Albert Rudolph Faesy (1837-1891)

[UnsungMasterpieces]

I just came across this Swiss composer while browsing the catalogue of the Marco Polo label.
They've released one CD with four of Faesy's orchestral works on it.
They are two orchestral preludes (Götz von Berlichingen & Der Triumph der Liebe) a tone poem (Sempach), and a symphonic suite (Columbus).
I've listened to them and I must say that I like what I've heard.
On the back cover of the album, it is mentioned that his style is reminiscent of Wagner and Liszt.

I haven't found a Wikipedia page about the composer, but I found this biography on the Naxos website:
https://www.naxos.com/person/Albert_Rudolph_Faesy/20453.htm

[eschiss1]

If there is a Wikipedia page his Wikidata page doesn't list it (as of 7-1-20) ...

[Wheesht]

Not a Wikipedia page, but an entry in the "Swiss Historic Lexicon" available in German, French and Italian and with a reference to an article about him: H. Erismann, «Ein unbekannter Zürcher Komponist: Albert R. Fäsi», in Schweiz. Musikztg. 119, 1979, 328-332.
His estate is held by the Zurich Zentralbibliothek.

[Gareth Vaughan]

Adriano would be able to tell us more, I expect, since he conducted the CD.

[UnsungMasterpieces]

Yes, I already came across the Lexicon entry. The entry on Naxos is much longer though.
Interesting fact: apparently, at some point Faesy had in his possession a manuscript of Wagner's Tannhäuser, with Wagner's own corrections in it.
Since it is suggested that Faesy must have known Wagner personally, that could very well have been the case.

[adriano]

Fäsy: Oh dear, that's an old story now :-)

I struggled for years, at first to get a sponsorship to copy the scores and edit the works and to make the orchestral material (I did, among others, some percussion editing/additions) - and then followed the usual suspense period until Marco Polo would approve it, but I needed to raise some more money.
At that time I had supplied a whole list of titles of Romantic/Post Romantic Swiss Composers (including Brun), but Marco Polo/Naxos were not interested after they found that the Fäsy was "too obscure" and not interesting enough. So the whole Swiss project was cancelled. This is one of the reasons I moved to Sterling.
The Fäsy recording was done in a hot summer week of 1999 in the old Mosfilm Studio. I was not fully satisfied with the sound balance of the master preview, and apparently there was no way to improve it. It all had sounded totally different in the studio, and I could never find out what really happened. Shortly afterwards producer Edward Shaknazarian was not allowed anymore to continue working for Naxos (Edy was a wonderful person and a dear friend, I still miss him). All other recordings I had done with him were super, so I engaged him again for my 5 first Sterling CDs. He died a couple of years later...
When I recorded Templeton Strong's "Die Nacht" and "Le Roi Arthus", Naxos had sent over to Moscow a UK producer to supervize Edy's work, and that was a very painful situation - especially after the first session where the Naxos man had to admit that everything was done perfectly. Edy felt very bad, so I went with him for dinner. Suddenly he started to cry bitterly... He was one of Melodiya's most famous producers, he has done so many splendid LP's!

Still, the "panoramics" of Fäsy's large orchestration had gone lost, it all sounded rather muddy, as having been recorded in a narrow studio.
A couple of years ago I did a "remastering", making the whole appear a bit "broader"; but the UK Naxos technical staff did not even answer my letter, in which I asked if they were interested, at least to have this remastering being offered as a new streaming.
The CD had but a couple of reviews: two in Switzerland and one in the USA; surprisingly enough, the American Record Guide wrote:
https://www.naxos.com/reviews/reviewslist.asp?catalogueid=8.225134&languageid=EN

I think my liner notes are detailed enough; this may be the longest essay ever written on this composer. So there is no necessity to add more in here.
You can read them here:
https://www.naxos.com/mainsite/blurbs_reviews.asp?item_code=8.225134&catNum=225134&filetype=About%20this%20Recording&language=English#

I wanted to upload the score of "Columbus" right now but, since this was done with a very early version of Sibelius, I would have to re-edit the whole score graphically, which would take many hours; perhaps I will be able to do this in August, just to show the best of the four recorded works: The symphonic poem "Columbus".

Marco Polo have cancelled this CD even before the complete closing-down of the Marco Polo repertoire - and never intended to re-issue it on Naxos.

At that time I had also travelled to Konstanz, in order to find out if there were any traces of Fäsy; since he moved and died there. Nothing to be found, except an impossibly arrogant guy at the City Archive, who hated me even before I had entered the room: I caused him too much work, apparently.

As you can see, many of my recordings are connected to strange, sad and sometimes even grotesque personal experiences. I cannot diassociate them even be re-listening to the music: They all come immediately back again.

[adriano]

Last night I spent a couple of hours working on the re-editing of a shorter and a bit less complicated score: "Der Triumph der Liebe". After opening it, the old Sibelius file looked really messy. What I could achieve is still not up to my standard; but it will give you an idea on Fäsy's music. A real shame that Avid/Sibelius does not care anymore as in the past. They issue a lot of updates, but the more we get, less possibilities we have to re-open "very old" scores without problems... This score was edited in 1997 and at that time Sibelius was running only on ACORN computers - all together was a very expensive affair...
Here you can see this score:
http://www.mediafire.com/file/r2k13jh3fsels9j/FAESY_-_Der_Triumph_der_Liebe_-_Score.pdf/file

[UnsungMasterpieces]

That's a fascinating story!

[adriano]

A curious coincidence: both Fäsy - and later Hans Jelmoli (1877-1936) - were sons of Zurich department store owners...
More info on the latter composer can be found in my liner notes to Sterling CD 1052-2

[adriano]

In the meantime I could find a perfectly clean print of my conducting score of Fäsy's "Columbus".
Here its high resolution scan:

http://www.mediafire.com/file/h69o9i2ez6c5pwy/FAESY_-_Columbus_-_Partitur_1997.pdf/file