Heinrich Schulz-Beuthen

[eschiss1]

There is I think  an opera of his in vocal score manuscript surviving at Harvard FWIW, see this link. Will have to check later if it's been scanned, but maybe sometime next visit to that area (no idea when that will be) I might see if they allow access to it for browsing anyway... (I doubt it, but worth a go. Students or staff/faculty of Harvard might have more luck in that case though than I would...)

Edit: hrmm.... and another here. Google points to a few of these, in fact. ... hrm indeed. Yes, probably boring, but at least this way if they've been scanned- it says networked resource, whatever that means in this particular context (Harvard people only? US only? ...), I'm off to work right now but... will find out...-  well, harmless enough way I suppose to see what his operatic writing was like, maybe.

[adriano]

Hi Mark
I don't really think that my interpretation of Schulz-Beuthen on that Sterling CD can be considered as "amateurish".
Or you just explain why.
Regards
Adriano, Zurich/Switzerland

[Alan Howe]

I suspect Mark may have been thinking of a comment such as this by MusicWeb's Rob Barnett about the orchestra on the CD:

...the Muscovite orchestra (who do enthusiastic and sterling, if not always desperately refined, service to the music)...(emphasis added)
http://www.musicweb-international.com/classrev/2002/Dec02/Schulz-Beuthen.htm

However, Moscow orchestras seem to be better these days...

[adriano]

Thanks Alan, yes, but "not desperately refined" has nothing to do with amaterurism or professionalism!

[Mark Thomas]

Adriano, I phrased my comment badly. By "works which were undistinguished in content and amateurish in execution" I was referring to the music itself, not your performance of it. As you know, I have many of your recordings and have nothing but respect for your professionalism.

[adriano]

Thanks Mark 
However, I often suffer having to conduct recordings in such a short time, just because of financial limitations. Listeners and reviewer, of course, do not care about what was always behind, when they hear a finished CD. My standard is to give the atmosphere of a good live performance, and not of a sterile studio recording, based on virtuously edited sequences. There is really never the time for all this, and I am glad. I still have some seleepless nights about this or that place in some of my CDs which I simply had to accept, otherwise the recording would have costed much more and nobody would have paid for it (except myself, who had paid this or that extra a few times in the past). Of course, star conductors/soloist are treated differently. I have a long article ready about my sometimes quite grotesque and all-other-than-friendly collaboration with Marco Polo-Naxos; but one should also consider that (at often unworthy conditions) I still could realize 30 CDs in order to enrich the unusual repertoire. Of course, once Marco Polo had less obscure conductors, I was thrown out like a beggar who had been given enough... This article will be published on my website very soon. It's always good to look back with criticism and, why not, in anger.

[Alan Howe]

I am sure that all of us here at UC have nothing but the greatest respect and admiration for the service you have rendered to music, and in particular to neglected music. If you have had to deal with less than ideal recording conditions in order to bring such music to the public, then perhaps we should be even more grateful for all you have done - and achieved.

My - our - message to you is therefore: thank you and keep going. We owe you more than we can say for bringing us so many musical treasures. 

[adriano]

Thanks again, Mark
By separate messenger you will receive some more "dramatic" reports on my past collaboration with Marco Polo-Naxos.

[adriano]

... and now a reply to pertershott 
You speak about trying to make yourself an image of a composer, having only one work at disposal. In the case of my Sterling CD this is all other than the case: there are 4 different works on it. The Fifth Symphony was carefully edited by myself, working on a manuscript copy of the Symphony which, fortunately enough, was not in Dresden, so it did not burn. I also extracted all orchestral parts. The three other works were old printed scores.
Regards Adriano

[FBerwald]

So are there no other extant works of Heinrich Schulz-Beuthen?

[eschiss1]

Hmmmm? There's several operas that still exist in vocal score (as I recall mentioning just above a few posts...)- I don't know where the instrumental parts, but that's at least partially something one can make a judgment on... and perhaps conjecturally could be reconstructed, or performed as is as chamber opera...

[eschiss1]

KVK lists the following items by (or relating to) Schulz-Beuthen in some of their catalogues (Austrian and German library catalogues selected only, and not all of those, and I'm not going to reproduce every item they list... KVK is http://www.ubka.uni-karlsruhe.de/kvk_en.html, btw...)

a biographical sketch, in German, edited by Chris Walton, published 2003 (entitled, appropriately, "Heinrich Schulz-Beuthen : (1838 - 1915) ; eine biographische Skizze". (Neujahrsblatt der Allgemeinen Musikgesellschaft in Zürich : auf d. Jahr ... ; 187. 2003.)

"Der Zauberschlaf : mit freier Benutzung der Mährchen "Aschenbrödel" und "Dornröschen" ; romantische Oper in 3 Aufzügen , componiert in Zürich 1868-1878 / Text nach einer Dichtung von M. Wesendonck und Musik von H. Schulz-Beuthen " (IDC publishers, 2002 microfiche of 1879 publication, Richard Wagner Collection - found in the Union Catalog Northern Germany. Not positive if this is the libretto, vocal score, or full score or parts, though... guessing one of the first two...)

Alhambra-Sonate for piano, Op.34 (pub.1883 acc. HMB. Yes, still exists- not listing lost works, just ones listed in libraries - well, ok, some libraries list works they think they have, sometimes mistakenly - LoC comes to mind here...)

"Heinrich Schulz-Beuthen 1838 - 1915 : Leben und Werke ; Ein Beitrag zur Geschichte der neueren Programmusik " (Alois Zosel, pub.1931.)
Heinrich Nikolowski: "Über Opern die Schulz-Beuthen" (article in Neue Zeitschrift für Musik. Jg. 83/1916. S. 181 - 182).

"Minstrel-Lieder und Tänze für Klavier : op. 26 ; ein Zyklus frei bearbeiteter Original-Melodien" (1999 publication by Amadeus-Verlag, edited by Chris Walton.)
(more piano works and songs -e.g. opp.40 (Cycle of 5 piano pieces, pub.1895), 41 ( Jugenderinnerungen, pub.1895), 43 (Das Lied vom alten Thüringer, pub.1893) - some in original editions, some in new ones - also in these libraries. Kirsten Johnson- ah, familiar name!- has recorded some of the piano music, I see.) (... posting and editing... )

Also, Concertromanze für violine (or cello) mit Begl. d. Orchesters oder Klavier Op.37 (pub.1888/89 according to HMB.)

Full scores of  "Die Toteninsel" (pub. Oertel & Breitkopf, 1909) at Free Library of Philadelphia (Library of Congress, and some German libraries, also Fleisher Collection -score and parts available to institutions; they also have an arrangement for piano and orchestra of the Tarantella from his op.40, and the Op.28 Abschiedsklange Mr. Adriano recorded- I don't see that in HMB, though, and Google Books gives no enlightenment either...)

[adriano]

"Die Toteninsel" ("Isle of Death") already figures on my Sterling CD, eschiss! A very strange sounding and fascinating piece. Some critic meant that we do not play it cleanly enough, but the problem is that in many places, Beuthen uses 6-tuplets against 4/4 rhythm, and these 6-tuplets are subdivided into smaller note values, like 16th notes. I think Beuthen wanted to suggest chaos in connection with death and the music sounds quite irregular.
As far as his opera "Dornröschen" (The Sleeping Beauty) is concerned, you can imagine how some critics precipitated themselves to destroy this work, after Beuthen had, over many years, produced himself as an extremely severe critic in Zurichs newspapers.
The mentioned "Minstrel-Lieder", op. 26 are a new title invented by Chris Walton, since the original title is "Neger-Lieder" (Nigger-Songs). They also figure on my Sterling CD, you can even hear "Oh, Susannah!". Quite a lovely suite with a lot of triangle playing.
Don't forget the lovely and bitter-ending suite for strings "Abschieds-Klänge" which concludes my disc. Beuthen had to leave Zurich, after he had made more and more enemies, and that was his "Farewell"-Piece.-
Regards from Zurich
Adriano

[Gareth Vaughan]

It is a pity that Schulz-Beuthen's symphonies (apart from No. 5, it would seem) were destroyed in the Dresden bombings. While not overly impressed with the symphonic material in No. 5, I do find Schulz-Beuthen's orchestration interesting and I find "Die Toteninsel" quite fascinating, so it would have been of great interest to hear what else he did symphonically. Alas, that will now never be!

[adriano]

The MS of Beuthen's Fifth also burnt in Dresden. My editing work was done on the presumable copy (by unknown hand) which was handed over as a gift to Emperor Wilhelm of Germany (its dedicatee) .