Max Erdmannsdorfer (1848-1905)

[Reverie]

Max Erdmannsdörfer was born in Nuremberg. He studied at the Leipzig Conservatory, becoming concertmaster at Sondershausen. In 1874 he married the pianist and composer Pauline Fichtner, a student of Franz Liszt.

Erdmannsdörfer corresponded with Liszt and he premiered Liszt's symphonic poem Hamlet at Sondershausen on 2 July 1876. He also once owned at least parts of the score of Liszt's lost Piano Concerto No. 3, which was finally pieced together only in 1989 from separate manuscript pages that had been dispersed as far afield as Weimar, Nuremberg and Leningrad.

Max Erdmannsdörfer also had an association with Joachim Raff. He and Pauline were the co-dedicatees of the two-piano version of Raff's Piano Quintet, Op. 107, and they premiered it at Sondershausen on 22 September 1877. In 1870, Pauline had been the dedicatee of Raff's Piano Suite in G minor. Erdmannsdörfer completed Raff's unfinished Symphony No. 11, Op. 214, after its composer's death, and had it published.

In 1882 he became the principal conductor of the Russian Musical Society concerts in Moscow, and professor at the Moscow Conservatory. He and his wife remained there until 1889.

He had a significant association with Tchaikovsky. While Tchaikovsky wrote that Erdmannsdörfer was "inclined to indulge the public's taste of exaggerated nuances" and "offhanded in his attitude to Russian music (except my own)", he nevertheless considered him "a very skilful, experienced and expert conductor". Tchaikovsky permitted him to conduct the premiere performance of his Symphony No. 1 (revised version, 1 December 1883)

His compositions are few in number and now completely forgotten. Until now, of course:

Prinzessin Ilse (1872) The overture to a secular cantata.

LINK:  https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tYiatcrcHCs

[Mark Thomas]

Thank you, Martin. This is a particularly interesting realisation for me because of Erdmannsdörfer's links to Raff.

[Mark Thomas]

Effective and attractive material that's very well orchestrated but surely overlong - maybe twice as long as it needed to be? Prinzessin Ilse must be a really substantial cantata if the Overture alone lasts 19 minutes but, as IMSLP only has the printed score for this Overture, presumably the rest of the music wasn't published, although I see that the Library of Congress has the printed libretto?

[tpaloj]

Fatally overlong but with beautiful moments and good writing. I wonder what the full cantata is like. I wonder also where the composer's manuscripts are. According to one article on the composer's wife Pauline von Erdmannsdörfer-Fichtner, the couple's estate is not known:

Ein möglicher Nachlass des Ehepaares ist bislang nicht bekannt.

mugi.hfmt-hamburg.de

This overture, but not the rest of the cantata, was performed (premiered?) 16 November 1872 by the New York Philharmonic canducted by one Carl Bergmann.

[eschiss1]

a search at SBB suggests they do have a couple of minor works of his in score in their collection, eg Albumblätter for violin and piano, Op.10 and ""Verloren und Gefunden" : Für 1 Singst. m. Begl. d. Pfte / Sechs Gedichte von K. Kuhn", Op.14, and his violin sonata op.25 (IMSLP has that and a couple of other works of his). Also the vocal score and full score of Prinzessin Ilse, Schneewittchen, Traumkönig und sein Lieb...

[tpaloj]

Thanks, Eric. That's good to know.

[Reverie]

I am in total agreement with the judgements. The opening, exposition is marvelous stuff. However, the middle section is the weakest - this development is a bit like wading through mud at times.

SO some cuts need to be made.

As I said it opens well, very atmospheric with the hunting horns and leads into the 6/8 allegro. (2 minutes so far)

This moves to the start of the full blown horn section with echoes ( 4 mins 30 secs)

Into a delightful waltz 2/4 against 6/8 (starting at 5 mins) which ends at bar 221

END OF EXPOSITION (6 mins)

So then it's 6 mins for development and another six for the recap making 18/19 mins in total.

........................

Maybe the middle section needs cutting and the recap needs pruning to bring the total down to about 12 mins?  Thoughts?

[Mark Thomas]

That sounds about right, Martin, maybe even down to 10 minutes and it would be a really effective, memorable piece. The opening sections demonstrate that Erdmannsdörfer had plenty of real talent.

[Alan Howe]

It's what I'd call the 'Rubinstein' syndrome, i.e. interesting material spun out too long.

[eschiss1]

Hopefully not the Reger solution though (where he sometimes gives an option where the whole development is cut, leaving an exposition, a recapitulation that, in some of Reger's mature "sonata-form" music, is an almost exact copy of the exposition, and in some of these works- like the Symphonic Prologue to a Tragedy- there -is- no coda. So, in that work in the authorized cut version, introduction-a-a very slightly changed. It's actually been recorded that way to which I could only say _why??_...)