Julius Weismann

[britishcomposer]

I have added another three works to the Julius Weismann folder.

I am very fond of the Rondo. Not in any way a great symphonic structure it is nevertheless tuneful, colourful and splendidly orchestrated.

The Sonatina concertante for cello has a very Sibelian second movement. Okay, it's Sibelius in his lighter vein.

BTW, musicweb-international announces that some of the pieces I have uploaded will be released by cpo this year:

http://www.musicweb-international.com/German_Austrian_Symphonie/German_Austrian_Symphonies.htm

(So there's hope for the Heinrich CD as well?)

For those interested, here is a fine publication on Weismann:

http://www.duisburg.de/micro/stadtbibliothek/medienangebote/musikbibliothek.php

(pdf at the bottom of the page. Sorry, it's in German)

[Alan Howe]

It's the later stuff I find just meanders (although with some very beautiful passages, admittedly). However, I'm grateful to have the earlier VC1 - much more my type of stuff.

[JimL]

I just downloaded the VC 1.  Nothing much stood out as easily memorable on first hearing, however, I could detect some things which I might be able to assimilate with further listening.

[Alan Howe]

...and now that I am listening to VC1, I can appreciate what a most beautiful work it is. If you appreciate other late-Romantic VCs, such as those by Elgar, Reger, Weingartner, you will definitely like this one. The music is also vigorous in between those gorgeous flights of fantasy that are its hallmark. Seeing that the performers are Laurent Breuninger, with the Nordwestdeutsche Philhamonie under Alun Francis (virtually a cpo house team!), we might expect cpo to bring it out one day...

[eschiss1]

agreed... according to this very large page (slow to load even on my machine ...) on Musicweb, that's exactly what they're planning to do with his sinfoniettas (which I thought was conjecture until I read that ), so maybe the violin concertos too...

[Alan Howe]

OK, I'm going to stick my neck out here and say that Weismann's 1st VC is more than just an interesting rediscovery. Its beauty is great, its range of expression enormous and its themes memorable - all in all, a major addition to the violin repertoire, I would have thought...

[eschiss1]

though as to comparing and contrasting (if need be!) Weismann and Straesser, I suppose for my own part, since I'm a little more familiar with and slightly prefer Straesser's chamber music (especially that wonderful 4th string quartet published 1920 - SBB uploaded a to my ears fine performance of that to IMSLP and the ending is painfully sad again to my ears, though I have no standard of comparison as to whether another performance would be better, never having heard another)... makes me want to hear that cpo disc of Weismann's works in the form (arranged for larger ensemble), and wonder if anyone's recorded (for broadcast or otherwise; or heard in concert...) his violin sonata in F op28 (pub.1911) or the earlier string quartet "Phantastischer Reigen" (pub.1914) in F-sharp minor op.50 (scores at IMSLP, likewise some piano pieces), or other chamber works besides...

[britishcomposer]

Thanks for the hint to the Straesser quartet!
I might upload the Phantastischer Reigen but a recording is currently available:
http://www.amazon.com/Chamber-Music-Weismann/dp/B00005S24S/ref=sr_1_4?ie=UTF8&qid=1310509957&sr=8-4
Otherwise I could offer:
Violin Sonata f sharp minor op.47 - nearly 30 minutes, not a favourite of mine
Kammermusik op.86 (flute, viola, piano) - 15 min., a wistful piece, not great 'chamber music' but probably written for music making at home
String Trio op.157a - 16 min., quite curious: a Sibelian 1st movement, a true Weismann-Scherzo (that's where he excelled!) and a Bachian Fugue

[eschiss1]

hrm. in my area that recording is out of print, but I never knew it existed anyway- thank you! will try to find out how long the duration of the opus 50 is in that recording, so I can add it as an estimate on the Workpage for that piece at imslp.org (we like that sort of thing. ) (ah! 16 minutes and a few seconds, according to AllMusic.com.)
is there a good (not necessarily full or perfect, but good) Weismann-worklist somewheres? (Tried to start compiling some for Straesser and a few other composers recently, in an unscholarly - well, not sloppy and paying attention to the best evidence I could get, of course...- way. an interesting endeavor!)

[Mark Thomas]

Alan persuaded me to give Wiesmann's First Violin Concerto a try and I'm delighted that he did. It's a tremendous work: big-boned, full of incident, melodious and doesn't outstay its welcome, despite its length. What a shame that he didn't carry on in this vein...

[Alan Howe]

...I agree, Mark - except that, I suppose, Weismann didn't want to repeat himself (more's the pity!)

[eschiss1]

late response- I have an unlabeled list of items - not sure what binds it (some of them are mentioned in the Jg 108 NZM - or was it just ZM that year? no, I think that change happened in the 1930s... - anyhow, some of them are mentioned for one reason or another in the Jg 108 NZM, and maybe this is too, but will have to go back to the library and see where and how and in what context - the Weismann opus 130 B-flat symphony is among them, may be the first I heard of him, when I compiled that list years ago (along with a whole page of works by other composers some of whom I've never seen mentioned before or since, or only extremely rarely, like Norbert Sprongl 1892-1983 whose quartet in F-sharp minor seems to have been somewhere in there Went through quite a few NZM issues at the library in those days to find out about this or that- ideally, hoping to hear such things eventually- that's (not that particular volume, but that general idea) also where I first heard of Richard Wetz... a few months later cpo came out with the CD of the first symphony (of course, the LP of the 3rd symphony came out years before, but still, I was sort of floored anyway.)

As I've said, <--- dork ). Maybe the op.130 symphony was premiered that year, or something- wonder who performed it? One these days going to have to go back to that 2-volume set (reprinted a few decades ago to preserve against deterioration, like most of the NZM issues from the founding of the magazine on- yay for that effort!) - and check. Apologies if this is worse than completely irrelevant

[eschiss1]

Hrm.

108. Jahrgang would be 1941, not 1924, and was actually, I think, not Neue Zeitschrift für Musik at all, or Zeitschrift für Musik, but rather the merged Nazi publication Musik im Kriege.

Grgle.
Were they even playing anything by Weismann in Nazi Germany? (He was Jewish, yes? Actually, I -think- he was, but...) Hrm. Have to double-check all that. Back when I have done. I don't have anything that specifically says that op.130 was mentioned -in Jg 108-, they just are on the same sheet of paper along with items that were so, so I assumed so. Hrm. Blast my poor note-taking... will try to collect information to make this stuff actually useful soon.

[britishcomposer]

This is from German Wikipedia (not by me ):

From 1934 Julius Weismann was one of the honorary chairmen of the "Working Committee of Nazi composers" [? German: Arbeitskreis nationalsozialistischer Komponisten]. In 1935, he wrote on behalf of the National Socialist cultural community a new stage music for Shakespeare's comedy A Midsummer Night's Dream, which was to replace the composition of Mendelssohn, but failed to catch on in theaters. On 20 April 1936 Adolf Hitler appointed him professor. [4] This title he won again in 1950 by the Federal State Baden. In 1938 he wrote his most successful opera, "The Smart maid" [? German: Die Pfiffige Magd] after a text by Ludwig Holberg. In 1939 he was awarded an honorary citizen of Freiburg and in the same year with the Leipzig Johann Sebastian Bach Prize. In the same year he moved to Nussdorf near Überlingen (Lake Constance) and ended up teaching, but continued to compose.

Weismann was definitely NOT Jewish. Anyway, it would have been a strange kind of Nazi policy to commission a new 'Midsummer Night's Dream' score from a Jew to replace Mendelssohn's...
However, he wasn't a staunch Nazi (like his contemporaries Hermann Unger or Richard Trunk) either. A naive opportunist perhaps, what we call "blauäugig" (blue-eyed?)
As I said before, "Die Pfiffige Magd" was one of the most successful operas of the Nazi era - nevertheless one of his greatest artistic failures I think.

[minacciosa]

I just heard Weismann's Piano Concerto, and am extremely impressed. SUbsequently I visited IMSLP and obtained three scores, and am still more impressed. This is a real composer, shockingly good. I have no doubt he isn't better known because during his life he must have seemed one who is an epigone. Now we can hear him without prejudice, and I can say that this is a real voice. I must obtain everything I can; this is a composer to be performed.