Heinrich Marschner (1795-1861)

[UnsungMasterpieces]

Heinrich Marschner. A composer who's relatively obscure compared to others, yet he was very important (and I couldn't find him properly mentioned on the forum.) He was the most important German opera composer between Weber & Wagner, and Wagner was strongly influenced by his operas, for example Der Vampyr, Der Templer und die Jüdin, & Hans Helling.

He has also composed many Lieder, which are comparable with those by Carl Loewe.

I just stumbled at this composer when I was looking at Wikipedia's list of compositions by Wagner. There I noticed Wagner had composed different music to an aria from Der Vampyr. That's how I found about Marschner. Then I looked up some operas on the internet, and I've listened to them, and I was, as always, very excited about them. Of course Marschner composed more operas, but only the ones I've mentioned earlier on have been recorded (as far as I know.) Now I'm interested in those other operas. Are there any recordings still existing? From broadcasts maybe?

[eschiss1]

Besides Vampyr, there's a few CD recordings of his "Templer und die Jüdin" (Templier et...) Op.60, premiered 1829 (of performances from 1981, etc.; issued on CD in 2010, 2012, other times.) (Not positive they're even complete-ish...)

Ah, I see you listed that opera already, though...

Well, how about an Archipel recording of a 1962 performance of his comic 1-act opera Der Holzdieb?

[Alan Howe]

The stand-out recording is that of Der Vampyr conducted by Froschauer on Capriccio, now reissued:
http://www.amazon.co.uk/Marschner-Kaufmann-Hawlata-Klepper-Capriccio/dp/B00EW62B0U/ref=sr_1_1?s=music&ie=UTF8&qid=1435610710&sr=1-1&keywords=marschner

It's a fascinating work - very much a missing link between Weber and early Wagner, dating as it does from 1828. Apparently the 15 year-old Wagner was among the audience at its premiere in Leipzig...

[BerlinExpat]

I'll second your enthusiam, Alan. I only bought the Capriccio recording on the basis of the comments here and was a little reticent as I have the Pfitzner reworking of the piece. After hearing the excellent Capriccio recording I fail to understand why Pfitzner thought it necessary to 'improve' on Marschner. Apparently he did the same with Der Templer und die Jüdin. Can anyone shed light on why Pfitzner thought these revisions were necessary?

[Alan Howe]

Sounds pretty daft to me. But that generation perpetrated all sorts of musical surgery on works of previous generations.

[eschiss1]

I'd be interested to know of a recording of his piano quartet. But the question raised by the fellow at the opening of the thread - recordings (presumably not just "excerpts" recordings, if not necessarily complete) of operas of his other than Marschner's top 3 ("Der Vampyr, Der Templer und die Jüdin, & Hans Helling") - intrigues. I've found one so far (maybe using list of Marschner operas as a guide, though it's probably incomplete), will keep looking...

[eschiss1]

Hrrrrrmmm. Some of those listed @ Wikipedia aren't even excerpted on Overtures or Arias LPs/CDs/whatnot, at least according to Worldcat (maybe some larger database needs checking; I'll have to do that.) E.g. "Saidar und Zulima, oder Liebe und Grossmut" seems not to show up anywhere... I might be using the wrong language, of course- it may show up under translation. Though still.

[Double-A]

I remember from my teenage years a performance of Hans Heiling at the Zurich Opera House.I  I don't remember any details, especially musical details, but I went to see it out of curiosity and was very impressed.  The opera deals with the romantic theme of the outsider and his situation vis a vis "regular people" ("romantic" as in romantic literature, not as per the definition for this forum).  Looking at the synopsis now I can't help finding the libretto (by Eduard Schröder Devrient) a bit silly in its insistent avoiding of a tragic outcome, but it is still fitting:  The outsider remains an outsider, no one else suffers permanent damage.  And the juxtaposition of the outsider versus the people is effectively done, especially in the dance scene with everybody involved except Heiling who stands outside the crowd.

[adriano]

"Hans Heiling" was recorded by Marco Polo in 1990 with excellent singers including Thomas Mohr and Mgdalena Hajossova.

[kolaboy]

"Der Vampyr " was one of those pieces that you always found referred to in composer biographies of the period. I remember finally finding a dodgy cassette recording of the piece and nearly wearing it out the first week. It is definitely a work that lives up to it's (past) reputation. Pity there's no substantial biography of the man... at least that I know of.

[adriano]

"Der Vampyr" - The 1974 (stereo) Bavarian Radio broadcast featuring (a superb cast: Roland Hermann, Arleen Auger, Donald Grobe, Anna Tomowa-Sintow, Trudeliese Schmidt, Kurt Böhme a.o.) remains still the best and most "authentic". This was reissued on CD in 2005, by the Opera d'Oro label. It is a "complete" version with dialogues! The conductor is Fritz Rieger. The sound is very satisfactory. The booklet contains an interesting article on Marschner and his opera by Richard Burke, a synopsis and a full libretto with English translation.

See also:
http://www.deutsche-biographie.de/sfz58555.html
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Der_Vampyr

The Komische Oper Berlin will stage this opera in April 2016

This looks like a dissertation on Marschner:
Allen Dean Palmer: Heinrich August Marschner, 1795–1861. His life and stage works. Ann Arbor, 1975
in fact; it's a 600 page-book, available on demand
http://www.oac.cdlib.org/findaid/ark:/13030/tf9d5nb5pz/entire_text/
https://books.google.ch/books/about/Heinrich_August_Marschner_1795_1861_and.html?id=Bfz7XwAACAAJ&redir_esc=y

[Revilod]

I remember the BBC believing "Der Vampyr" was so commercial that, about twenty years ago, they chopped it up into chewable chunks and turned it into a serial for television.  Does anyone else remember that? It seemed an odd but brave thing to do. I wonder if the BBC still has it in its vaults.

[adriano]

That was a BBC soap opera version of 1992
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Vampyr:_A_Soap_Opera
That was, perhaps, not a very good idea, considering all the cuts which were done!

[kolaboy]

I believe I saw a version of that on A&E in 1994, or 95. Very ill-advised.
Thanks for the additional info, hadrianus

[JimL]

I noted a mention of his piano quartet.  Which one?  There are 2, and 7 piano trios as well.  There are 2 of the trios divvied up on YouTube, and there's a playlist of the 4th.