Max von Schillings: Violin Concerto Nr. 2

[Kriton]

...wiki says it's there, it's square, it was assigned the key of G minor and the opus number of 38...

Does anyone of this clever lot know if there is a (commercial...) recording of this piece - or perhaps if one's being planned? I reckon we could do with one!

Cheers,

K

[eschiss1]

trying to find where Wikipedia -got- that information , which is what's more important... any Wikipedia article is only as good as its references. I think this worklist is probably taken from the German language Wikipedia Schillings article's worklist, which doesn't help much I guess... will look though and see if I find any information.

[Kriton]

trying to find where Wikipedia -got- that information , which is what's more important... any Wikipedia article is only as good as its references. I think this worklist is probably taken from the German language Wikipedia Schillings article's worklist, which doesn't help much I guess... will look though and see if I find any information.

Cheers! I actually just read the German article - I didn't really expect to find new information on a German composer in an English article. Probably very prejudiced, sloppy and careless of me? I also saw there's supposed to be a Schillings piano concerto with a very promising title. Meanwhile, I also saw that Hermann Zilcher wrote 2 piano concertos - wouldn't those be ideal for Hyperion? To say something completely off-topic...

[eschiss1]

As to Schillings, the first of the violin concertos is at BSB (digital-collections.de - Bavarian State Library collections) in violin/piano form if one wishes to look at it, just saying. (Apologies for another digression.) I was hoping that a book on Schillings I just found at Google Books might be helpful but not so. Will, again, keep searching- persistence has turned up wonderful things before (have gone from practically no information on someone named Percy H Miles to having tentative birth and death dates and nationality, and other biographical information, on him in a few hours to my very, very great surprise- he was a friend of Lionel Tertis and a teacher of Rebecca Clarke as well as a violinist and composer...)

Eric _really_ digressing... sorry!!!!!!! ok,  will keep looking to see where I could find info on the Schillings vn conc 2. Not in ONB.ac.at (Austrian nat lib musiksammlung) , not in Bavarian Library, of course not in Worldcat,not in books found elsewhere so far, but only just begun of course.
Even if I were to find any confirming info, for my next trick I am not going to have a look for the Goldmark. I'm vain but not foolhardy.

[Alan Howe]

There seems to be some doubt about Schillings' VC2: the German Wiki article has a question mark by the mention of the work, as does this document....

http://www.schloss-neubeuern.de/includes/pdf/Historie/Max_von_Schillings.pdf

[Ilja]

Schillings is one of those composers I can't really listen to without thinking of his biography. He was a nasty piece of work, who spent the last half-year of his life making life impossible for Max Liebermann, Franz Schreker, and a host of other artists. Shouldn't be the only yardstick by which one assesses his music, but still...

[Alan Howe]

Schillings is one of those composers I can't really listen to without thinking of his biography. He was a nasty piece of work, who spent the last half-year of his life making life impossible for Max Liebermann, Franz Schreker, and a host of other artists. Shouldn't be the only yardstick by which one assesses his music, but still...

Yes, this is a real problem with some individuals - especially those who embraced Nazism or, indeed, communism. However, it's hard to know how far to take this. What about that nasty piece of work Richard Wagner, for example...?

[Kriton]

Schillings is one of those composers I can't really listen to without thinking of his biography. He was a nasty piece of work, who spent the last half-year of his life making life impossible for Max Liebermann, Franz Schreker, and a host of other artists. Shouldn't be the only yardstick by which one assesses his music, but still...

For me, the yardstick you talk about is no yardstick at all - I care as little for Schilling's political sympathies as I do for Schubert's (alleged) sexuality. I'm not a big supporter of "new musicology".

[Kriton]

What about that nasty piece of work Richard Wagner, for example...?

As this Dahlhaus-supporter would say: Hands off!

[Ilja]

Schillings is one of those composers I can't really listen to without thinking of his biography. He was a nasty piece of work, who spent the last half-year of his life making life impossible for Max Liebermann, Franz Schreker, and a host of other artists. Shouldn't be the only yardstick by which one assesses his music, but still...

Yes, this is a real problem with some individuals - especially those who embraced Nazism or, indeed, communism. However, it's hard to know how far to take this. What about that nasty piece of work Richard Wagner, for example...?

Admitted, it's not an easy problem and a bit of a minefield. But the opposite, to ignore composers or artists as humans altogether in order to be able to enjoy their art, is equally problematic. In Schillings' case (different from, for instance, Paul von Klenau or Franz Schmidt), what nails it for me is that he actively participated, for reasons both of political conviction and opportunism, in the persecution of his colleagues. Amongst which was Franz Schreker, who I'll prefer over Schillings any day, regardless of the latter's biography.

And sure, Wagner was a b•stard, who did harm to a great many people, but you can't really hold him responsible for what later generations did with his ideas.

An entirely different question is whether condemning someone's actions means you can't listen to his/her music anymore. With Schillings the potential dilemma is relieved somewhat by the obscurity and (dare I say it...) blandness of his music, but in other cases (again, Klenau, for instance) it becomes more prevalent. As far as I'm concerned, however, that doesn't apply - but I AM aware of the person behind the music. The one composer I can't listen to is Willem Pijper, because of his relentless, obsessive hate campaign against Jan van Gilse in the early 20th century. But then, I wouldn't be able to listen to it without that, I guess.

[Kriton]

The one composer I can't listen to is Willem Pijper, because of his relentless, obsessive hate campaign against Jan van Gilse in the early 20th century. But then, I wouldn't be able to listen to it without that, I guess.

If you replace "Pijper" with "Vermeulen" and "Gilse" with "Dopper", I'm your man!

[Alan Howe]

<<And sure, Wagner was a b•stard, who did harm to a great many people, but you can't really hold him responsible for what later generations did with his ideas>>

I didn't. I merely said that he was a pretty nasty piece of work. Yet he was one of the greatest composers who ever lived.

I do find the composers clearly involved in politically-inspired persecutions of other individuals or groups particularly difficult to listen to with an open mind...

[Alan Howe]

To return to Schillings, I have always found the VC recorded on Marco Polo a thoroughly worthwhile listen. OK, it's a tiring listen in the same sort of way that Reger's VC is (the orchestration is powerful and the chromaticism pretty relentless), but there is an absolutely gorgeous slow movement, and in any case I'm a sucker for this sort of thing. I'm just glad Schillings wrote it long before the rise of the Nazis...

[Alan Howe]

Just to confirm: von Schillings did NOT write a second violin concerto. For some reason or other, the Violin Concerto Op.38 by Wilhelm Kempff was misattributed as being by von Schillings.

[semloh]

Apologies for resurrecting this issue, but I've only just accessed the list and feel i must respond. Frankly, I am sceptical of people who say that the character of a composer has no bearing on their reaction to that person's compositions. It makes no sense in theory and is virtually impossible in practice, to separate the composer from the composition. If music is not, at least to some extent, an expression of the thoughts, feelings and personality of the composer, then it might as well be written by a machine. It may be that the music represents an entirely different and more attractive aspect of the composer's personality, but the composer is never entirely absent from their music. I don't think this is "new musicology", by the way. It's surely the traditional way of regarding the relationship between composers and their music.