An autumn symphony
An autumn symphony is the most extensive work by the composer Joseph Marx . The four-movement symphony was composed in the autumn of 1921 and premiered on February 5, 1922 by the Vienna Philharmonic under Felix Weingartner . The symphony was written in the summer residence of the family of Anna Hansa, the composer's close friend and partner, which was often visited by many well-known artists of the time, in the small, idyllic village of Grambach near Graz (today's address of the house: Joseph-Marx-Weg 5 ) and is dedicated to Anna Hansa herself. The soprano Anna Hansa (1877–1967) was an art patron from Graz, who paved the way for the international success of his songs through her recitals accompanied by Marx on the piano in 1909 and 1910 and was a confidante of the composer until his death in 1964 and partner remained connected.
The names of the movements in the autumn symphony are: 1. An autumn song. Calm. 2. Dance of the midday spirits. Not too quickly. 3. Autumn thoughts. Beginning calmly. 4. An autumn poem. Very lively (poco presto.) (Original title: harvest and retreat)
In the autumn symphony, the composer wanted to reproduce the moods that move people's hearts in autumn. The overall context of the work, however, in addition to the aspect of transience (which the composer set to music in his five-part orchestral song cycle "Transfigured Year" from 1930 to 1932), the seasons, which the eternal cycle of growth and decay in nature as a metaphor for the spiritual Symbolize phases of human life: youth and vitality, maturity, wisdom and farewell. Autumn played a key role in the composer's oeuvre, for example in the cantata “Herbstchor an Pan” composed in 1911 based on a mythological poem by Rudolf Hans Bartsch and in the symphonic poem “Feste im Herbst”, which was modified in 1946 as a modification of the 4th Movement of the Autumn Symphony.
As reported by letters from the composer as well as newspaper articles and the Joseph Marx biography of the musicologist Andreas Liess published in 1943, the premiere of the autumn symphony turned into a concert scandal when a group of saboteurs of the performance and parts of the audience erupted into tumults and physical confrontations came. The composer declared the premiere in an open letter dated February 9, 1922 to the Viennese music advisor Hans Liebstöckl as a musical failure:
[…] There were only three samples available, the thing was just so fast that all the notes were there - of course everything in the shell, nothing worked out dynamically. Nevertheless, there was still so much left of the work that - if one had ears and wanted to - one could hear something tolerable.
In the years that followed, the Autumn Symphony saw performances in Europe, the success of which is unanimously attributed to the conductor Clemens Krauss , who was very fond of the work and, in the eyes of the critics, had the necessary access to the score as a "sound specialist" Felix Weingartner was accused of having been overwhelmed with conducting the premiere or with the difficult work itself. At the end of the 1920s, the autumn symphony fell into oblivion for almost eight decades for as yet unexplained reasons, until it was finally celebrated again on October 24th and 25th, 2005 in Graz by the conductor Michel Swierczewski and the great "recreation" orchestra Graz. According to the announcements of the publishing house Universal Edition and the Joseph Marx Society, the US premiere of the work followed on December 7, 2008 by the American Symphony Orchestra under the direction of the conductor Leon Botstein in New York and the British premiere by the London Philharmonic Orchestra conducted by Vladimir Jurowski on November 29, 2017. In addition, the first CD of this work was released in January 2019 on the German label cpo , recorded by the Graz Philharmonic under Johannes Wildner in Graz in June 2018.
With an approximate playing time of 60 to 75 minutes (depending on the conductor's tempos and any omissions) and an oversized orchestral line-up (4 woodwinds as well as 6 horns, 4 trumpets, 3 trombones, 1 bass tuba, piano, celesta, two harps, timpani , 9 percussionists and a large string orchestra) the autumn symphony is one of the longest and most lavishly orchestrated symphonic works in music history .