German Music Folder

[eschiss1]

Holger - Apologies and thanks also.

[Mark Thomas]

Thanks so much britishcomposer for the two Wilhelm Berger chamber works. He's an astonishingly good composer and I knew neither of these pieces. I couldn't be more delighted on this cold, snowy day to have these "new" works to warm my heart.

The movements of the Quintet, courtesy of IMSLP, are:

String Quintet in E minor op.75 (1899)
I. Allegro con passione
II. Vivace scherzando
III. Adagio
IV. Molto vivace

Anyone know the movements of the Clarinet Trio, please?

[Alan Howe]

I'd like to add my thanks regarding the upload of Wilhelm Berger's marvellous String Quintet. Truly Berger must one of the very best unsung composers of the late-Romantic period. I haven't heard anything by him that less than first-class. Great stuff!

[eschiss1]

Berger clarinet trio? According to Edition Silvertrust (one word - named for Ray Silvertrust), the movements of the 1903 or 1903-published? trio are
#Allegro
#Adagio
#Scherzo poco vivace
#Allegro con fuoco.

[Sydney Grew]

I am most grateful to the gentleman who posted Fortner's Symphony; an important work, and this fills a long-standing gap. On a first hearing I liked the long and slowish second movement best; in the first and last movements I think the composer went a little overboard with the kettledrums.

[Mark Thomas]

Thanks, Eric, for the Berger Clarinet Trio movements.

[Lionel Harrsion]

I heartily concur with the views expressed by Mark and Alan on Wilhelm Berger's chamber music.  The Clarinet trio is interesting and attractive although I'm not convinced that he has fully absorbed the Reger-like chromatic language into his structural argument -- but maybe that's an aberrant perception based on the strength of a single hearing;  I'll be giving it another go, to be sure.  The String Quintet, on the other hand, seems to me to be a masterpiece of the front rank -- "and I am unanimous in that".     Many thanks to britishcomposer for the upload.

[Alan Howe]

Many thanks, Mike, for two lovely pieces - Zilcher's VC2 and Klingler's VC.

[jowcol]

I've posted music of the German composer Jurg Baur in the downloads section,  Pentagramm, a Concerto for Wind Quartet,  his first symphony, and his Duisberger Sonfonia.    Below the portrait, I've got some highlights from the Wikipedia page for him below:




Jürg Baur (11 November 1918 – 31 January 2010) was a German composer of classical music.
•   
Education
Baur was born in Düsseldorf, where he achieved early recognition as a composer at the age of 18, when his First String Quartet was premiered at the Düsseldorf Hindenburg Secondary School by the then-famous Prisca Quartet. He studied from 1937 to 1948 (interrupted by army service from 1939–45, including several months as a Russian prisoner of war) at the Hochschule für Musik Köln: composition with Philipp Jarnach, piano with Karl Hermann Pillney, and organ and sacred music with Michael Schneider (Goslich 1982, 19 & 42; Levi 2001; Wallerang 2010). Even before completing his conservatory studies, he was appointed lecturer in music theory at the Düsseldorf Conservatory in 1946 (Levi 2001). He did postgraduate studies in musicology with Karl Gustav Fellerer and Willi Kahl from 1948 to 1951 at the University of Cologne (Goslich 1982, 19 & 42). In 1952 he was appointed choirmaster and organist at the St Paulus-Kirche in Düsseldorf, a post he left in 1960 when he was awarded a scholarship from the German Academy to study for six months at the Villa Massimo in Rome. He twice returned to Rome for extended visits, in 1968 and 1980 (Levi 2001).The vivid impression made by the Italian city is reflected in the Italian-titled works he composed there, including the Concerto romano for oboe and orchestra (Goslich 1982, 19 & 42).

Compositional career
Baur was one of the last composers of the old school. After the war, he remained faithful to his teacher Jarnach's conservative stance, and never became an extreme avant-gardist (Wallerang 2010). Widespread recognition as a composer came comparatively late. Béla Bartók was his strongest stylistic influence at first, but in the 1950s he began to use twelve-tone technique. Anton Webern's music became his model in works such as the Third String Quartet (1952), the Quintetto sereno for wind quintet (1958)—which also uses aleatory techniques—the Sonata for two pianos (1957), and the Ballata romana (1960) (Levi 2001). Later, he developed a marked propensity for quotations from earlier music. Particularly striking examples include Heinrich Isaac's "Innsbruck, ich muß dich lassen" in the Concerto da camera, a theme from Bach's Musical Offering in the Ricercari for organ, as well as in the Kontrapunkte 77 for three woodwinds, and Schumann themes in Sentimento del tempo and, especially, in Musik mit Robert Schumann (Goslich 1982, 19 & 42). Other composers whose works Baur has quoted include Dvořák, Strauss, Gesualdo, Mozart and Schubert (Levi 2001).

Primarily a composer of orchestral and instrumental music, Baur also produced a number of works for less mainstream instruments such as the recorder and the accordion (Jacobs 1993; Levi 2001). He was one of the first composers to introduce the recorder to the new musical trends of the post-war era, with Incontri (1960), for recorder and piano, Mutazioni (1962) and Pezzi uccelli (1964), both for unaccompanied alto recorder, and the virtuosic Concerto da camera "Auf der Suche nach der verlorenen Zeit", for recorder and chamber orchestra of 1975 (Wallerang 2010).

In his 87th year, Baur completed his only opera, Der Roman mit dem Kontrabass, to a libretto by Michael Leinert after the story by Anton Chekhov. Commissioned on the occasion of the composer's 85th birthday in 2003 by the Deutsche Oper am Rhein, it was premiered at the Partika-Saal of the Robert Schumann Hochschule, Düsseldorf, on 25 November 2005, with Marco Vassilli and Kerstin Pohle singing the two main roles (Smychkov and the Countess Anastasia), Szymon Marciniak as the solo contrabassist, and Thomas Gabrisch conducting (Wallerang 2005).

[Holger]

Hi jowcol,

just as a hint, since I also have this disc (like you, I got it from Karl): actually the First Symphony is the same work as the Duisburger Sinfonia, I guess it might even be the same performance maybe recorded by two different persons.

This is what is behind the confusion: Jürg Baur's First Symphony is called "Sinfonie einer Stadt (Patetica)", which means "Symphony of a City" in English. The city Baur means is Duisburg, if I remember correctly he composed it on commission for some jubilee. The piece is from 1983. As some members are interested in movement titles, here is what I know:

I. Invocation (Passacaglia)
II. Melancholie
III. Scherzo tumultoso
IV. [don't know]

In any case, great you shared the music. I like Baur's style very much and strongly recommend the Thorofon CD with his superb Gesualdo Metamorphoses.

[jowcol]

Hi jowcol,

just as a hint, since I also have this disc (like you, I got it from Karl): actually the First Symphony is the same work as the Duisburger Sinfonia, I guess it might even be the same performance maybe recorded by two different persons.

This is what is behind the confusion: Jürg Baur's First Symphony is called "Sinfonie einer Stadt (Patetica)", which means "Symphony of a City" in English. The city Baur means is Duisburg, if I remember correctly he composed in on commission for some jubilee. The piece is from 1983. As some members are interested in movement titles, here is what I know:

I. Invocation (Passacaglia)
II. Melancholie
III. Scherzo tumultoso
IV. [don't know]

In any case, great you shared the music. I like Baur's style very much and strongly recommend the Thorofon CD with his superb Gesualdo Metamorphoses.

Thanks for the update.  I'll update the download description. I've got several more uploads from the Miller collection coming.  I'll try not to duplicate anything here, but welcome any clarification you can offer.

[Holger]

Checking the information I gathered for myself once again, there is another correction regarding the Jürg Baur upload. The orchestra playing in the "Pentagramm" Concerto is not the Cologne Radio Symphony Orchestra, but the Radio Filharmonisch Orkest (from the Netherlands). This can be heard if listening to the announcer carefully. To provide some more details, here are the members of the Danzi Quintet who play in this recording: Frans Vester (flute), Koen van Slogtere (oboe), Piet Honigh (clarinet), Brian Pollard (Bassoon) and Adriaan van Woudenberg (French Horn).

Karl has a magnificent collection, I got quite a bunch of music from him myself. I will be happy to download any further stuff for sure!

[jowcol]

I've uploaded ten minutes of excerpts from the Apollo and Daphne Ballet by  Leo Spies,  German Composer.  I'd be curious if any of this other works are languishing in non-commercial versions.



Brief Bio for Aswers.com
(b Moscow, 4 June 1899; d Ahrenshoop an der Ostsee, 1 May 1965). German composer. He was educated in Moscow, where he encountered the music of Skryabin and Prokofiev, and in Dresden and Berlin. He worked in Germany as a theatre conductor and teacher and wrote in most concert genres, influenced by the Russian Romantics and by Janáček. In the 1920s he joined the circle round Eisler and worked with the workers choral movement; latterly he has written for young people.

[jowcol]

Correction-- I'll upload the Spies as soon as I get more info...

[eschiss1]

I wonder if he and Claudio Spies are related (not very directly, but still...?) (I took some courses under the latter, including an excellent student-initiated one on Brahms' chamber music, back in college.)