Joseph Marx

[kyjo]

Joseph Marx is one of my favorite unsungs, along with Bortkiewicz, Atterberg, and Braga Santos. He is a master of orchestral color and the thing I like about him most is that he is not a Richard Strauss clone, like Boehe, Bischoff, and many other German/Austrian late romantics. His music is just the thing when you feel like a great big wallow, but it is more than just "atmospheric". It often bowls me over in its overpowering voluptuousness. His later music, though has a classical simplicity, but he was such a master of the late romantic orchestra and sound that I regret he changed his style. Still, he left us with plenty of wonderful music, almost all of which is recorded, save the Nordland Rhapsody for orchestra. There are two downloads available of his magnificent Herbstsymphonie, but no CD recording. It truly deserves to be recorded as an SACD! Just think how it would sound with the VPO!! And his hour-long violin sonata might be the longest sonata for violin and piano ever written, with Furtwangler's two being the only ones to run it a close second! And Steven Sloane's three ASV recordings of Marx's orchestral music are sadly very difficult to find and I sincerely hope that someone (perhaps Brilliant Classics) will reissue these CDs (along with other CDs from ASV's treasurable catalogue). So, what are your opinions on this great Austrian late romantic?

[X. Trapnel]

Marx's early music has a somewhat Brahmsian cast and as he developed I see his music as running parallel to the Zemlinsky/Schreker/Korngold idiom. The lushness is similar, but I believe Marx's music has an open air quality that theirs does not, romantic impressionism as against romantic expressionism (the fact that the former three were mainly opera composers dealing in the morbid psychologism of the day may have something to do with this). Likewise, Strauss's narrative/dramatic symphonic manner seems foreign to Marx. The composers he's closest to, I think, are Delius and Rachmaninoff (the latter's expansive, lyric, ruminative manner marks him off from Tchaikovsky as the same qualities distinguish Marx from Strauss and his epigones among whom Reznicek could be included.

[kyjo]

Well put, X. Trapnel. I agree that Marx is somewhat of a "romantic impressionist" and his music is, thankfully, free of the histrionics, bombast, and death-obsession of many other late Romanic German/Austian composers. Delius and Rach are good comparisons; he's sort of like a more powerful Delius or a less Slavic-sounding Rach, with a lush orchestral palette reminiscent of Debussy, Ravel, and Respighi. But Marx is definitely his own man, with that "open air" quality giving some of his music a rather Scandanavian atmosphere (don't forget that he wrote a Nordland Rhapsody).I'd take Marx over R. Strauss and his acolytes any day !

[eschiss1]

Strauss redeemed himself to my ears with that so very sad Metamorphosen, though otherwise I generally agree...

[minacciosa]

Marx is all about nature. I think he is a wonderful, near great composer with a truly individual idiom. THough I'm glad to have both performances of Herbstsymphonie, I must say that Botstein always seems to disappoint in musicality and interpretation despite his obviously great intellectual command of the subject at hand. He knows what music needs advocacy, yet his effectiveness as advocate seems to end at the written or spoken word.

[X. Trapnel]

"He knows what music needs advocacy, yet his effectiveness as advocate seems to end at the written or spoken word."

Bullseye. I heard Botstein perform Ariane et Barbe-Bleue by Dukas (my favorite opera) and found his conducting uninspired (the NYC Opera staging didn't help; Bluebeard's castle looked like a dentist's waiting room and the shower of jewels was borderline Ed Wood).

In his preconcert talk on the Autumn Symphony he said in passing that he rarely listens to recordings. Maybe he ought to.

[Alan Howe]

I hear a lot of Daphnis et Chloé in the Herbstsymphonie; I think Scriabin is also in the mix. But he manages to forge his own style - more symphonic than the French impressionists, more colouristic than his Austro-German contemporaries. Fascinating.

I take it everyone knows this website:
http://www.joseph-marx-gesellschaft.org/english/joseph-marx.html

[Gareth Vaughan]

I'd take Marx over R. Strauss and his acolytes any day !

You cannot be serious. Marx was a fine, inspired and innovative composer - but Strauss was a genius. His operatic achievements alone would place him in the first rank of composers.

[Alan Howe]

Quite right, Gareth. Methinks some contributors need to learn some objectivity...

[petershott@btinternet.com]

......and perhaps to be conscious of the central aims of the forum, namely to disseminate knowledge and understanding of those many unjustifiably unsung composers (especially of the 19th century)?

[Alan Howe]

Not to worry, Peter. That'll always remain the prime aim of this forum.

[kyjo]

I apologize sincerely to the R. Strauss fans of this forum . I was just saying that I ENJOY Marx more than Strauss, but Strauss is the GREATER composer. Gareth commented about his operatic achievements; I've never heard any of his operas, because, quite frankly, I can't stand opera ! I've just never been able to connect with Strauss' music, and I find this quite strange because I love late romantic music . Take his Also Sprach Zarathustra, for example. After the powerful (but hackneyed ) opening, the music (for me, at least) just seems to lose its inspiration. The only piece I have really enjoyed by him is his Burleske! Sorry for getting off-topic and for offending Strauss fans, but am I missing something about Strauss? Do I need to give his music repeated listenings? Do I need to listen to the operas ?

[X. Trapnel]

I would suggest Don Juan and Death and Transfiguration as entry points into Strauss, then Ein Heldenleben, and finally the sublime Four Last Songs. Strauss's aesthetic is dramatic; the turbulent human stage is his subject. Marx, by contrast is contemplative and intimist and in his ecstatic moments he's closer to a less metaphysical/more human Scriabin (just as Strauss is a more human Wagner, cf. the concluding trio in Rosenkavalier vs. the Tristan Liebestod [this is not a knock at the stupendous genius of Wagner]).

[Gareth Vaughan]

Very well put, X. Trapnel. I would also recommend Eine Alpensinfonie as a gateway to R. Strauss. I remember being utterly bowled over by it the first time I heard the work on the old Rudolf Kempe LP (still a very fine performance and recording, by the way, IMHO).

[Alan Howe]

The last two contributors have it spot-on, kyjo. And by the way, there's no problem with expressing contrary views on this forum - but they do have to be backed up. After all, what you (or I) may think about any given composer is of little interest; however, why you may think so could well be fascinating...