Leo Blech

[Justin]

Article recently posted, talking about the life of Leo Blech. This year is the 150th anniversary of his birth (1871), and the Aachen theater is supposed to be holding two concerts in April featuring several orchestral works.

http://www.rheinische-geschichte.lvr.de/Persoenlichkeiten/leo-blech/DE-2086/lido/6024fc518fd2d0.01069382

[semloh]

Thanks, Justin.
Members - note that the linked item is in German, and there is no English option.

[Justin]

Using Google Translate will get you a mostly understandable translation.

[eschiss1]

IMSLP has score and parts for a purely orchestral Stimmungsbild "Waldwanderung" by Blech published in 1902, by the way... (oh, I -see-, I should have looked...)

[adriano]

... and I have in my archive a 1950 Swiss Radio production of Blech's comic one-act opera "Versiegelt" with the great Paul Sandoz in the title role :-)
Yes, in those years, Swiss Radio also produced operas: and many of them were unsung ones!

[BerlinExpat]

I have an AAD recording on Cantus Classics made in Hamburg in June 1954.

[adriano]

Right, BerlinExpat, that's the recording with Elisabeth Söderström, which I had totally forgotten :-)

[Justin]

Special birthday article published: https://www.aachener-zeitung.de/kultur/musik/aachener-komponist-mit-rheinischem-humor-und-preussischer-strenge_aid-57367135

[adriano]

In July 1914 Schreker wrote the libretto to an opera entitled "Die tönenden Sphären". He abandoned composing it already working on the frist secene. He dedicated this libretto to Leo Blech. This text was even printed in 1924 by Universal Edition. I am happy to own a numbered, specially illustrated edition (with lithographies by stage designer Hans Wildermann) and the composer's and Wildermann's signatures. Who knows, maybe Leo Blech himself would have later considered setting this libretto to music?
In his splendid biography of Schreker, author Christopher Hailey mentions that "the story opens in 1914, shortly before the war, and concludes in 1916, the year of a supposed armistice. The festival that forms the setting fo the second act tableau and epilogue is not, however, a celebration of victory, but rather of peace and reconciliation".