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[Piano Sonata]

The British Library has printed scores of Puchat's Piano Sonata and 4 Pieces In Dance Form:
https://bll01.primo.exlibrisgroup.com/discovery/search?query=any,contains,max%20puchat&tab=LibraryCatalog&search_scope=Not_BL_Suppress&vid=44BL_INST:BLL01

[In den Alpen. Symphonische Tonbilder.]

It's a pleasure for me to read about your interest in Puchat. As the author of the preface I must say: it was not easy to collect information about this composer. And until today I am not able to give you a more or less complete list of his works. As you see, there are many gaps in his opus numbers, and many pieces without an opus number. Nothing by him was printed in the last 20 years of his life, and it is unclear if he still composed during this period.

Another orchestral work has survived in manuscript: In den Alpen. Symphonische Tonbilder.
You can find the score at the University Library of Chicago:
https://catalog.lib.uchicago.edu/vufind/Record/3847669

What happened to Puchat's other unprinted works (among them several tone poems and piano concertos) can not be said, yet. I was not able to trace the record of his wife Marie to a date later than 1924. Did she remain in Breslau after her retirement, or did she move to another place and took his scores with her? If Puchat's manuscripts remained in Breslau until 1945 it is possible that they were destroyed or got lost. If you have any hint for me in this case, please let me know!

For me Puchat is a major find. And it would be very nice to listen to good performances of his music in the future!

Here you have a copy of the worklist, printed in the Höflich Score

Catalogue of works by Max Puchat

This catalogue of works makes no claim to completeness and is expressly to be understood as provisional. The
gaps in the opus count reveal that not all works with opus numbers were printed. In two cases, compositions
without numbers appeared in print. For the time being, it must remain open whether numbers that remained
free were reserved for some of the works listed here that never made it into print. Since, due to the sources available, it was hardly possible to provide information on the dates of origin of the compositions, the date of publication, including the publisher, was given in the list for printed works. The unprinted works were given the date of the earliest verifiable performance or the earliest mention.

Music for orchestra

-Symphony (awarded with the Mendelssohn Prize in 1884)
-Euphorion, symphonic poem after Goethe's Faust, op. 14 (Siegel, Leipzig 1888)
-Ouvertüre on a Nordic Theme, op. 22 (Siegel, Leipzig 1890)
-Leben und Ideal, symphonic poem after Schiller, op. 24 (Siegel, Leipzig 1892)
-Tragödie eines Künstlers, symphonic poem (performed in Berlin in 1894)
-In den Alpen, symphonic tone pictures (performed in Munich in 1906)
-Piano Concerto in E flat major (performed in Berlin in 1890)
-Piano Concerto in C minor (performed in Berlin in 1895)
-Piano Concerto in E minor (performed in Milwaukee in 1905)
-Fuga solemnis, tone poem for orchestra and organ (performed in Berlin in 1891)

Chamber music

-String Quartet in D minor (performed in Berlin in 1888)
-String Quartet in F major, op. 25 (Bote & Bock, Berlin 1892)
-Canzonetta for violin, viola and piano (performed in Paderborn in 1900)
-Sonata for violine and piano in D major (Klemm, Leipzig 1898)
-Romance for violin and piano (performed in Berlin in 1894)
-3 Fantasy Pieces for violoncello and piano, op. 4 (Breitkopf & Härtel, Leipzig 1886)

Music for piano

-3 Piano Pieces (Alla Marcia, Scherzo, Preludio e Fugato), op. 1 (Praeger & Meier, Bremen 1883)
-Sonata in B flat minor, op. 3 (Bote & Bock, Berlin 1886)
-4 Pieces in Form of Dances (Böhmische Polka, Tyrolerweise, Tarantelle, Walzer-Phantasie) for piano
four hands, op. 5 (Bote & Bock, Berlin 1887)
-Rhapsody, op. 11 (Bisping, Münster 1888)
-2 Piano Pieces (Polnischer Tanz, Abendstimmung), op. 12 (Bisping, Münster 1888)
-Am Gardasee. Serenata italiana, op. 13 (Bisping, Münster 1888)
-Valse, op. 18 (Bisping, Münster 1890)

Songs (with piano accompaniment unless otherwise stated)
-4 Songs (Hientzsch, Breslau 1885)
-4 Songs, op. 8 (Bisping, Münster 1888)
-Ganz oder gar nicht, op. 9 (Bisping, Münster 1888)
-Du wunderschöne Schlanke, op. 10 (Bisping, Münster 1888)
-Aus den Bergen, 2 duets for soprano and alto, op. 19 (Bisping, Münster 1889)
-Gretchen vor der Mater Dolorosa, with orchestra (performed in Munich in 1906)

If you want to explore Keußler's oratorios, you now can find the vocal scores of two of them on Imslp.

Jesus aus Nazareth:

https://imslp.org/wiki/Jesus_aus_Nazareth_(Keussler%2C_Gerhard_von)

Die Mutter. Ein Marien-Oratorium (The Mother. A Marian Oratorio):

https://imslp.org/wiki/Die_Mutter_(Keussler%2C_Gerhard_von)

[XVII International Conference "Traditions of Silesian Musical Culture"]

From 25 to 27 March 2025 the XVII International Conference "Traditions of Silesian Musical Culture" will take place in Wroclaw, Poland. One part of the event is a piano recital of works by unsung Silesian composers. Charlotte Steppes plays music by Eduard Franck, Arnold Mendelssohn, Hermann Buchal and Günter Bialas.

[Felix Woyrsch]

Felix Woyrsch (1860-1944): Da Jesus auf Erden ging. Mysterium op. 61 (1916)
[When Jesus Walked on Earth. A Mystery] for soloists, choir and orchestra

Mechthild Söffler, soprano
Bernhard Gärtner, tenor
Hanno Müller-Brachmann, bariton
Monteverdichor Würzburg
Jenaer Philharmonie
Matthias Beckert, conductor

Recorded on 8 December 2024 at the Neubaukirche in Würzburg

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=b1T-t25rDPE

I don't know the early operas of Wagner very well. But I think that if he had shared the fate of Arriaga and had died at age 20, we would view Wagner, because of his Symphony in C major, as one of the most important symphonists of his day (that is the years immediately after Beethoven's death). Of cause, the style of this work and the early overtures of the same time is very different to his later style, but Wagner shows himself as a powerful composer, very much addicted to Beethoven, but yet with an individual voice.

Wagner later thought of his early works as student pieces, but what a master he was in his "student" days! The "problem" is that he wanted to be a playwright from the beginning on, and so he tended to downplay his achievements in absolute music. And from the viewpoint of The Ring and Parsifal, his early operas looked for him like studies in foreign styles, so he distanced himself from them.

At the Grieg Begegnungsstätte in Leipzig a lecture-concert with songs and texts by Ethel Smyth will take place on 5 December. Mary Louise Detterer reads from Smyth's memories on her time in Leipzig. Ayda-Lisa Agwa, voice, and Manami Honda, piano, perform Smyth's songs:

https://www.edvard-grieg.de/events/zartliche-tone-des-widerstands---ein-ethel-smyth-abend

On 25 January 2025 a song recital with works by August Bungert, George Enescu and Felix Draeseke will take place in the house of the Kunstverein in Coburg. The concert is part of an exhibition of paintings by Dora Hitz, who was the favourite painter of queen Elizabeth of Romania (alias Carmen Sylva). It is focussed on songs after lyrics by Carmen Sylva.

Thank you, Ilja, very much for your work on the recording of Rudorff's 2nd! Of cause, the flaws could not be eliminated totally, but it has improved by your editing, and is much more enjoyable now. 

[Klage]

The channel of the MonteverdiChor Würzburg contains video documents of some more Zilcher performances:

Klage for violin and orchestra op. 22

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=afav82rPGc4

Konzertstück for violoncello and orchestra op. 21

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VQsIWm-OM-M
 
Nazar Totovytskyi, violin
Jiyeon Kim, violoncello
Thüringen-Philharmonie Gotha-Eisenach
Matthias Beckert, conductor

Thank you, Alan, for creating the separate thread!

The performance material for Rudorff's Symphonies No. 1 and No. 3 could be rented via Boosey & Hawkes, together with Serenade No. 2:

https://www.boosey.com/cr/catalogue/ps/powersearch_results?composerid=15800

The scores of the two Serenades are now available at Höflich, too.

Musikproduktion Höflich has announced the score of Rudorffs Symphony No. 1. With this all three symphonies by Rudorff have re-appeared in print.

From the preface:

"As the opus numbers of his orchestral works reveal, Rudorff – like Brahms – approached the genre of the symphony not directly, but first tested his skills as a composer of orchestral works in overtures, serenades and variations. The Ballade op. 15, consisting of an introduction, scherzo and finale, can be described as a concise symphony without a traditional first movement. Rudorff finally completed his First Symphony in B flat major op. 31 at the age of 39 on 22 September 1879 in his permanent holiday resort of Lauenstein near Hamelin. Within a few years, two further contributions to the genre followed: Symphony No. 2 in G minor op. 40 was begun in Lauenstein on 19 August 1882 and completed on 21 September 1883; Symphony No. 3 in B flat minor op. 50 was fully sketched in the summer of 1887, but was not printed until 1910 and premiered in 1911, long after the two previous symphonies.

Rudorff's B flat major Symphony, like his other symphonies, is in four movements. In contrast to the G minor and B minor symphonies, which both end with finales in sonata form, it concludes with a set of variations. The third movement is a Presto in 6/8 time, the only movement of a Rudorff symphony that has the character of a scherzo (the Second Symphony contains a march-like piece instead, the Third a moderately fast intermezzo). The opening movement begins with a short introduction in the main tempo, whose motifs return several times in the further course of the movement. In strong contrast to the partly brusque, partly restrained sounds of the beginning the main theme appears, which in melodic shape and phrasing pays much respect to Robert Schumann (cf. the finale of Schumann's Symphony No. 1, for example). Rudorff's penchant for rhythmic shifts and metrical irregularities can be felt in all movements. Note, for example, the 3/2 bars inserted into the 4/4 metre in the opening theme of the slow movement, or the fourth variation of the finale, which is composed of irregularly alternating 2/4 and 3/4 bars. In the course of the finale, Rudorff also makes deliberate use of the metrical ambiguity of the first bar, which is transformed into a separate introductory bar in several of the variations.

Rudorff's Symphony No. 1 was performed for the first time on 15 December 1881 as part of the 31st performance of the Königliche Hochschule für Musik at the Sing-Akademie zu Berlin. The orchestra of the Hochschule was conducted by Joseph Joachim."

If you want to know more about Jonathan Berman's views on Franz Schmidt, his music and his times, here is an interview I did with him:

http://www.the-new-listener.de/index.php/2024/11/17/franz-schmidt-and-his-symphonies-an-interview-with-jonathan-berman/

"There's some very good music that you spend six months learning, and then a week with an orchestra, and then you're happy to leave it for a few years. I always want to go back to Schmidt's music. After a performance the first thing I do is: I open the score and want to explore more..." (Jonathan Berman)

[Ernst Reicher]

Here is a live performance of Ernst Reicher's silent film Das Buch Esther (The Book of Esther) with music by Hermann Zilcher.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JQmBBXyAo7Y

Zilcher composed the music for Reicher's biblical epic in 1920 and conducted the first performances himself. The film was forbidden by the Nazi regime, because Reicher was of Jewish descent, but a copy found the way into the US, where it was reworked and performed under the new title "Persecution".

One single copy of Persecution did survive. The score of Zilcher's music went lost, but a piano score could be found in the Bavarian State Archive. Conductor Wolfgang Zilcher, Hermann Zilcher's grandson, re-orchestrated it and adapted it to the only surviving American version of the film. So Das Buch Esther was performed with the original music in 2024 by the Thüringen-Philharmonie Gotha-Eisenach and the MonteverdiChor Würzburg conducted by Matthias Beckert.

This seems not to be the case, but it is possible that the performance will be recorded and published on the Monteverdichor's Youtube channel like the Pierné-Zilcher-Woyrsch Christmas concert last year:

Gabriel Pierné: The Children of Bethlehem:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Y9JAzhhjZTE
Hermann Zilcher: Night Music:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CPTgMRX15ts
Felix Woyrsch: The Birth of Jesus:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=q24iP71of8Y&t=6s