Karl Weigl String Quartets

[Wieland]

cpo has announced to record all 8 string quartets by Karl Weigl, the first CD will contain the last two from the US exile. Nos 1, 3 and 5 were already recorded two decades ago by the Vienna-based Artis Quartet.

https://www.jpc.de/jpcng/cpo/detail/-/art/karl-weigl-streichquartette-vol-1/hnum/7971937

Already out is Capriccio's second installment of the symphonies, including a (I believe) first recording of No. 4 joined by No.6.

https://www.jpc.de/jpcng/classic/detail/-/art/karl-weigl-symphonien-nr-4-6/hnum/9483945

On first hearing I found No. 4 immediately attractive especially the final Adagio.

[Santo Neuenwelt]

Great news about the quartets. No.3 was recorded on a Stolar LP by the Chester Quartet several years before CDs.

[Alan Howe]

Let's concentrate here on the string quartets. There's already a thread on Symphonies 4 and 6:
http://www.unsungcomposers.com/forum/index.php/topic,7389.msg77924.html#msg77924

I have modified the thread title to this effect.

[Santo Neuenwelt]

We have played Nos.1 and 3, difficult but superb works. We offer both and have the music to another but are waiting for recordings so we can make soundbites. No.1 dates from 1904 but was not performed until 1925. No.3 from 1910 won the Beethoven Prize. Nuff said.

[matesic]

Stimulated by Santo's "Nuff said" I idly wondered who else might have won the Beethoven Prize. According to that most dependable of sources de.Wikipedia.org, starting in 1879 it was awarded biannually by the Gesellschaft der Musikfreunde in Vienna. "In 1896, on the recommendation of Johannes Brahms, the Beethoven Composition Prize was transformed into a "Composition Prize of the Gesellschaft der Musikfreunde" Vienna with completely new statutes and had nothing to do with the original Beethoven Prize". Who the other prizewinners could have been I can't discover. It sounds like a nice thing to embellish your CV, but Weigl's No.3 apparently did not win "The Beethoven Prize"!

[Santo Neuenwelt]

Went back and checked the LP from which we got this information. The jacket notes were written by one Ruth Watanabe. However, the Karl Weigl Foundation also states the City of Vienna awarded Weigl the Beethoven Prize in 1910 for his String Quartet No.3. q.v.
http://www.karlweigl.org/works.php?work=102

Also, the Karl Weigl papers housed at the Yale Music LIbrary seem to make reference to his winning this prize for the quartet. Mahler may well have put him up for it. He was Mahler's assistant and the two were on friendly terms...

So what happend? Mystery solved. Yes, the Gesellschaft der Musikfreunde changed the name from Beethoven Preis to Compositionspreis der Gesellschaft der Musikfreunde , but apparently no one seemed to take notice of this fact and those winning such as Zemlinsky, the first winner under the new name, continued to call it the Beethoven Prize as did local papers and everyone else. So yes, technically, Weigl did not win the Beethoven Prize of Vienna, because it no longer existed after 1896. On the other hand, he did win the Gesellschaft composition prize in 1910.

Bottom line, his String Quartet No.3 is a superb work.

[eschiss1]

I think quartet "no.1" and "no.3" by Weigl sometimes are used by different people to refer to the same work, but I'm not sure. Or it's also possible that he won the prize for both works (in C minor and A major). Or both. ("Quartet no.2" almost always refers to his quartet-with-viola d'amore, iirc.) (One Ruth Watanabe? I've heard of her...)

[eschiss1]

btw, it should be interesting to compare these new recordings of nos. 7 and 8 with the archival recordings this group may still have of them (or not?) (since the recordings we have are from old LPs etc. rather than broadcasts, I think, they may long since have been deleted... would have to check... I've downloaded at least one of nos. 7/8 and will listen again in any case especially if/when I might decide to download the new CD from a retailer, perhaps... cpo and Capriccio -are- doing good work by this composer.