived together openly was a scandal at the time, especially when their son Emil-Ludwig (1898–1940) was born out of wedlock in 1898. Reznicek was then bullied from his Mannheim position. In 1899 he was able to marry Berta and the couple moved to Wiesbaden (1899–1902). During the empire, Reznicek was never again to get a public job appropriate to his abilities. However, he processed his Mannheim experiences in his Volksoper Till Eulenspiegel , which Felix Mottl premiered in Karlsruhe in 1902 and which is a settlement with the (bourgeois) society of the Wilhelmine era. When in 1903 a performance of the work at the Royal Opera in Berlin became apparent, the family moved to the then still independent Charlottenburg near Berlin, where Reznicek would live until his death in 1945. In 1904 he took on German citizenship, mainly to enable his eldest son Eugen to join the German Navy as a midshipman.

Despite initial success with Till Eulenspiegel and the tragic symphony premiered by Felix Weingartner , Reznicek initially had difficulties establishing himself as a composer in Berlin. This not least because he deliberately refrained from using his aristocratic origins and even deliberately positioned himself to be left-wing liberal by setting lyrics from the collection of songs from the gutter . In the first time he taught composition at the Klindworth-Scharwenka Conservatory ; He also organized chamber music concerts (a novelty at the time) in which he performed pre-classical music with (then) modern music for string orchestra. From 1906–1908 he was the first guest conductor at the National Philharmonic and at the Warsaw Opera . This was followed by the time as first conductor at the Komische Oper of Hans Gregor at the Weidendammer Bridge in Berlin from 1909 to 1911 (not to be confused with today's Komische Oper in Behrenstrasse). This activity ended when Hans Gregor was appointed artistic director of the Vienna Court Opera in 1911. Around the same time, Reznicek's second wife had to undergo a dangerous operation and was in mortal danger for several months. Reznicek processed this experience in his symphonic poem Der Schlemihl , with which his second creative phase, which lasted until 1935, began. Hans Conrad Bodmer , who at this time first became Reznicek's pupil, then became his friend and finally his patron, had a decisive role in this development, enabling Reznicek to work freely without the duties of a conductor. When the war broke out in 1914, Reznicek did not allow himself to be infected by the general hurray patriotism, but composed In memoriam, a kind of non- denominational requiem for the fallen. In 1915/1916 he finally created his main work with the opera Ritter Blaubart based on the scandalous play of the same name by Herbert Eulenberg . Reznicek follows an expressionist dramaturgy in which, on the one hand, his experiences with the director's theater of Hans Gregors are reflected, on the other hand, he takes sides with the figure of Bluebeard, whom he depicts in a very modern way as a sex offender and thus victim and offender at the same time. The first performance was banned by the war censorship and could not be rescheduled until 1920. With the premiere of Bluebeard in Darmstadt , however, Reznicek's public perception also changed: the Donna Diana composer became the Bluebeard composer, who, alongside Richard Strauss and Hans Pfitzner, was considered the most important German composer of the 1860s generation. This was followed by public recognition: in 1920 he became a member and later a senator of the Prussian Academy of the Arts . He turned down the offer to become director of the Hochschule der Künste in Berlin (and thus cleared the way for Franz Schreker ), but from 1920 to 1926 he held an honorary professorship for instrumentation there. As early as 1917, he was a member of the board of the General German Music Association and, as a member of the works testing committee, played a key role in the programming of the annual Tonkünstler Festival. Other public awards have now also been given to him; its premieres are regularly discussed in the national press. He achieved an outstanding audience success again in 1930 with the one-act play or Ernst , which was considered the best short opera since Eugen d'Albert's Die Departure and was actually played on all German theaters.

The year 1933 marked a deep turning point in the family's life, as the Jewish descent of his wife, who Reznicek had never denied, became a problem. This initially affected his son Emil-Ludwig, who, as a civil servant, was directly affected by the law to restore the civil service of April 7, 1933. "Proof of Aryan descent" was only possible in 1936, when Felicitas von Reznicek had obtained forged documents from Switzerland that attested the Jewish grandmother's Christian descent. The incomprehensibility of the process includes the fact that Emil-Ludwig himself had become a member of the NSDAP, the SA and later the SS since 1930, which, when he revealed this to the family in 1933, almost led to a rift between father and son. Felicitas von Reznicek, who tried to emigrate to Switzerland in 1933, took a completely different path. Since she was not given a work permit there, she was forced to return to Berlin, where at the end of 1933 she joined the resistance around Rudolf Pechel . (In 1940, with full awareness of high treason, she also became an agent of the British secret service). Reznicek's wife Berta suffered the most from this development. She attempted suicide which could barely be prevented. She then withdrew completely from the public eye and fell into severe depression, to which her daughter attributes her early cardiac death in 1939. Reznicek himself tried to protect his family by joining the Permanent Council for International Cooperation of Composers , initiated by Richard Strauss .

The fact that Reznicek rose to a well-respected composer in the Nazi state, as Fred K. Prieberg states in his handbook , was by no means self-evident in view of his family environment and his left-liberal positioning in the Weimar Republic, especially since the Volkischer Beobachter Reznicek on the occasion of the Use of jazz music in the 1927 opera Satuala had moved closer to Ernst Krenek . In fact, Reznicek had no fear of contact with jazz or new music and was close friends with Alban Berg . A coincidence came to his aid: Reznicek, who was close to the Berta von Suttner peace movement throughout his life , had written a festival overture in 1926 - the liberated Cologne . In it he celebrated the withdrawal of the Allied occupation forces and the admission of Germany to the League of Nations , as laid down in the Locarno Treaties and for which the foreign ministers at the time were honored with the Nobel Peace Prize. The recognition of the new German western borders contained therein was particularly controversial among the German right, so that in 1927 Reznicek could not find a conductor who wanted to dare a world premiere. Max Donisch , who was friends with Reznicek, knew about this composition. And when Donisch, who was a member of the NSDAP, was appointed head of the music department of the German broadcaster (succeeding Hans Mersmann ) in 1933, he persuaded Reznicek to have the work premiered in June 1933 at prominent airtime in the " hour of the nation ". (Coupled with Richard Strauss' suite from Schlagobers, by the way .) The work was given the new title Liberated Germany . Formally, this was not entirely wrong, insofar as there was only a partial withdrawal of Allied troops in 1926; it was not until 1930 that all troops had been withdrawn. In the program note for this performance, Reznicek explicitly pointed out that the work was composed in 1926 and referred to the Locarno agreements; Nevertheless, this did not prevent the title from being misunderstood as a tribute to the Nazi state. When he became aware of this, he saw his mistake and withdrew the work from circulation. When the Kölner Rundfunk also wanted to perform the work in October 1933, it untruthfully claimed that the score had been lost; which he expressly repeated in his 1941 memoir. Nevertheless, the broadcast had its effect: when the Berlin premiere of his new version of Donna Diana was approaching at the end of 1933 , a biographical article was published in the Völkischer Beobachter that expressly stated that Reznicek had already written an overture Liberated Germany in 1926 , thus (incorrectly) suggesting that he was already a sympathizer of the party.

After this episode Richard Strauss, who had been friends with Reznicek since 1896, had no problems making him a German delegate to the Permanent Council for International Cooperation of Composers that he had initiated . Contrary to the view propagated primarily by Ernst Krenek in 1934, it was neither a Nazi propaganda institution and a counter-event to the IGNM , nor an idea from the Propaganda Ministry of Joseph Goebbels , but rather Richard Strauss' hobbyhorse, which Goebbels allowed as long as he did This promised to be useful for propaganda purposes. In fact, Strauss was primarily concerned with enforcing copyright law based on the German model in as many European countries as possible. The Permanent Council should primarily deal with this question, and it was also decided to organize international music festivals and exchange concerts (not necessarily with living composers) as a publicity measure. As the German delegate, Reznicek was primarily responsible for selecting the program for the music festivals held in Germany; a job for which he was predestined, as he had earned a reputation for absolute objectivity as a member of the ADMV's program committee the previous decade. Strauss himself, after quickly losing his initial interest, gave Reznicek a de facto free hand in this. This also applied to a certain extent to the Ministry of Propaganda: German composers naturally had to be members of the Reichsmusikkammer , which automatically meant that a pre-selection was made in the interests of the party; In the case of foreign composers, however, it was recognized that one could not proceed too restrictively if one wanted to fulfill the propagandistic purpose of making the Nazi state appear as a sponsor of the arts. Reznicek used this freedom to perform composers (as well as Jewish ones) in Germany who otherwise would hardly have found a performance opportunity. Examples are Paul Dukas or Pancho Vladigerov or Constant Lambert's jazz fantasy The Rio Grande . His self-deprecating remark that these events are the “cultural icing on the cake” that the regime puts on itself shows that he was aware of the problem of the propaganda being brought into service.

De facto, this function primarily meant expert work. Organizing a music festival brought with it the necessity to examine 500–600 compositions submitted and then to make a practical selection. Reznicek fulfilled this task with great commitment and free of charge. He also failed to promote his own works. This was at the expense of his own composing activity: after 1935 he hardly composed any more. However, he also avoided the need to write any homage compositions for the system. He continued to receive public recognition, for example with the Goethe Medal for Art and Science in 1935 and the Johannes Brahms Medal from the City of Hamburg. On April 20, 1936, Adolf Hitler reappointed him professor. However, Reznicek was not persona grata in all parts of the NSDAP. In 1938 he was proposed by the President of the Reich Music Chamber as Reich Culture Senator, but he was not appointed. The Reichskultursenat was the domain of Alfred Rosenberg , who was also responsible for the specialist journal Die Musik , in which Reznicek was conspicuously hushed up. His eightieth birthday was celebrated in 1940 and he was awarded a monthly honorary salary of RM 500 for his services by Hitler. Since Reznicek had neither pension nor health insurance for his life, this was only a small compensation for the fact that he had been robbed of essential parts of his royalties in 1933, insofar as his very successful operas Ritter Blaubart (the librettist Eulenberg was banned from working) and Holofernes (due to the Jewish subjects) could no longer be listed.

The Permanent Council functioned relatively smoothly until 1940. A music festival had been prepared in Vienna for April, but this was thwarted by the Vienna State Opera and postponed to 1941 due to alleged financial problems. Reznicek then wrote his memoirs, which were intended for publication, but were then not approved by the Propaganda Ministry. Although Reznicek had phrased it carefully, this text aroused suspicion that it was not as true to the line as previously suspected. His situation worsened when the music festival could not take place in 1941 either. The new Gauleiter of Vienna, Baldur von Schirach , had quickly rededicated the budgeted funds in order to finance the orchestra festival with which the Vienna Philharmonic wanted to celebrate its centenary in 1942. This actually belongs to the guerrilla war that the Gauleiter of Vienna and Berlin fought, but indirectly also affected Reznicek, insofar as the Propaganda Ministry got the impression that he no longer had the necessary energy to carry out his duties. In addition, it was noticed (only) on this occasion that the Permanent Council was a free organization and not aligned in the interests of the party. A general meeting was called in Berlin for June 1942, at which Richard Strauss was supposed to convince the foreign delegates to adopt the new statutes by free choice. Reznicek tried to organize a majority against this change, but could not prevail because a number of reliable delegates had not dared to travel to Berlin. (Incidentally, the most open resistance came from the Swede Kurt Atterberg ). Reznicek himself was confirmed as a delegate, but with Werner Egk and Gerhart von Westerman two other German delegates were placed at his side, of whom von Westerman took over the leading role immediately after the conference. At the same time, the Ministry of Propaganda issued the unofficial instruction to only play music by Reznicek on the radio and in concerts as an exception, which, as evidenced by the GEMA accounts, was followed.

Reznicek then resumed his composing activity. When the air raids on Berlin increased in the summer of 1943, his daughter was able to convince him to seek protection in Baden near Vienna . Shortly after his departure, all of his manuscripts were requisitioned by the Rosenberg office and stored in a mine near Kalau in Lausitz. There they fell into the hands of the Red Army at the end of the war . Some of the manuscripts came to the Austrian National Library in 1957 ; a part has been lost to this day. On Christmas Eve 1943, Reznicek suffered a stroke in Baden, which he survived, but which increasingly left him with dementia and made him need to have care. In order to provide him with adequate care, his daughter Felicitas obtained a final endowment of RM 30,000 from Goebbels in December 1944. In January 1945 he was brought from Baden to Bad Saarow . When he got there, the Wehrmacht had converted the sanatorium into a military hospital. A care package sent by Kurt Atterberg from Sweden made it possible to temporarily stay with a farmer. With the last transfer of files before the occupation of Bad Saarow by the Red Army, he was allowed to return to his Berlin apartment. There he died of typhus on August 2, 1945 .

Reznicek was one of the first Berlin citizens who were no longer buried in a mass grave: Curt Riess , whom Felicitas knew from their apprenticeship at Ullstein , donated a gallon of gasoline from American army stocks, and so the body could be put in the family grave at the Wilmersdorf forest cemetery in Stahnsdorf be convicted. When crossing the sector border, the Soviet officer advised the corpse bearers to take off their black suits to be on the safe side so that the burial took place in underwear. The great ironic Reznicek should have liked this.

In 1955, the Reznicekgasse in Vienna- Alsergrund (9th district) was named after him.

Works

Stage works

  • The Maid of Orleans, opera in three acts (1887. Libretto Reznicek after Friedrich Schiller )
  • Andreas Hofer , Singspiel in one act by Albert Lortzing (1887; arrangement by Emil Nikolaus von Reznicek [including two newly composed numbers)]
  • Satanella, opera in three acts (1888, libretto Reznicek after Vrchlický) [only preserved as piano reduction]
  • Emerich Fortunat Opera in three acts (1889, libretto Reznicek / Dubski)
  • Donna Diana , opera in three acts (1894, 2nd version 1908, 3rd version 1933 ; libretto: Reznicek after Agustín Moreto )
  • Till Eulenspiegel , Volksoper in two parts and an aftermath (1900, new version 1939; libretto: Emil Nikolaus von Reznicek after Johann Fischart )
  • The lost bride, operetta (1909; libretto A. Pordes -Milo, not yet performed)
  • The unwilling doctor , opera in three acts by Charles Gounod (1910; translated and arranged for the German stage by Emil Nikolaus von Reznicek)
  • The fear of marriage , operetta (1913; libretto: Louis Taufstein and Erich Urban after Maurice Hennequin) [only received as a piano reduction]
  • Dream play , incidental music for August Strindberg's drama (1915)
  • Ritter Blaubart , fairy tale opera in three acts (1915-1917, premiere: Darmstadt 1920; libretto: Herbert Eulenberg )
  • After Damascus III, incidental music for August Strindberg's drama (1916, not yet performed)
  • The Whimsical Tales of Kapellmeister Kreisler, (1922; incidental music for Carl Meinhard's play based on ETAHoffmann ) [lost]
  • Kreisler's corner window, (1923; incidental music for Carl Meinhard's play based on ETAHoffmann) [lost]
  • Holofernes , opera in two acts (1923; Libretto: EN by Reznicek after Friedrich Hebbel )
  • The Best Police, (1926; incidental music for Herbert Eulenberg's drama)
  • Marionettes of death , ballet in four pictures (1927; = choreography of the dance symphony by Ellen von Cleve-Petz )
  • Satuala , opera in three acts (1928; libretto: Rolf Lauckner )
  • Petrol , opera in two acts (1929; libretto by the composer, freely based on Calderón de la Barca)
  • Spiel oder Ernst , Komische Oper in one act (1930; Libretto: Poul Knudsen )
  • The Doge's Gondolier , tragic opera in one act (1931; libretto: Poul Knudsen)
  • Masks of jealousy, opera in two parts (= gondolier of the Doge and game or Ernst )
  • The victim, opera in three acts and a vision (1932, libretto: Poul Knudsen , not yet performed)
  • Donna Diana , opera in three acts (1933; with a completely new version of the text by Julius Kapp based on Agustín Moreto)
  • The golden calf , ballet in three pictures (1935; libretto: Viggo Cavling , not yet performed)

Choral works

  • Choir for graduation ceremony at the grammar school Marburg (1877) (lost)
  • Requiem (Studienwerk Graz 1878–1881, lost)
  • Requiem in D minor for solos, mixed choir, organ and orchestra (1894; lost)
  • Mass in F major for solos, mixed choir and orchestra (1898 for the 50th anniversary of the throne of Emperor Franz Josef 1; only sketch preserved)
  • In Memoriam , for alto, baritone, mixed choir, organ and string orchestra (1915, 1929, 1936)
  • Our Father , chorale fantasy for mixed choir and organ (1919)
  • Seven German folk songs from the 16th and 17th centuries for mixed choir / piano (1924)
  • The stone psalm for mixed choir, organ and orchestra (1929; text: Karl Bröger )
  • Vom Ewigen Frieden, cantata for solos, mixed choir and orchestra, (1930, text: Reznicek, not yet performed)
  • Although I am a poor fool: German folk song from the 16th century for four-part gem. Choir (1930) [1. Version]
  • Of real love and steadfastness. German folk song from the 16th century for voice / pf or choir / organ (1933) [2. u. 3rd version]
  • Seven German folk songs from the 16th and 17th centuries for mixed choir / piano, 2nd episode (1936)

Orchestral works

  • Study symphony (Graz 1881, lost)
  • Study Symphony No. 1 (Leipzig 1882, lost)
  • Study Symphony No. 2 (Leipzig 1882, lost)
  • A comedy overture (1881/1896; also for piano 4 ed.)
  • Symphonic Suite No. 1 in E minor (1883)
  • Symphonic Suite No. 2 in D major (1884/96; also for piano 4 ed.)
  • Grünne March for military orchestra (1890)
  • Probszt -Marsch for military orchestra (1891) [only received as piano reduction]
  • Prayer from the opera Emerich Fortunat for military orchestra (1891)
  • The red sarafan for military orchestra (1891)
  • How Till Eulenspiegel lived, symphonic interlude in the form of an overture (1900; = music from the opera Till Eulenspiegel )
  • Symphony [No. 1] D minor Tragic (1902)
  • Goldpirol: Idyllic Overture (1903); (2nd version 1936 as: Spring Overture: In the German Forest)
  • Symphony [No. 2] B flat major Ironic (1904)
  • Prelude and Fugue for large orchestra in C sharp minor (1904; 1st version)
  • Night piece for violin or violoncello and small orchestra (1905)
  • Serenade in G major for string orchestra (1905, revised 1920)
  • Introduction and Valse-Capriccio for violin and orchestra in D major (1906; lost)
  • Paeludium and (chromatic) fugue for large orchestra in C sharp minor (1907; 2nd version; organ version 1921)
  • Schlemihl - A picture of life , symphonic poem (with tenor solo; 1912)
  • Prelude and (whole-tone) fugue in C minor (1913, also version for organ 1920)
  • The winner - a symphonic-satyrical picture of the time , symphonic poetry (with alto solo and mixed choir; 1913)
  • Peace - A Vision , symphonic poem (with mixed choir, 1914)
  • March for orchestra / military orchestra / piano (1915)
  • Concert piece for violin and orchestra in E major (1918)
  • Concerto for Violin and Orchestra in E minor (1918)
  • Symphony [No. 3] D major in the old style (1918)
  • Symphony [No. 4] in F minor (1919) [from this funeral march for the death of a commander, also for piano solo]
  • Theme and variations Tragic story (with baritone solo; 1921) (also variant without baritone solo)
  • Traumspiel Suite for small orchestra (1921; also for piano solo)
  • Potpourri from The Wonderful Tales of the Kapellmeister Kreisler Salon Orchestra (1922; also for piano solo)
  • Valse pathetique for orchestra / salon orchestra / piano (1923)
  • Valse serieuse (Ernster Walze) (19 24; originally intended for dance symphony)
  • Symphony [No. 5] F sharp minor dance symphony (1925) [= ballet puppets of death ]
  • Raskolnikoff , Fantasy Overture No. 1 (1925)
  • Raskolnikoff , Fantasy Overture No. 2 (1925)
  • Suite from The Best Police for string orchestra (1926)
  • Festival Overture to Liberated Cologne (1926)
  • Symphonic Variations on Kol Nidrey (1929) [theme = prelude to the opera Holofernes ]
  • Raskolnikoff , Fantasy Overture No. 3 (1st version 1929; 2nd version 1930)
  • Carnival suite for small orchestra (1931/43 = music between acts from the Doge's gondolier )
  • Mea culpa for string orchestra (1932; = prelude to The Sacrifice )

Chamber music

  • Night piece for violin or cello and piano (1905; also for small orchestra)
  • String Quartet in C minor (1882) [Altmann number 1]
  • String Quartet in C sharp minor (1906)
  • String quartet fragment in c sharp minor (?; Only movements 1.-3 preserved)
  • String Quartet in C sharp minor (1921) [Altmann No. 2]
  • String Quartet in D minor (1922) [1st + 2nd Movement arrangement of the c sharp minor quartet 1905; 3rd and 4th movement new] [Altmann No. 3]
  • Allegro alla polacca for string quartet (1922; original new final movement for the D minor quartet)
  • String Quartet in E minor (1st version before 1928; 1928 alternative final movement; May 20, 1930 revision of the new final movement)
  • String Quartet in B flat major (1932) [2nd + 3rd Movement taken from Quartet in E minor] [Altmann No. 4]
  • 2 movements for string quartet (?; Fragments)
  • Prelude to Holofernes (Kol Nidrey) for violin and piano (1925)
  • For our little ones - movement for piano trio (1921)
  • Waltz song for piano trio (1924; excerpt from Valse pathetique ; also for piano solo)

Organ and piano works

  • Two fantasy pieces for piano (composed Marburg 1876–1878; printed 1882/1896)
  • Witches scene from Macbeth (Marburg 1877; lost)
  • Last thoughts of a suicide (1878–1881; lost)
  • Four piano pieces (1880)
  • Probszt -Marsch for military orchestra (1891) [only received as piano reduction]
  • A comedy overture (1881/1896; for piano, 4 ed.)
  • Symphonic Suite No. 2 in D major (1884/96; for piano 4 ed.)
  • March for piano (1915; also orchestra, military orchestra)
  • Funeral march for the death of a comedian for piano (1919; = movement from Symphony in F minor)
  • Prelude and (whole-tone) fugue in C minor (1913, version for organ 1920)
  • Paeludium and (chromatic) fugue for large orchestra in C sharp minor (1907, 2nd version; organ version 1921)
  • Traumspiel -Suite for piano (1921) [also small orchestra]
  • Potpourri from The Wonderful Tales of Kapellmeister Kreisler for piano (1922; also for salon orchestra)
  • Four symphonic dances for piano (1924) [No. 1, 2 and 4 orchestrated in dance symphony ]
  • Valse Pathétique for piano (1924) [also orchestra / salon orchestra]
  • Waltz song for piano (1924; excerpt from Valse pathetique ; also for piano trio)
  • Minuet from The Best Police for piano (1927)
  • Fantasia in E minor for organ (1930)
  • Declaration of love for piano (1943)

Songs

  • Fame and Eternity for tenor or mezzo-soprano and orchestra (1903; text: Friedrich Nietzsche )
  • Three German folk songs from Des Knaben Wunderhorn for small orchestra / piano (1905)
  • Two ballads from the Friederician period for bass and orchestra / piano (1912, text: Friedrich de la Motte Fouqué , Georg von Kries )
  • Four prayer and penance chants for alto or bass and orchestra / piano (1913, text: bible)
  • Three moods (1883; Reznicek)
  • Trois Mélodies (1897;?, Goethe)
  • Three songs of a vagabond (1904; M. Drescher)
  • Three poems (1904; M. Drescher)
  • Three poems (1904; Henckell)
  • Three songs (1905; Bierbaum, Forrer, Henckell)
  • Mischievous Defense (1905; Henckell)
  • Three songs (1918; Owiglas; Mörike; Eichendorff)
  • The castaways (1921; Drescher)
  • Madonna on the Rhine. A German Lullaby (1924; HHCramer)
  • Seven songs for medium voice and piano (1939; Ginzkey, Lilienkron, Höcker)
  • Guardian Song (1939; based on a folk tune of the 16th century)

Reception history

Reznicek experienced his compositional breakthrough with the world premiere of Donna Diana in December 1894 in Prague. The work was created around the same time as Engelbert Humperdinck's Hansel and Gretel or Wilhelm Kienzl's Evangelimann . Like these works, Donna Diana marks that moment in music history when the composers step out of the shadow of Richard Wagner , moving from pure Wagner imitation to a productive Wagner reception and beginning to tread paths that go beyond Wagner ' bring out a musical drama. In the case of Donna Diana , it should be noted that the reception of the overture and that of the following opera went separate ways from the start. While the overture became an evergreen that can be heard in all concert halls around the world to this day, the opera saw around fifty productions in German-speaking countries. A second version from 1908 was unsuccessful and the work disappeared completely from the stages for 25 years. It was not until the third version from 1933 with a new text and radically stripped-down instrumentation that it was a success again, which saw another fifty productions by 1944. So when Reznicek is described in the 1920s, for example in Riemann's music lexicon alongside Richard Strauss and Hans Pfitzner, as the most important representative of the German generation of composers of the 1860s, this assessment was not based on the long-forgotten Donna Diana, but on the works of his who began around 1911 second creative period, above all the opera Ritter Bluebeard , of which he himself claimed in a letter to Ernst Décsey to have significantly modernized his style. (Similar to the case of Leos Janáček , Reznicek's main oeuvre is an old work that was created after his fiftieth birthday).

Since the performance materials of Donna Diana were all loaned at the end of the war, they went up in flames with the opera houses in the final phase of the war. Some attempts to revive the opera after 1950 had to fall back on the first version from 1894 and were all the less convincing when Reznicek, like all composers whose work extended into the 20th century and who stuck to the tonality, in signs of musical avant-garde was classified as epigonal and forgotten. In Germany, only the overture to the opera Donna Diana remained alive, as its main theme was the opening melody of the musical quiz program, which was broadcast monthly from 1969 to 1985 (with interruptions), by Ernst Stankovski and later by Johanna von Koczian and Günther Schramm , do you recognize the melody? acted. When around 1980 a new reflection began and composers like Franz Schreker or Alexander Zemlinsky were rediscovered, one could have expected a similar renaissance for Reznicek. This was countered by the publication of Fred K. Prieberg's Handbook of German Musicians 1933–1945 , which raised the charge that Reznicek was a Nazi sympathizer, an accusation that has only recently been refuted by the work of Michael Wittmann. This led to a gradual rethink also in the music business.

For the first time since the 1960s, Donna Diana could be seen again under the direction of Kirsten Harms in 2003 at the Kiel Opera in a production by Alexander von Pfeil . Cpo published a recording of this performance on CD as part of its Reznicek edition under the musical direction of the conductor Ulrich Windfuhr . Since then, the staged rendition of the Knight Bluebeard in Augsburg, the Holofernes in Bonn and the posthumous world premiere of Petrol in Chemnitz and a concert rendition of Donna Diana at the location of its world premiere, the former "German Theater" in Prague in March 2018. In April 2018 the modern premiere of his war request In memoriam took place in Neubrandenburg. The CPO label has now made Reznicek's most important orchestral works accessible on six CDs; a partial recording of his string quartets by the Minguet Quartet is in preparation. As far as possible under copyright law, all of Reznicek's printed works have been uploaded to IMSLP . The quite numerous unpublished compositions by Reznicek have been published by Editio Reznicek ( Wedemark ) since 2012 . The Reznicek archive was also set up there, with the aim of collecting all available Reznicek documents and providing advice to interested musicologists and musicians.

literature

  • Sigfrid Karg-Elert : Freiherr EN von Rezniček. In: Die Musik-Woche, 27 and 28 (1904), pp. 210f. and 218f.
  • Otto Taubmann, Emil Nikolaus von Reznicek. In: Monographs of Modern Musicians II. CF Kahnt Successor, Leipzig 1907, pp. 215–230.
  • Max Chop : EN v. Reznicek, his life and works. A biographical study. Universal-Edition, Vienna a. ao J. [around 1920].
  • Richard Specht : EN v. Reznicek. A preliminary study. EP Tal & Co. Verlag, Leipzig u. a. 1923.
  • Wilhelm Altmann: EN by Reznicek. In: Neue Zeitschrift für Musik 97 (1930), pp. 525-535.
  • Emil Nikolaus von Reznicek: diary (memoirs), manuscript. 1940 (in press).
  • Felicitas von Reznicek / Leopold Nowak : Against the current. Life and work of EN von Reznicek. Amalthea-Verlag, Zurich a. a. 1960.
  • Thomas Leibnitz, Austrian Late Romanticists: Studies on Emil Nikolaus von Reznicek, Joseph Marx, Franz Schmidt and Egon Kornauth; with documentation of the handwritten sources in the music collection of the Austrian National Library. Tutzing 1986.
  • Michael Wittmann : Emil Nikolaus von Reznicek and the "Permanent Council for International Cooperation of Composers" (= Reznicek Studies 1). Music publisher HM Fehrmann, Wedemark 2015.
  • Michael Wittmann: Emil Nikolaus von Reznicek. A research report (= Reznicek studies 2). Music publisher HM Fehrmann, Wedemark 2015.
  • Michael Wittmann: Emil Nikolaus von Reznicek. Building blocks for his biography (= Reznicek studies 3). Music publisher HM Fehrmann, Wedemark 2018.

Web links

Commons : Emil von Reznicek  - collection of images, videos and audio files

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ Letter to Ernst Deczy from February 13, 1921
  2. ^ Genealogisches Handbuch des Adels , Adelslexikon Volume XI, page 366, Volume 122 of the complete series. CA Starke Verlag, Limburg (Lahn) 2000, ISSN  0435-2408
  3. ^ Emil Nikolaus on his 80th birthday vonreznicek.de
  4. ^ Ghika - Le Site de la Famille. Retrieved August 25, 2018 .
  5. ^ A b Michael Wittmann: Emil Nikolaus von Reznicek: Childhood and Youth. Retrieved August 25, 2018 .
  6. ↑ Graduation certificate June 9, 1882
  7. ^ Michael Wittmann: EN von Reznicek as opera and concert conductor. Retrieved January 9, 2018 ((with list of all operas and concerts conducted by Reznicek)).
  8. ↑ a b c d Felicitas von Reznicek: Against the current . Vienna 1960, p. 44-56, 56-69, 80-91, 132-181 .
  9. ↑ Michael Wittmann: EN v. Reznicek as a military bandmaster. Retrieved August 26, 2018 .
  10. ↑ a b Berlin State Archives, draft resolution for the meeting of the Charlottenburg City Council, May 27, 1904
  11. ↑ Udo Leuschner: The shadow of Dr. jur. Hermann Haas. Retrieved August 25, 2018 .
  12. ↑ City Archives Mannheim: family arches Juillerat-Chasseur and Reznicek
  13. ↑ In her unprinted memoir I was there , Felicitas von Reznicek reports that E. N. received a monthly allowance and that Bodmer also pre-financed many of the printing of his works.
  14. ↑ Michael Wittmann: EN v. Reznicek's World War II request “In memoriam”. Retrieved August 25, 2018 .
  15. ↑ E.g. Alfred Einstein : Reznicek. In: Riemann-Musiklexikon, 11th edition 1929
  16. ↑ Lucerne Latest News : Inerview: The Baroness who spied for MI6 . January 18, 1993.
  17. ↑ Felicitas von Reznicek: I was there - memoirs . Manuscript, 1980.
  18. ^ A b c Michael Wittmann: Emil Nikolaus von Reznicek and the "Permanent Council for International Cooperation of Composers" . Wedemark 2015.
  19. ^ A b c Fred K. Prieberg: Handbook of German Musicians 1933–1945. CD-Rom-Lexikon, Kiel 2004, pp. 5.724-5.725.
  20. ↑ After the last occupation troops had withdrawn, the “Liberation Celebration” began, the official title, which is considered the first live broadcast by all German radio stations (Reznicek already owned a radio at that time). A detailed report could be read in the daily newspapers of February 1, 1926.
  21. ^ Vossische Zeitung: The liberation celebration of Cologne. February 1, 1926, accessed August 25, 2018 .
  22. ^ Letter from Wilhelm Buschkötter to Reznicek dated September 14, 1933 (Vienna, ÖNB, 597 / 28-1)
  23. ↑ Program note in Der Führer June 24, 1933, p. 7
  24. ↑ Likewise in a letter to UE dated March 20, 1940. Since the work is mentioned in the prospectus published on his eightieth birthday, he apparently wanted to block requests for performance.
  25. ↑ Fred K. Prieberg: Handbook of German Musicians 1933–1945 , p. 5.729.
  26. ↑ The process is meticulously documented in the files of the City of Vienna's cultural office for the year 1939/40. (Vienna City and State Archives General Registration 468/194).
  27. ^ Letter from Reznicek to Adriano Lualdi dated August 5, 1941
  28. ↑ The entire process is documented in the files of the Reich Propaganda Ministry. (Federal Archives R55 / 23 793 - 23 794) -
  29. ^ Adolf Streuli (President of SUISA), Memorandum for American Foreign Property Custodian, March 1964 (copy of the UE archive, Vienna)
  30. ↑ Fred K. Prieberg: Handbook of German Musicians 1933–1945 , pp. 5.733 and 5.735.
  31. ^ Letter from Felicitas von Reznicek to Hilde Atterberg dated March 31, 1946 (Atterberg Museum Stockholm)
  32. ↑ Michael Wittmann: The Metamorphoses of Donna Diana. Retrieved August 25, 2018 .
  33. ^ Letter from Reznicek to Ernst Décsey dated May 13, 1921 (Vienna, City Hall Library)
  34. ↑ Compositions by Emil von Reznicek. Retrieved August 25, 2018 .
  35. ^ Editio Reznicek. Retrieved August 25, 2018 .
  36. ↑ Establishment of the Reznicek archive (Wedemark). Retrieved August 25, 2018 .
personal data
SURNAME Reznicek, Emil Nikolaus von
ALTERNATIVE NAMES Reznicek, Emil Nikolaus Joseph Freiherr von
BRIEF DESCRIPTION Austrian composer
DATE OF BIRTH May 4, 1860
PLACE OF BIRTH Vienna
DATE OF DEATH August 2, 1945
Place of death Berlin