Messages

Naxos has formally announced the upcoming May 2015 release of the new Waghalter CD: http://www.naxos.com/catalogue/item.asp?item_code=8.573338. The story behind this release is remarkable. Almost three years ago, Alexander Walker visited me in Detroit to look through the boxes which contained what remained of my grandfather's musical legacy. Buried in the bottom of one of the boxes, in a large manila envelop, Alex discovered a 200-page orchestral manuscript, written in Waghalter's hand with ink and pencil. Coffee stains were visible on some of the pages. It was the orchestral work, composed for the American Negro Orchestra that he had founded, of which Waghalter had spoken in his interview with the Afro-American newspaper of Baltimore in a January 1939 interview. Alex slowly turned the pages of the score. "What do you make of this work?," I asked. "This is simply astonishing music, and it must be recorded," he replied. Alex meant what he said. He threw himself into the project, and turned the unproofed handwritten draft into a performable printed score. And so, six months later, the New World Suite was recorded in Moscow. The CD also contains the exuberant Overture and haunting Intermezzo composed by Waghalter for his 1914 comic opera, Mandragola. And finally, there is a rousing March that my grandfather composed in honor of President Thomas Masaryk of Czechoslovakia. It is my hope that the release of this CD will provide fresh inspiration for the efforts of those who have been engaged in the fight to rediscover and revive unjustly forgotten and neglected great composers of the 20th century.

Naxos will release its second CD of orchestral music by Ignatz Waghalter. Information about the recording and excerpts from the music can be accessed at: http://www.waghalter.com/2014/05/naxos-to-release-second-waghalter-cd/

I am very pleased to report that a second recording of the orchestral compositions of Ignatz Waghalter (1881-1949) will be released by Naxos in the early spring of 2014. In fact, conductor Alexander Walker completed today several days of recording sessions in Moscow. We spoke over Skype earlier today, and Alex told me that the recording sessions had gone extraordinarily well. The recording will open with  the overture and intermezzo from Waghalter's 1914 opera Mandragola. The CD will also include a lengthy 10 movement Suite for Orchestra, which Alex considers to be a masterful composition. As always with Waghalter's music, there is a surfeit of wonderful melodies. But the Suite, composed after the highly romantic Violin Concerto, reveals a Waghalter who was sensitive to and willing to participate in the on-going experiments in musical idiom. What is most remarkable is that Alex Walker discovered the Suite this past spring, when he visited my home in Detroit and examined the archive of my grandfather. He found in several parts a 200-page manuscript, fully orchestrated, in my grandfather's hand! And now that manuscript, which had not seen the light of day for more than 80 years, has been recalled to life and will soon, I hope, be heard by and bring joy to a new generation of music lovers.

First of all, let me again express my appreciation for the interest this site has shown in the progress of the Naxos release of my grandfather's  Violin Concerto (and other music for the violin). In a recent posting, Peter Schott writes:

"So why the successful sales? The only possible explanation is that the general public out there have become more knowledgeable and discriminating. The public must keep an alert eye out for things of real musical significance. And, if true, that's wonderful for it allows us to be a little more optimistic about the success of sales and projects with all the other composers that we care so much about."

I share Peter's optimism. For decades, it seemed unimaginable that my grandfather's music would be publicly performed, let alone be recorded by an orchestra of the stature of the RPO and released by a label such as Naxos. And yet, suddenly, events moved with incredible speed. In 2009 I was contacted by the extraordinary musician Irmina Trynkos. Within little more than a year and a half, I found myself witnessing the recording my grandfather's music. Before Alexander Walker raised his baton on March 15, 2011 (the 130th anniversary of Ignatz' birth), I had never heard any of my grandfather's music with orchestration. "Is this really happening?," I wondered. Then, in  the autumn of 2012, the recording was released. And through some incredible process of word of mouth, the CD seems to have found a substantial and appreciative audience. Yes, the music is beautiful. But it always was, and yet it languished unheard for such a long time. So many things had to happen for the music to come to life again. But all these "things" involved people taking an interest in the sort of, excuse me if I use the word, "beautiful" music that critics and academics have deprecated for decades. Irmina had to take an interest. Alex had to take an interest. The RPO had to take an interest. Naxos had to take an interest. Yes, so many people had to take an interest, including the many writers and readers of this invaluable web site, and now, finally, the music lovers who are responding to Waghalter's music.

What does this tell us? The sudden presence of a critical mass of "interested" listeners suggests that we are witnessing a shift in musical aesthetics. Waghalter's "success," however modest it may appear, is one of the many signs of the deep dissatisfaction of the music-loving public with the self-absorbed, demoralized, elitist ("who cares what the masses like") and frequently unlistenable music that has enthralled so many academics for decades. There is a new openness and receptivity to unknown and unsung composers who, for a vast complex of historical and cultural reasons, were thrust aside and forgotten. But the roots of melodicism are too deeply embedded in musical history and human emotion to be eradicated forever. The rediscovery of the old masters of melodicism -- and I suspect that Waghalter will not be the only beneficiary of this process -- will provide inspiration for a new generation of musicians who will champion this idiom and raise it to new heights.

Every month, the prestigious European music journal Pizzicato reviews hundreds of newly-released CDs. Of these, only a handful receives its coveted Supersonic designation, which it reserves for those it considers "An Extraordinary and Masterly Achievement [Aussergewöhnliche Spitzenleistung.] A Must-Buy!" The December 2012 issue of Pizzicato has awarded this designation to the new Naxos CD of the Ignatz Waghalter's Violin Concerto and other music for Violin, which features the brilliant Polish-born soloist Irmina Trynkos.

Review by Remy Franck, Editor in Chief
December 2012

"What a discovery: The Violin Concerto of composer Ignatz Waghalter (1881-1949) was, with its romantic characteristics, somewhat 'out of fashion' at the time of its composition in 1911 – but the wealth of ideas in this composition [Einfallsreichtum der Komposition] is fascinating. And that goes as well for the other works in this CD.

"Ignatz Waghalter was born into a Jewish family in Warsaw as the fifteenth of twenty children. Already as a child he was a virtuoso violinist and pianist. At the age of 17 he went to Berlin to seek his fortune there as a musician. He came to the attention of the famous violinist Joseph Joachim, who managed Waghalter's admission into Berlin's Academy of the Arts. He quickly made a name for himself and became principal conductor of the Berlin Opera House and New York Symphony. Aside from his activity as a conductor he composed symphonic works, operas and chamber music.

"An example of the latter is also represented in the Waghalter Project of Violinist Irmina Trynkos. The passionately formulated Violin Sonata is an enrapturing [hinreissendes] piece of music which was with good reason distinguished in 1902 with the Mendelssohn Prize.

"The engaged interpretations of the British violinist Irmina Trynkos, who is of Greek-Polish ancestry, is an eloquent testimony on behalf of unjustly forgotten music."

[Translated from the original German]

The review as posted on the Naxos website may be accessed at: http://www.naxos.com/SharedFiles/Reviews/8.572809_Pizzicato_122012_gr.pdf

I am the grandson of Ignatz Waghalter.  I am deeply moved by the renewed interest in the music of my "Opi," (as he was always referred to in my family, even years after his death). This is truly an extraordinary development, especially when one considers the almost complete oblivion that descended over his work for more than six decades. I hope and believe that the potential for a Waghalter revival arises from a desire for a music that evokes a  range of emotions beyond "angst" and "verzweiflung" [anxiety and desperation]. I would like to thank the contributors to this site who have expressed interest in the "Waghalter Project" and for your championing of "unsung composers" whose music deserves to be heard. I will be in London for the October 1 concert, and hope that I will have a chance to meet some of you who have been discussing Waghalter's music. With best regards, David Waghalter Green