Franz
Schmidt’s Fourth Symphony is very dear to me. It is a symphony about
love, death and mourning. The first time I heard it, I was struck by its beauty,
powerful emotions and highly individual language. Since then I have performed
this magnificent and unjustly neglected work many times all over the world,
including Vienna, where this work was given its première.
I was thrilled to be able to conduct this symphony in the wonderful acoustics
of the Amsterdam Concertgebouw with the Netherlands Philharmonic Orchestra
in my first concert following my appointment as its new chief conductor. Schmidt’s
music was a real discovery for musicians and audience alike, and everybody
was captivated by the beauty and intensity of the score.
A few months later, we recorded the symphony together with exciting excerpts
from Schmidt’s opera Notre Dame. It is the first recording in a series
of Super-Audio CDs for the Pentatone label made in the orchestra’s own
hall: the monumental Beurs van Berlage, which was built around the same time
this music was written.
I hope some of the excitement we felt in the course of this project will also
come across in this recording.
Yakov KreizbergRequiem for a daughter
On the face of it, the Austrian composer Franz Schmidt appears to have been
a successful man. After a thorough musical education in the small town of Pressburg,
followed by professional studies at the conservatoire in nearby Vienna, Schmidt
managed to acquire a position in the cello section of the orchestra of the
Viennese Court Opera at the age of 22. A teaching position in both cello and
piano at the conservatoire was yet to come, culminating in his appointment
as principal of that institute. Apart from these practical and business obligations,
Schmidt still found time to work on his compositions. He wrote a limited amount
of opus numbers. Apart from some chamber music, most of his compositions are
for major repertoire: two lengthy operas, an oratorio and four symphonies.
He ignored the musical innovations which were being introduced in the Vienna
of his day. The late-Romantic period as embodied by Liszt, Reger and Bruckner
was of greater relevance to him.
Schmidt’s successful social career is sharply contrasted to his rather
less fortunate personal destiny. The composer was dogged by bad health. The
woman he married, his childhood sweetheart Karoline Perssin, was not equipped
to deal with life and was placed in a mental institution in 1919. Ten years
later followed the death of their only daughter, Emma. This was yet another
heavy blow for Schmidt, but it also formed the nucleus for what is generally
considered to be his best work. In his Symphony No. 4, Schmidt found an artistic
outlet for the grief he felt at his daughter’s death. The subtitle he
gave the symphony was: ‘Requiem für meine Tochter’ (= Requiem
for my daughter).
The result is a complex and intense composition, consisting of four movements
which flow into one another. A number of passages, indicated by the composer
himself, demonstrate the ‘requiem’ character of this fourth symphony.
The trumpet melody opening the first movement is of crucial importance. It
represents, as it were, a ‘final salute’; a reference which is
still relevant to our times, keeping in mind military or civil commemorative
ceremonies. Segments of this melody return throughout the work. Finally, the
fourth movement is concluded with a repeat of the beginning. It is "the
last music that a person takes with him to the afterworld, after having been
born under its auspices and having lived his life", as Schmidt himself
put it. The use of identical material at both the beginning and the end says
something in itself about the form of the composition as a whole: symmetrical.
Measured in time, the heart of this lament lies in the middle of the work,
halfway through the Adagio. Here, Schmidt elaborates stylistically on the music
played in the Austria of his day to accompany funeral processions; the funeral
march. He was not the first to do so. Beethoven, to mention the best-known
example, demonstrated in the second movement of his Eroica that he was not
averse to using this specific kind of music in his symphonies. Franz Liszt
also enjoyed employing the typical traits of the funeral march in various compositions.
Characteristic of this is a heavy, solemn mood in the minor key; wind instruments,
which also must be able to hold on to their notes in the open air; and percussion,
which plays the typical, dotted rhythm of the funeral march and gives a sense
of slow progression to the entire composition.
As Schmidt brings the march to culmination by means of muffled beats of the
bass drum (known as a ‘Klimax des Schmerzensausbruches’ in German
[= climax of the outburst of grief]), he uses an instrument which is often
associated with death and loss: the tam-tam. Not to be confused with the African
drum of the same name, or with the tuned gong, this flat metal disc produces
a ‘murmuring’ sound when struck softly, and an overwhelming booming
when struck powerfully. For composers such as Gustav Mahler, but also Olivier
Messiaen, this sound symbolized doom, or ‘the other side’: i.e.,
death. Schmidt availed himself of the same means.
With hindsight, the Symphony No. 4 was not only a ‘Requiem for a Daughter’.
It also turned out to be the swansong of the composer himself, as Schmidt was
to suffer increasingly from his weak health after completing the work. He died
in 1939.
Jochem van der Heide
Viennese intrigues
In 1896, Franz Schmidt was appointed cellist in the orchestra of the Viennese
Court Opera. This took place precisely a year before the honourable and traditional
institute was hit by a ‘bomb’: i.e., the appointment of the young
and highly temperamental Gustav Mahler as director-conductor. At first, Schmidt
was delighted with the fresh wind blowing through the opera: "His conducting
erupted over the opera like an act of God: an earthquake of great intensity
and duration shook the entire building. Everything that was old or out of date,
or no longer in good condition, collapsed and was lost for ever. Then one of
the greatest musical eras Vienna was ever to know was initiated in the city.
Mahler was the totalitarian dictator who held the musical world of Vienna in
his power. Thanks to his unparalleled and undaunted energy, in record time
he caused a fresh wind to blow not only through the entire artistic community,
but also through the audiences in all Vienna."
Schmidt’s words are remarkable, to say the least, as not so much later
he was to become the victim of the many intrigues at the Court Opera and was
soon to consider Mahler his arch-enemy. The problems started as early as 1902,
following the successful première of Schmidt’s Symphony No. 1,
which was immediately awarded the prestigious Beethoven prize. The press compared
his work to Mahler’s, which was to cause the latter’s resentment.
Shortly afterwards, Schmidt was passed over for promotion to the position of
principal cellist, even though it had long been his task to play all the important
solo passages; a task in which he had acquitted himself to everyone’s
satisfaction. Furthermore, Mahler tried to promote Schmidt away from the orchestra
a number of times, by offering him attractive positions outside Vienna. However,
Arnold Rosé appears to have been the true ‘evil genius’ in
this matter. He was the leader of the orchestra and also Mahler’s brother-in-law
and friend, and for reasons unclear he tried to set everyone against Schmidt
and to declare him ‘persona non grata’. When Schmidt once pointed
out Rosé’s intrigues to Mahler, just before a performance of Die
Walküre, the latter immediately sided with his brother-in-law: "Are
you trying to lay down conditions for me? […] If you do not immediately
do your job, or if you say another word, you can consider yourself fired." Following
this contretemps, Schmidt went to sit at the last desk of the cellos, instead
of in the principal cellist’s seat; after the performance he was not
fired, but he was demoted. He remained in the orchestra until 1910.
Therefore, it was no wonder that Mahler’s reaction was anything but warm
after Schmidt, following encouragement from his colleagues, played his first
opera, which was based on Victor Hugo´s Notre Dame de Paris, to the conductor
in 1904. "Very nice, but I deplore the lack of any major ideas in your
music", the Court Opera director was heard to say, after which he began
to praise Schmidt’s pianistic skills and offered him a position as choir-master.
Naturally, Notre Dame was not included in the orchestral repertoire. The première
did not take place until after Mahler’s death, in 1914; at the Viennese
Court Opera, by the way. However, the Interlude had already been performed
to great acclaim before the above-mentioned incident occurred. In 1903, Ernst
von Schuch conducted this part of the opera in a performance with the Vienna
Philharmonic; the orchestra that to this day consists of the same musicians
as the orchestra of the Viennese Court Opera. Since then, this Interlude has
been Schmidt’s most popular work.
Ronald Vermeulen
Yakov
Kreizberg
The Russian-born American conductor Yakov Kreizberg currently holds the posts
of Chief Conductor and Artistic Advisor of the Netherlands Philharmonic and Netherlands
Chamber Orchestras, and Principal Guest Conductor of the Vienna Symphony Orchestra.
From 1995 to 2000 he was Principal Conductor and Artistic Advisor of the Bournemouth
Symphony Orchestra and he relinquished the post of Generalmusikdirector of the
Komische Oper Berlin at the end of the 2000/01 season.
In demand across the globe, Yakov Kreizberg has conducted orchestras such as
the Royal Concertgebouw, Leipzig Gewandhaus, Berlin Philharmonic, WDR Köln,
NDR Hamburg, Staatskapelle Dresden and BBC Symphony, London Philharmonic, Philharmonia
Orchestra, Deutsches Sinfonie-Orchester Berlin, Bayerische Rundfunk, Tonhalle
Orchestra Zürich, and he has been a frequent guest at the BBC Proms.
Within North America, Yakov Kreizberg regularly works with prestigious orchestras
including Philadelphia Orchestra (with whom he toured the Americas in 2003),
Pittsburgh, Cincinnati, the Minnesota Orchestra and he has also conducted the
Los Angeles and New York Philharmonics and Chicago and Boston Symphony Orchestras.
Forthcoming plans include a tour of Spain, Germany and Switzerland with Vienna
Symphony Orchestra, NHK Symphony and the Pacific Music Festival in Japan, London
Symphony Orchestra, Orchestre de Paris and Munich Philharmonic.
As well as having recorded for Decca and Oehms Classics, Yakov Kreizberg’s
collaboration with Pentatone Classics and the Netherlands Philharmonic Orchestra
has been extremely successful – their fourth release, Tour de France was
issued in June 2005. Also with Pentatone Classics, Mr Kreizberg has recorded
an award winning disc with Julia Fischer and the Russian National Orchestra,
whilst his first recording with the Vienna Symphony Orchestra, Bruckner’s
Symphony no. 7 was released in July 2005.
Mr Kreizberg established a fine reputation at the Komische Oper in a wide variety
of repertoire. Elsewhere, he has conducted for Canadian Opera, Lyric Opera of
Chicago, English National Opera and on a number of occasions with Glyndebourne
Festival Opera. He has recently conducted Iolanthe with Netherlands Opera and
will return in 2007/08 for Katya Kabanova. As part of the 2004 Bregenz FestivaI,
he conducted Weill’s Der Protagonist and Royal Palace with Vienna Symphony
Orchestra and in 2006 will conduct Macbeth at the Royal Opera House.
Born in St Petersburg, Yakov Kreizberg studied conducting privately with Ilya
A. Musin, (the renowned Professor of Conducting from the St. Petersburg Conservatory)
before emigrating to the United States in 1976. There he was awarded conducting
fellowships at Tanglewood with Bernstein, Ozawa, Leinsdorf and at the Los Angeles
Philharmonic Institute. In 1986 he won first prize in the Leopold Stokowski Conducting
Competition in New York.
“I have many PentaTone SA-CDs and they are almost uniformly excellent.
I actually bought this one to see how bad it could be. After listening four
times I must state that this disc is not bad at all – it is excellent.
The sound is even better than many of my others”. -- Amazon.com
“It's
so good to see that new releases on SACD aren't limited to standard repertoire,
and this excellent performance of Franz Schmidt's masterful Fourth Symphony
remains competitive regardless of the format in which you listen…(Yakov
Kreizberg) builds plenty of intensity into the Adagio's wrenching climaxes,
and the scherzo section culminates in a very satisfying collapse, the horns
doing themselves proud. It's a totally idiomatic performance, capped by a touchingly
poetic coda. …The coupling seals the deal” (artistic quality
9 / sound quality 9) ---David Hurwitz, Classics Today (May 2003)
“And on top there is the superior SA-CD
quality. In particular for such heavily orchestrated works this recording
and reproduction technology is a blessing.”
---Paul Janssen, Luister (June 2003)
