Gottfried Eschenbach (1842-1920)

[Alan Howe]

Looks an interesting composer. He wrote nine symphonies:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gottfried_Eschenbach
http://eschenbach.awardspace.biz/index.html
Does anyone know anything about him?

[Alan Howe]

Here's the biography at the Eschenbach Society website:

Gottfried Eschenbach was born in 1842 to a middle-class family in Schleswig-Holstein, the son of Karl Eschenbach, an orchestral violist, and Margareta Eschenbach (neé Schröder). Although his father taught him to play the viola at an early age, he originally wanted Gottfried to become a lawyer. However, it soon became apparent that the boy was highly musically gifted, and Eschenbach's father eventually agreed to send him to Leipzig, where he studied composition, harmony, viola and conducting under Niels Gade and others. In 1863, he finished his studies, and his graduation piece and op. 1, a Symphony in C major, was played at a conservatory concert.

Eschenbach devoted the years after his graduation to his talents as a violist, touring Europe several times with Hungarian pianist Zoltán Kovács. However, he experienced an epiphany after hearing the Leipzig premiere of Brahms' German Requiem in 1869, and decided shortly thereafter to devote himself entirely to musical composition. For the rest of his life, he rarely held public recitals and restricted his talents as a conductor largely to his own works.

Eschenbach married soprano Katrine Jünger (1849-1919) in 1873. Together, they had three children. He died in 1920.

Although well-known for his slow and meticulous craftsmanship, Eschenbach lived long enough to amass nearly 200 opus numbers. His output is often divided into three periods. The first period, sometimes called the Romantic period, is usually said to begin with the publication of Eschenbach's first extant works in the early 1860s. While heavily influenced by the works of Beethoven, Schubert, Schumann and Brahms, the first-period works foreshadow many of the hallmarks of the composer's mature style, especially in the area of rhythm (the finale of Eschenbach's First Symphony is one of the first pieces in the canon of Western concert music largely in 5/4 time). The most notable compositions from this period are the Symphony in C major, Eschenbach's opus 1, the first two string quartets and several smaller works for the viola premiered in recital by the composer.

Although the beginning of the second period can be traced to Eschenbach's visit to Bayreuth in 1872, its style only became apparent with the 1875 publication of the song cycle An Der Frühling. The cycle shows the clear influence of the neo-German school of Liszt and Wagner in its heavily chromatic harmony and use of leitmotifs. Most of Eschenbach's large-scale works, including six of his nine symphonies, were composed during the second period. Although harmonically adventurous, the second-period works are formally Classical, rarely breaking completely with the conventions of sonata form.

Unlike many other German composers of the older generation, the aging Eschenbach was intrigued by the innovations of composers such as Schoenberg, Debussy and Stravinsky. This becomes apparent in the works of the third period. Usually said to start around 1900, the third period synthesizes and improves on Eschenbach's earlier innovation while also introducing several new features inspired by the inventions of Germany's expressionists and France's impressionists, including complex non-functional harmonies (the Debussy-inspired Préludes), synthetic scale formations (the last two symphonies and the orchestral Symphonic Fantasy) and polytonality (the Concert Study for the Left Hand, his last major work, written for Paul Wittgenstein).

[eschiss1]

I read something like this - polytonality ca.1920? (... and when did Wittgenstein start commissioning? but then, I see that Josef Labor's 1919 trio and 1920 fantasy were dedicated to him, so... hrm... maybe, maybe... - that's not out of the question datewise. ) - and yet something in me wants to think (so to speak) "April 1 was 4 months ago", especially after that injoke with Rufinatscha's 3rd a few years ago...

[Alan Howe]

It's no joke - at least not from me, Eric. I trust the whole thing's not a wind-up...

[Mark Thomas]

Intriguing, but the proof of the pudding is in the hearing. Which we aren't likely to do, I suspect. Was he published at all? There is nothing at IMSLP, and Worldcat returns a big fat zero. Eric?

[Alan Howe]

I've sent the Society an email.

[Alan Howe]

I'm getting an increasingly bad feeling about this. Every reference to Eschenbach leads precisely nowhere - including the stated publisher of The Music of Gottfried Eschenbach mentioned in the Wikipedia article: J. Derbyshire & Sons Ltd.

According to another small book, there does seem to have been a violist with this name:
http://www.bookrenter.com/german-violists-german-classical-violists-paul-hindemith-gottfried-eschenbach-tabea-zimmermann-sophia-reuter-julia-rebekka-adler-llc-1157842321-9781157842323
However, as the publishers - Books LLC - appear to produce collections of Wikipedia articles, we're effectively going round in circles...

[TerraEpon]

Interesting to note a couple things:
The person who created the article ONLY edited that and nothing else:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Special:Contributions/GeorgLudvig

There's almost nothing of substance added since the article was created over four and a half years ago:
https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Gottfried_Eschenbach&diff=587973102&oldid=337034612

And the society page doesn't actually contain anything but that small bio...
Not to mention, the society page's earliest entry in the Internet Archive is shortly after the Wikipedia page's creation:
https://web.archive.org/web/20100215000000*/http://www.eschenbach.cz.cc/

Everything is pointing toward a hoax. Now WHY someone would create a hoax for a late romantic composer who seemed to have an average (though prolific) career. Perhaps the biggest kicker is the mention of having written something for Paul Wittgenstein. Considering HIS commissions and works written for him are pretty well known (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Works_associated_with_Paul_Wittgenstein), one would think there would be some mention of this composer's work for him beyond a single Wikipedia page.

[eschiss1]

Have added my concern (that this is simply another Dag Henrik Esrum-Hellerup, in its way) to the talk page of the Wikipedia article.

[Wheesht]

Some more things to raise suspicion:
- a Google search for the name of the president of this society results in just four hits, three of them from the society's own site and one from a search engine that aparently just crawls the net. Margreta Eschenbach has just one hit, that of the society...
- why would a society devoted to a German composer not be available in that language as well as English (or Norwegian since it claims to be based in Norway)?

[Mark Thomas]

It's all very fishy. Was the Wikipedia entry first created on April 1st? Just to be flippant, my favourite spoof composer (apart from PDQ Bach, of course) was one of those created by contributors to the New Grove in 1980: Lasagne Verdi, known as 'Il Bolognese' (1813-1867). 

[Alan Howe]

These are precisely the concerns that I had yesterday. I smell a very large rat. Still, we'll see what the Society says - if they say anything at all, that is.

[jdperdrix]

It looks like a hoax...
But why didn't its author modify Paul Wittgenstein's page accordingly!
Now why? A private joke maybe... Or more seriously, a way to experiment with how information spreads over the web see, for example the citation in http://mindering.blogspot.fr/2011/12/commissioning-sympony-in-c.html.
Which reminds that wikipedia information is not 100% reliable!
This reminds me of the practice of cartographers who used to add imaginary islands in the middle of remote oceans, outside the main routes, just to check if anyone actually illegally copied their work. I've heard that online dictionaries still contain invented entries, for the same purpose...

[Alan Howe]

No news yet from the 'Society'. Rat getting bigger - and smellier...

[Mark Thomas]

So it seems. But why? What on earth is the point?