Franz Schreker (1878-1934)
Die Gezeichneten – Overture (shortened version) (1913-15)
Erich Wolfgang Korngold (1897-1957)
Sinfonietta Op.5 (1912)
Ernst Krenek (1900-1991)
Potpourri Op.54 (1927)
Orchestre National des Pays de la Loire/Sascha Goetzel
rec. 2024, Centre de Congrès, Angers, France
BIS BIS-2722 SACD [71]
Here is an intelligently planned and attractive programme of music from BIS. Perhaps not the kind of repertoire historically associated with this label, but certainly the kind of scores that benefit from BIS’s high production values. Conductor Sascha Goetzel – a native of Vienna himself – contributes a forward to the liner in which he describes the three scores and composers as “entering a dialogue between past and present, tradition and rebellion, myth and modernity”. While none of the offered works are unfamiliar, the interest for the listener lies in how three quite different composers ‘solve’ the questions posed by Goetzel.
The disc opens with Schreker’s overture (given in its sub-ten minute, shortened version) to his opera Die Gezeichneten (The Branded). Both the overture and the complete opera epitomise the glories and excesses of Schreker’s style. The orchestration is massive; quadruple wind, six horns and four trumpets, extensive percussion plus two harps, piano and celeste. The opera was completed in 1915, although the extended overture – titled Prelude to a Drama (Vorspiel) was premiered the year before by the Vienna PO. This runs to over twenty minutes and has appeared on disc in several collections. BIS included the same shortened version as here in a 2017 all-Schreker survey, also in excellent SACD sound, from Lawrence Renes and the Royal Swedish Orchestra (review), which seems perhaps a little more opulent and extravagant than this new one. Being picky, then, perhaps there was an opportunity to include the extended version here. The useful liner reminds the listener that pre-1920 Schreker was the pre-eminent opera composer in the German-speaking world. Between 1912 and 1928 his works received over a thousand performances. Given the logistical and musical demands he makes on performers and opera houses this is an astonishing artistic and financial commitment. The disappearance from those same stages of his work – fuelled by the anti-semitism of the Nazis – is equally remarkable, although you feel there must be an aesthetic element to this demise too given that his brand of hyper-Romanticism ran directly contrary to the development of Modernism, Neo-Classicism and of course the Second Viennese School – let alone the jazz influences that would appeal to the likes of Krenek.
The Orchestre National des Pays de la Loire is not exactly a world-renowned ensemble and probably not ranked as one of the major French orchestras. But it is a measure of just how high orchestral standards are now that they play all three of these very demanding and complex scores very well indeed. As mentioned, their principal conductor, Sascha Goetzel, is Viennese-born and -trained; so he also has the measure this music. If music can ever portray decadence, then Die Gezeichneten is surely a score which does. The plot of the opera itself is borderline sleazy and the resulting music achieves a kind of distorted sensuality that is somehow both impressive and faintly disturbing. Both performance and recording serve this sense of excess and abandon very well. Schreker’s rehabilitation as a composer is now well-established, certainly on disc and even in the opera house, but his orchestral music is hardly well-known to the wider listening public. It was not until the mid 1980s that any of these opulent scores started to appear on disc and since then they have been pretty well-served both in terms of performances and range of repertoire. This overture – in either guise – is one of the more frequently recorded works and it would certainly act as a fairly typical piece as a point of entry to Schreker’s aesthetic and sound world. As such this new performance can be considered a worthy and enjoyable example of his craft.
The interest in the context of this programme is how the three composers found quite different musical interpretations for the age of change and upheaval – societal and artistic – in which they lived. Schreker looks backward to be the ultimate expression of Romanticism and tonality, while Korngold, still in his teens, presents a more optimistic view of the continuing potential of tonality within a relatively traditional framework. Krenek (a Schreker pupil) spent most of his creative life reinventing himself by exploring a variety of 20th century musical styles and influences – most famously in the 1920’s through his jazz-influenced work. If Krenek experimented with the new throughout his life, Erich Wolfgang Korngold’s career was the exact opposite. He burst onto the musical scene in his early teens with his individual musical voice fully-formed. Mahler called him a genius when the nine-year-old played the piano for him. In recent years his later concert works, especially the Violin Concertoand Symphony in F sharphave been performed all around the world with the former becoming that rare thing; a 20th Century concerto entering ‘standard’ repertoire for many soloists. However, the criticism that continues to be levelled at both those works is their ‘cinematic’ heritage. For proof that Korngold defined the conventions of the symphonic film score rather than the other way around look no further than the astonishing SinfoniettaOp.5of 1913. It completed when the composer was just 16 years old and a full two decades before he moved to Hollywood and wrote his first film score.
Although ‘Sinfonietta’ might imply a work of modest scale or intent, this is a big work that is genuinely symphonic. The liner rightly points to the “charm and vibrant energy…. reveal[ing] a total mastery of writing and exceptional familiarity with the idioms of Strauss, Mahler, Puccini, Franck and Debussy” on display. Yet even more remarkably, rather than being some cumulative pastiche of all those esteemed composers, this work is full of unmistakable Korngoldian fingerprints whether formally, thematically, harmonically or in his handling of the large orchestra. Perhaps the absence of excessive drama or musical angst merits the diminutive of the title when set alongside Schreker’s neuroses. On disc the work has been well-served from the first commercial recording on Varèse Sarabande back in 1985 with the Radio-Symphonie-Orchester Berlin under Gerd Albrecht with three more versions released in the 90s and the most recent [2012] on Ondine from John Storgårds and the Helsinki Philharmonic Orchestra which I reviewed in early 2013. So, a good decade on from that recording – which I respected but did not love – there is certainly room for another version of this impressive score, especially as it is the first offered in fine SACD surround/DSD sound.
From the very opening bars there is a timbral radiance and energetic lift and thrust quite unlike the brooding Schreker. Korngold makes use of an upward leaping figure which he called “the motif of the joyful heart” [printed on the title page of the score – viewable on IMSLP] that recurs, in spirit if not exact form, throughout all his music. The playing of the Orchestre National des Pays de la Loire is polished and indeed elegant, if perhaps fractionally polite and lacking complete youthful exuberance and abandon. But on the other hand, the gently nostalgic Viennese lilt is beautifully caught. By timings alone this new version and Albrecht’s 1985 Berlin account are very similar but the former has a little more sinew and bite to balance the Schlagobers-like richness of the scoring. The molto agitato Scherzo that follows also balances this. This is a perfect example for the innocent ear of “which came first” – echt-Korngold or a film score. To the unknowing this must surely represent some kind of swash-buckling chase or swordfight but written decades before Robin Hood would confront the evil Sheriff of Nottingham or Captain Blood would leap upon a burning deck. Again, Goetzel shows his affinity for this genre turning in – by a handful of seconds – the fastest version on disc, neatly nimble but also willing to indulge the lush and lyrical secondary material.
Quite how a sixteen-year-old can write as yearningly and sensuous a movement as the third Molto andante (träumerisch)is beyond me. Perhaps the strings in Dallas for Litton on Dorian (review) or Manchester for Bamert (Chandos CHAN10432X) achieve even more febrile intensity, but this is still very good indeed. To be fair, there is not a bad version of this work in the catalogue, but I do like the way Goetzel is willing to push the expressive envelope, pressing forward urgently or revelling in the richly harmonised languor as the music dictates. Finding this balance between luxuriance and dynamism is probably the trickiest interpretative element of performing Korngold and Goetzel is very good indeed.
The closing Finale – Patetico – Allegro giocoso is the work’s longest movement. Just to prove his compositional ‘seriousness’ Korngold briefly introduces a slightly unexpected fugal figure. But despite himself this is quickly overtaken by the sparkling allegro giocoso material. Again, the French orchestra’s playing is notable for its nimble brio, but the noble brass chorale which always moves me [tr 5, from 8:35] is played with beautiful solemn grandeur. Just when you think the work may be subsiding into one last late-Romantic wallow, the young Korngold drives it to one of the most affirmatory and uplifting conclusions in the late-Romantic repertoire, the joyful heart motif competing with Rosenkavalier-worthy leaping horns. Again, this is impressively executed here, although the Berlin horns for Albrecht are even more unbuttoned (the best of any version here) to good effect.
Both Schreker and Korngold died before reaching any kind of old age but both followed strongly defined and consistent musical paths. Ernst Krenek lived to the age of 91 and refused to be categorised by any musical “ism” or compositional school, instead preferring to dabble in just about every style the 20th century could offer. His Potpourri Op.54 is a perfect example of this. It was written in 1927 – the same year as his most famous opera/work, the jazz inflected Jonny spielt auf. The liner note neatly describes this as; “a résumé of purely orchestral writing… shaped by a neoclassical aesthetic… rhythmically simple and melodically beautiful with a few touches of jazz or, to be more precise, cabaret music. The nocturnal and festive ambience of the Weimar Republic adds a disconcerting dimension.” Very often in European ‘jazz-influenced’ works of the 1920’s this means a kind of Foxtrotting, Charlestoning syncopation rather than the American swinging jazz that would prevail only a decade or so later. But in fact the work is a potpourri of various dance styles, not just the jazz-inflected. At 17:53 in this performance, I must admit I am not sure that this conceptually slight work does not rather outstay its welcome. Listening to it several times, I am really not sure what it is trying to say or do except to be a sampler of Krenek’s skill at scoring for orchestra. Again, the performance here seems near ideal; crisp and clean in execution and recording. Krenek enjoys adding lots of additional instrumental colour which the SACD engineering handles with sophisticated ease.
This work was also part of the Krenek survey that was included in the excellent 10-disc “Modern Times” series on Capriccio from Karl-Heinz Steffens conducting the Deutsche Staatsphilharmonie Rheinland-Pfalz. Timings of the two performances are near-identical although the Capriccio recording in red book stereo is a little more up-front and punchy, which perhaps serves this score better. The work also appeared as a filler to his Symphony No.3as part of CPO’s survey of his complete symphonies. That performance by Takao Ukigaya and the NDR Radio-Philharmonie is a good minute quicker than the two versions I now know. I was reminded in intent if not in scale of the series of “Radio Suites” that featured in three excellent CPO sets, which I reviewed here and here. Perhaps unexpectedly the luxuriant Schreker contributed a work while apparently Krenek did not. Possibly this is because by the time of these works – roughly 1929-33 – Krenek had begun to dabble in 12-tone composition which was outside the remit of these Radio Compositions. Whereas the other two works can be considered as very typical of their composers, with Krenek there is no typical, so it becomes a case of judging each work on its individual merit. For me this is one of his less interesting scores.
Overall a well planned, very well played and recorded programme that would be a useful starting point for any collector yet to discover this remarkably fertile but diverse period in music history.
Nick Barnard
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