Felix Draeseke: Germania-Marsch

[Rainolf]

The Youtuber "Lost and Sound" has given us the opportunity to listen to Draeseke's scandal piece of 1861:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5VIrOTDDFOQ

[Alan Howe]

Thanks! Rather a noisy and empty piece, I thought - and I'm a Draeseke fan!

[Gareth Vaughan]

Dull and dreary IMHO. I'm not surprised it was disliked. Draeseke's later music is in quite a different realm.

[Mark Thomas]

Sorry to join the chorus of criticism, but it reminded me of Malcolm Arnold's Grand, Grand Overture - everything thrown in willy-nilly, making little musical sense and then the "will it never end?" ending. It gets a D from me - Dreadful Draeseke Dud, I'm afraid.

[Ilja]

It's interesting to hear what the fuss was about, though, even if to our ears it might not sound particularly scandalous.

[Mark Thomas]

Agreed, but it just sounds inept.

[Ilja]

Surprisingly so, coming from Draeseke.

[Reverie]

I don't find it too bad. It's an odd piece to put it mildly. Whoever has put it together needs to urgently set the trumpets down a level as they obscure the texture every time they appear. There hasn't been any editing of the volumes.

Draeske is an esoteric taste at the best of times. However I have found if you listen twice, or three times, if you have the time, then a reward finally arrives. Maybe not with this bombastic flourish?

[eschiss1]

My favorite works of his - almost entirely chamber works, from the clarinet sonata and 2nd string quartet (1887 and 1886?) through the cello sonata and 2 string quintets to the late 2nd viola alta sonata - are, for one thing, from at least 2 decades later, but I haven't found that they take all that long to "sink in", for me?, whereas I do find myself humming the best of them repeatedly (possibly while wondering why they aren't just a bit better known ) Still possible that this march may grow on one, and I know I've always wondered what that march was that created such a strong negative reaction that it was even pointed out in Alan Walker's Liszt biography (iirc). I remember having it confused at one point with the later E minor march Op.79, which has been recorded on cpo, but not so much...

Edit: often between different Draeseke works I fancy I hear thematic similarities- _most_ markedly between his scena for violin and piano (which according to AKC program notes contains material from Bertram de Born) and his violin concerto, but also other pairs of works as well. Listening to this march there seem to be hints of motives and progressions that develop into something more mature in later works, maybe (I'm not sure which ones at the moment, earworm-style etc), or that may be my imagination entirely- as happens.

[Reverie]

Thank you Eric - that's what I was going to say   

[tpaloj]

Yeah this is pretty bad for Draeseke. Despite some colorful orchestration at times this march is just so hollow and repetitive music. Could have been shorter by about a half to be passable. It was good to hear it for its historical context even if just once and never again.

[semloh]

Late as I am to this thread, I just have to say how utterly tedious this piece is. Is it absolutely beyond doubt that Draeseke was the composer? Can the difference in quality when compared to later works be explained only by the lapse of time? Maybe he was having a migraine!

[taxus_mre]

Yes, undoubtedly a Draeseke, realisation is from the manuscript on IMSLP/ Saxonian State Library Dresden.
Draeseke was 26 y.o. at this time, and I presume, after he came in contact with the "Neudeutschen Schule" he wanted to be frantically novel.

The former channel "Lost and Sound" now is named "Ascended from Silence".