Bud Powell - Live in Geneva 1962

Excellent later set of Bud Powell jamming live in Geneva, Switzerland in 1962. According to Discogs their exists a twelve track version with Johnny Griffin in the tenor sax chair on the additional two tracks, recorded in France rather than Switzerland, but I have been unable to track it down. For what it's worth, the ten previously unreleased recordings are all included here. Released by Catalonian label Gambit Records in 2009.

1. Ornithology

2. Swedish Pastry

3. Hot House

4. I Remember Clifford

5. Just One Of Those Things

6. Anthropology

7. 'Round Midnight

8. Jordu

9. I Know That You Know

10. Blues In The Closet

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Per Nørgård - Der Göttliche Tivoli

"In 1921 Walter Morgenthaler, who worked between 1908 and 1919 as a doctor in the asylum at Waldau near Bern, published his much-discussed book about Wölfli. In the book he describes the patient's life and artistic work from the point of view of the doctor. In revolutionary fashion, like Hans Prinzhorn a year later, he ascribed an aesthetic dimension to the productions of the mental patient. 

"His father was a stone mason, and, at least if we can trust the information from the patient, was an intelligent man; and when he was sober also a good worker; but besides this a decided drinker who drank up his wages in 'the most notorious schnapps and fornication dives' and left his family to suffer want. Gradually he became more and more dissipated, finally turning to crime and ending up in prison. In 1875 he is said to have come back – apparently with the help of the police – to his native parish Schangnau, where he soon afterwards died in a state of delirium.

"His mother is said to have been a washerwoman. During an interview in 1895 the patient said that she led an immoral life. Nevertheless he seems to have remained attached to her.

"Adolf was born on 29th February 1864. Until he was eight years old he lived with his parents in Bern. In 1872, by his own account, he and his mother were sent with the help of the police to her native parish, the remote village of Schangnau in Emmental. His mother is reported to have been ill already on her arrival, and she died a few months later. Shortly after their arrival the boy had been taken from his mother, and he only heard of her death by chance some months later.

"One is reminded of Jeremias Gotthelf when he tells us how, at a ‘Verdinggemeinde', he was taken from his mother and given to a farmer; how at the age of eight he had to tend goats in the summer and in the winter had to do hard work in the forest; how he was often hungry, witnessed schnapps feasts and was himself seduced into drinking spirits; how as punishment for small misdemeanours and accidents ahe was bused, caned and kicked, so that he was unable to go to school, etc.

"From 1880 on he was a farm hand. Between 1881 and 1882 he worked for a farmer in Zäziwil, where the poor little farm lad, hardly eighteen, fell head over heels in love with a neighbour's daughter. When the girl's parents discovered the relationship, they forbade her to see him. This renunciation must have pained Wölfli greatly: 'I brooded, even became melancholy, and did not know what to do. The same evening I rolled around in the snow out of pure lover's grief, and lamented the happiness I had so evilly been denied.'

"He traveled to Bern, where he was employed in very hard work by a farmer. But soon he was unable to bear it there either, and he now embarked on a chequered career.

"In that spring (1890) he encountered something quite new to him, something he was apparently unable even to explain to himself: one Sunday as he was wandering aimlessly in Bremgarten, he came across a 14-year-old girl deep in the forest. At all events Wölfli was suddenly seized by 'rash thoughts', approached the child, and caught her by the arm after a brief introduction, such that she began to weep. Three men and an 'old spinster' came up and prevented anything happening. On 12th May 1895 Wölfli committed a new offence, stealing into a house in the town and trying to engage in some immorality with a little girl of only three and a half. He was surprised by the parents and handed over to the police.

"On 3rd June 1895 he was committed by warrant to the asylum Waldau for a mental examination. The declaration of the experts, which was made on 8th October 1895, concluded that Wölfli was mentally ill and of unsound mind, as well as a danger to public safety, whereupon the process was interrupted and the case files were sent to the responsible official in the cantonal government. On 23rd October he decided that Wölfli was to be placed in an asylum and kept there until he was 'mentally cured and no longer dangerous to public safety'. [Wölfli remained there until his death in 1930 – ed.]

"For the first five years in Waldau the symptoms of his illness became more and more pronounced. In the spring of 1899 we read for the first time that for a period he has been busily sawing firewood, and in November that year that he 'passes the time drawing'. In the second period it is recorded again and again how he draws, writes, composes etc. enthusiastically. For years his state of mind then alternates between irritation, innumerable hallucinations, threatening behaviour, scolding and banging about and serious acts of violence. For long periods he remains calm, when he has enough material to draw and is not disturbed by others.

"Third period: On 29th September 1917 he was transferred to solitary confinement beside the guard room on the second floor. He had no concern but to ensure that his huge heaps of papers and drawings were transferred undamaged to his new place of residence. And there he settled down again.

"But he still hallucinates a great deal. Almost every night he has to scold his voices for a while." (Walter Morgenthaler. From the liner notes.)

"The long succession of awards that Per Nørgård (b. 1932) has received for his compositions shows how important he is considered to modern music – and not only Danish music. His abundant output of symphonic and chamber music as well as his five operas to date shed their radiance far beyond the north of Europe and out into the world.

"Per Nørgård was born on 13th July 1932 in Gentofte in Greater Copenhagen. At a very early stage his teacher in composition, the Danish symphonist Vagn Holmboe, equipped him with the principle of musical ‘metamorphosis', which he saw could be developed further during his study of among other things the works of Sibelius. In 1956 he spent a year studying in Paris with Nadia Boulanger. From 1958 he was a teacher himself, first at the Carl Nielsen Academy of Music in Odense, later at the Royal Danish Academy of Music in Copenhagen, and finally at the Royal Academy of Music in Århus, where he established an important centre for contemporary music. For many young Danish composers he became a mentor who was to influence their whole professional life. Between 1975 and 1980 he went on several journeys to Indonesia, where he immersed himself in Balinese gamelan music. It was first and foremost the percussion instruments that interested him, as in the gengs and chalungs – in versions specially made in Bali for Per Nørgård – used in 'The Divine Circus'.

"From his student years until the years around 1980 Nørgård's career as a composer can be seen as a continuous development where the aim is to create a closed harmonic totality. In purely technical terms, the infinity series, which he discovered in 1959, plays an important role. This is a principle for generating pitches which uses self-identical units to create a melodicharmonic sound universe. In this context the composer himself speaks of the musical weaving of an 'infinity tapestry'. At the rhythmic level he based his compositions on organic organizational forms, especially the Golden Section. For the musical theatre he created three operas in this period: 'The Labyrinth' (1963/67), 'Gilgamesh' (1971/72) and 'Siddharta' (1974-1979/1989).

"In 1979 Per Nørgård visited an exhibition with works by Adolf Wölfli, and this led to a crucial turning-point in his way of composing. Inspired by Wölfli's rule-free art Nørgård departed from many of the organizational forms he had cultivated hitherto, turning towards a more subjective, spontaneous and at the same timeless bright, harmonious way of writing: 'The encounter with Wölfli's art (and his life!) concluded a harmonic decade (1970-1980), in which my gaze had been directed towards a  cosmological-harmonic totality that was strongly based on the discovery of the ‘infinity series' (1959). After immersing myself in the multidimensional universe of the infinity series or the infinity tapestry, I experienced the encounter with Wölfli's chaotic art as a mental dive into a different, dark world – eerie, unpredictable, but fascinating and above all highly specific. That is, a 180-degree turn away from the preceding ‘light-period'!' (Per Nørgård in February 2007).

"Among the works written in connection with Wölfli were the choral work 'Wie ein Kind' (1980), the Fourth Symphony with the subtitle 'Indischer Roosen-Garten – Chineesischer Hexensee' (1981) and the opera 'The Divine Circus' (1982). Around the time of the opera the piece 'I Ching' for solo percussion also arose, and in certain passages it coincides with the opera; its fourth movement is identical with the virtuoso percussion prelude. In the opera percussion instruments generally play a leading role: besides a synthesizer and an electronically amplified cello the ‘orchestral' ensemble requires six percussionists. After the world premiere in Århus in 1983 the opera was performed in among other places Edinburgh and St. Gall. The German premiere took place in Lübeck in 2007, and this production was also shown in Bern. (Katharina Kost. From the liner notes.)

"As long as Orpheus sings for the god of the underworld, Tantalus forgets his cruel thirst, Sisyphus sits down on his boulder, the voracious bird abandons Prometheus' liver, and Ixion's wheel stands still. These harshly punished people's compulsive actions end for a while. The rulers of Hades are even so touched that they grant the singer an extraordinary honour: he can boast that he is the first to liberate a human being from the clutches of death with his music.

"Something similar happens to Adolf Wölfli, the protagonist of Per Nørgård's opera 'The Divine Circus'. When he finally begins to write and draw, the figures of insanity and memory within him and around him fall calm. Doufi, Saint Adolph and Saint Adolph II, Margritt, Mutti and all the ‘Vögeli' (the birds): those that have tormented and humiliated him before now turn out to be impressed and to look up to him. In both cases, it is the miracle of art that takes place.

"The unusual fate of the historical Adolf Wölfli has fascinated whole generations. As early as the beginning of the twentieth century artists were inspired by his grandiose oeuvre. At the beginning of the 1980s he became an operatic hero for a number of composers. Per Nørgård has dedicated a whole group of works to him. But much about this ‘operatic hero' is strange: a man who has molested little girls or at least intended to do so; a man who in his delusions of grandeur sought and found a sad replacement for a bungled life. Is that the kind of thing we want to see on an opera stage?

"In many respects Nørgård's opera is exceptional: even the ‘orchestral ensemble' (unusual even for a music drama work of the twentieth century) – six percussionists, synthesizer and electronically amplified cello – makes you literally prick up your ears. At first glance it seems confusing that the Wölfli figure is split into the four singers, and that the two female singers are constantly changing into different female figures.

"But precisely in terms of content the opera is anything but isolated within the music drama tradition. Despite the fact that Adolf Wölfli is a unique phenomenon, the figure is also closely related to many other figures of literary and theatrical history. And at the formal musical level too Nørgård again and again takes up themes familiar to us all. The subject, the attempt at child molestation, certainly pushes against the boundaries of certain taboos; but these only lie parallel to, not beyond our familiar boundaries. For about 200 years it has even been common to see murder on the opera stage. The opera's Wölfli thus shares his particular fate with many stage figures – they are all eccentric outsiders, ostracized from the community, but also gifted with special abilities.

"For several centuries insanity has had its place on the European stage. English Restoration drama had its mad scenes with their so-called 'mad songs', already to be found in all their facets, from the comic-grotesque to the tragic, in Shakespeare's plays. In the works of Handel or Donizetti the tradition is carried on. The motif can also be glimpsed in Georg Büchner's Woyzeck and Alban Berg's Wozzeck, where the title figure first hears voices and later commits a crime of passion: when the world is no longer bearable, especially when the existential themes of love and jealous play their part, life is invaded by madness.

"For the dramatist madness offers interesting opportunities to breach existing conventions, and to look for new, more direct forms of expression. In music theatre this usually already begins in the text: when Baroque opera heroes go mad with jealousy, the verses become disordered, strophes are omitted, rhymes are missing. Unfamiliar mixtures of recitative and aria, changing keys or music that begins to revolve obsessively around the same thought help to express how the hero is 'out of' his or her mind, as for example in Deianira's mad scene in Handel's 'Hercules' (1745), where the sentence 'Let me be mad' still recalls the old English tradition.

"In his opera 'The Divine Circus' Per Nørgård similarly uses musical devices to illustrate a worldview that deviates from the norm. And he too takes his point of departure in an ‘irregular' text with grammatical, spelling and semantic ‘errors' – the ones in Wölfli's original texts. Unlike the composer's earlier works, which arose on the basis of the fractal system of the ‘infinity series' or ‘infinity tapestry', 'The Divine Circus' in its musical shape transgresses the rules for long passages. Conventions are only important when associative quotations are interpolated, in parallel with a collage principle that is also found in Wölfli.

"In addition, the composer, through the hero's multiple characters, creates dramatic scope for himself, giving the real Adolf Wölfli three extra personalities (Doufi, Saint Adolph and Saint Adolph II) makes Wölfli's psychological universe a musical theatre in itself. Wölfli can sing duets, trios and quartets with himself. But all the things that only opera can do by means of ensemble singing serve to characterize the split personality: the musically shaped simultaneity of empathy, inconsistency, rebellion, resignation, defiant protest, fond interest and dissociation etc.

"But the representation of the deviant only becomes interesting because a truth thus arises that remains invisible when one is dealing with the ‘normal'. In this respect too Nørgård has had predecessors in his view of Wölfli, and not only in terms of the appreciation that Wölfli's art has received after World War II through Jean Dubuffet, who made his art famous as art brut; the interest shown by ‘rational' people in the odd and strange is considerably older. Madness/folly and genius/wisdom have long been regarded as closely related: we need only think of the jester who proclaims his wisdom to the highest ruler, or the ‘noble savage' who shows the European warped by civilization how the true natural mind works; perhaps too of the melancholy genius or the disturbedly visionary saint. They all have a long tradition of being splendid operatic characters.

"Much more generally speaking too, the figure of Wölfli is not unfamiliar from European drama. He can be interpreted as the hero who guiltlessly becomes guilty, that is as a tragic hero. True, Wölfli does not stumble, like the incestuous patricide Oedipus, the ‘primal father' in this genre, into fateful misconceptions. Instead of the curse of the gods, one finds in him a structure of instincts and the social rejection he suffered. But as with Oedipus his story evokes in the audience the two characteristic tragic emotions fear and pity: fear of his appalling improper advances to children, and pity in view of his huge love deficit, which has tormented him throughout life. In that respect too Wölfli recalls Woyzeck/Wozzeck, with his aggression that one can at first understand, but its results that nevertheless remain loathsome. In the case of Wölfli, though, it is doubtful how much of the guilt in his misfortunes can be ascribed to the individual and how much to society. It is indisputable that the young Adolf Wölfli suffers an extraordinarily sad fate as the child of a single mother who is dependent on public support and who must later, as an orphan, toil on the farms of strangers. In that sense he is someone who has strayed from the straight path, a brother of la tra-viata, the derailed victim of a society on its way towards becoming perfectly organized, where there is no place for marginal groups. At the same time Wölfli's reaction to his situation is extreme: susceptible and irritable, he turns his frustration outward as aggression and in that respect seems rather like some perverted Don Juan, attempting to compensate for his longing for human closeness and his inability to commit to another human being by way of momentary sexual contacts with casual partners. Thus it is perhaps no coincidence that, when Wölfli in Scene 5 of Act One ('Awakening in Heaven') reels off 'Young ones and old ones alike; rich ones and poor ones; white ones, black ones, red ones and brown ones', one is reminded of the reeling off of Don Giovanni's conquests by Leporello in his ‘list aria' in Mozart's opera: 'Young and old, rich and poor, white, black, red and brown'.

"When we see Wölfli's tragic aberrations, his hopelessness, his insanity and his social marginalization, his achievement can hardly be overestimated. Through his own strength he finds his way to art, bursts his chains and arrives at belated heroic qualities. This is where we must seek the difference between him and the operatic hero driven mad by unrequited love, the dying tragic hero and the heroine who languishes away in social misery: Nørgård's opera in fact describes not a path to perdition but the way that leads through catastrophe and past it to a life beyond madness, beyond tragedy and beyond social discrimination. True, it is not the furies of the underworld that Wölfli must exorcise with his art, but his own obsessions. In the finale of the opera, though, he does experience an elevation that approaches that of a mythical hero like Orpheus: while Orpheus assumes his eternal position as a constellation in the firmament, Wölfli triumphs in a final apotheosis over all internal and external opponents. At this point Nørgård surrenders the control of the music to Wölfli himself. With the final chorus 'Hallelujah, our God has gone mad!' to a melody attributed to Wölfli himself, he withdraws as a composer and mixes in with the crowd of admirers. (Katharina Kost. From the liner notes.)

"In his opera Per Nørgård paints a picture of the schizophrenic Swiss artist Adolf Wölfli (1864-1930), who grew up in humiliating circumstances, was arrested for attempted rape and committed in 1895 as incurable mentally ill to the asylum at Waldau near Bern, where Wölfli began to produce a quantitatively and qualitatively overwhelming flood of writings and pictures, quite without therapeutic guidance. Over 25,000 pages he created an anti-universe that he called the 'St. Adolph Giant Creation', and which was to replace his failed life. He appears himself in this world, as among other characters the little boy Doufi and in delusions of grandeur as St. Adolph and St. Adolph II. Thanks to the attentive doctor Walter Morgenthaler, who published a book about Wölfli in 1921, the world was made aware of this ‘mad genius'. After World War II Jean Dubuffet made Wölfli's art world-famous as art brut. Today his pictures fetch large sums as works of art." (Synopsis from the liner notes.)

Performers: Stadttheater Bern, Dorian Keilhack, Andrea Stadel, Fabienne Jost, Daniel Szeili, Hubert Wild, Steffen Kubach, Bernd Gebhardt

1.1. Vorspiel

1.2. Prolog I: Ein Totschlag

1.3. Prolog II: So Silbern Tönt's

1.4. Prolog III: Gondellied

1.5. Akt I: Lobgesänge Mit Absturz

1.6. Akt I: Die Automatische Tantzplatte

1.7. Akt I: Des Luftschiffers Fall (Und Trost Des Hausarztes)

1.8. Akt I: Die Verwandlungen Der Lidia Wildermuth

1.9. Akt I: Erwachen Im Himmel (D'r Hund Zersprengt Seine Ketten)

1.10. Akt I: Katastrophe Mit Fall (Die Uhr Schlägt Zwölf)/'Wölfli - Der Unglücksfall Im Arrest' (Beginning)

2.1. Akt I: 'Wölfli - Der Unglücksfall Im Arrest' (Continued)

2.2. Akt I: Auferstehung

2.3. Akt II: Erschaffung - Ameisenfuge

2.4. Akt II: Fahrt Mit Dem Tram

2.5. Akt II: Ist Wohl Ein Unfall-Arzt Zur Stelle?

2.6. Akt II: Des Königs Kommentar

2.7. Akt II: 'Halleluja'/Schlusschor/Der Tanz Im Paradies

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Caligula031 - Private Venus

Power electronics from Swiss national Marco Deplano, which continues themes of escorting, human trafficking and prostitution that characterise his work under this moniker. Closes with a collection of interviews and vocal excerpts in English and Italian that make up a discussion on the legality and ethics of prostitution ('An Empirical Analysis Of Escorting - Volume 1') - recalls Keith Brewer's Taint. Released on Sam McKinlay's Lake Shark Harsh Noise label in 2015 as an edition of one hundred and five cassettes.

A1. Balkan Ballerina

A2. Retail

A3. Crave

A4. Private Venus

B. An Empirical Analysis Of Escorting - Volume 1

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Arthur Honegger - Symphonies Nos. 1-5; Pacific 231

"Though born in Le Havre, Arthur Honegger was Swiss by parentage and nationality, and began his studies at the Zurich Conservatoire. But he spent much of his life in Montmartre, becoming closely identified with the inter-war developments in French music. He was among those who clustered round the venerably eccentric figure of Erik Satie, and was also one of 'les Six', a group of iconoclastic young Parisian composers who are best remembered for their flippantly satirical 'entertainment music' and cultivation of 'Franco-American' jazz style. Yet the weightier creative personalities among them soon began to go their separate ways; Honegger, arguably the least flippant of them all, did so earliest. It was in the forms of symphony, oratorio and chamber music that he achieved lasting success. 

 

"Even his notorious tone poem Pacific 231 is subtitled 'symphonic movement'. A virtuoso study in rhythm and orchestral scoring, it evokes the journey of a great modern express train (a 300-ton 'Pacific' class locomotive with a wheel configuration of 2-3-1 each side) pulling out of the station and gradually gathering speed until it is hurtling through the night at 120 km/h. Honegger said his aim was not to imitate the noise of a locomotive but to reproduce its visual impression and physical sensation through a musical design. 

 

"In 1929 Serge Koussevitzky, who conducted Pacific 231's scandalously successful 1924 premiere at the Paris Opera, commissioned Honegger to compose a piece in honour of the fiftieth anniversary of the Boston Symphony Orchestra. The result was the First Symphony, premiered by the orchestra under Koussevitzky on 13 February 1931. Like all Honegger's symphonies, this is cast in three movements, concise and clearly contrasted, with the slow movement providing the centre of gravity. The pounding motoric rhythms and sinewy counterpoint of the first movement is balanced by the ardently serious and songful slow movement, which begins with passionate instrumental recitative. The brilliant, toccata-like finale eventually slows into an unexpectedly gentle and fulfilled-sounding epilogue. 

 

"Honegger's remaining symphonies were all composed in the decade 1940-1950. In a sense, Nos. 2 to 4 form a 'war' trilogy reflecting his reactions to the events of the Second World War. The Second Symphony, for string orchestra with trumpet, written during the German occupation of Paris, is in a wiry, vigorous, and deeply troubled neo-Classical idiom, the promise of deliverance being proclaimed by an eloquent trumpet chorale at the very end. It was composed for Paul Sacher, who gave the first performance in Zurich in May 1942. 

 

"The Third Symphony, entitled 'Liturgique', was begun at the end of the war and was also premiered in Zurich, conducted by Charles Munch, in-August 1946. Honegger himself spoke of this work as 'a drama played out by three protagonists: happiness, misery and man. That is the eternal problem'. The very dark instrumental timbres, shot through occasionally with searchlight beams of bright instrumental colour, create a largely nocturnal impression — a sound-world where ignorant armies seem to clash by night beneath the immaculate purity of the stars. The furious, toccata-like 'Dies irae', the grave, chant-like 'De profundis' and the remorseless war-march of the 'Dona nobis' give way at last to a transfiguringly seraphic coda, with a nightingale song on flute entwined with ecstatic solo violin. 

 

"The Fourth Symphony, subtitled 'Deliciae Basilienses' ('The delights of Basle'), was composed for the twentieth anniversary of the Basle Chamber Orchestra, and premiered by them under Paul Sacher in January 1947. This is the most serene and radiant of Honegger's symphonies, poised and lyrical, a celebration of peace linked specifically to the neutrality of Switzerland, with old Swiss folksongs woven into the texture. Lyricism and contentment give way in the finale to the merriment of trumpet and drums.

"Some months after the premiere of this symphony, Honegger suffered a severe heart attack, leaving him an invalid for the remainder of his life, during which he composed his Fifth Symphony for the Koussevitsky Music Foundation. Charles Munch directed the premiere in Boston the following year. Honegger called it 'Di tre re', referring to the pianissimo note D, on timpani and pizzicato basses, concluding each of the three movements. Perhaps he meant this as a symbol of inevitable fate: the mood of the work is predominantly dark and tragic. On the other hand, he regarded it as his most successful essay in symphonic form. The Fifth is Honegger’s only symphony to begin with a slow movement: a majestic but anguished chorale for full orchestra, gradually dissolving into more lyrical but still tragically accented contrasting ideas for smaller groups of instruments. The second movement is a fleet-winged, almost Mendelssohnian scherzo, enclosing at its heart a profoundly expressive Adagio. Frenetic and furious, the finale seems to be powered by an unstoppable drive, but at last runs down, like an untended machine, to quiet extinction." (Malcolm MacDonald. From the liner notes.)

Performers: Orchestre du Capitole de Toulouse, Michel Plasson

1.1. Symphony No. 1: I. Allegro Marcato

1.2. Symphony No. 1: II. Adagio

1.3. Symphony No. 1: III. Presto

1.4. Symphony No. 2: I. Molto Moderato

1.5. Symphony No. 2: II. Adagio Mesto

1.6. Symphony No. 2: III. Vivace Ma Non Troppo - Presto

1.7. Symphony No. 3 'Liturgique': I. Dies Irae, Allegro Marcato

1.8. Symphony No. 3 'Liturgique': II. De Profundis Clamavi, Adagio

1.9. Symphony No. 3 'Liturgique': III. Dona Nobis Pacem, Andante

2.1. Symphony No. 4 'Deliciae Basilienses': I. Lento E Misterioso - Allegro - Lento - Allegro Molto Tranquillo

2.2. Symphony No. 4 'Deliciae Basilienses': II. Larghetto

2.3. Symphony No. 4 'Deliciae Basilienses': III. Allegro - Adagio - Allegro

2.4. Symphony No. 5 'Di Tre Re': I. Grave

2.5. Symphony No. 5 'Di Tre Re': II. Allegretto - Adagio

2.6. Symphony No. 5 'Di Tre Re': III. Allegro Marcato

2.7. Pacific 231 (Mouvement Symphonique No. 1)

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Othmar Schoeck - Das Schloss Dürande

"''Das Schloss Dürande' was his last opera, by far his longest, and in many senses the one with the highest degree of musical inspiration. But the libretto is so drenched with Nazi vocabulary that it will in future at best be heard in concert or on CD. It shall probably never been seen on stage again – and let’s hope it isn't.' Back in 2002, this was the apodictic opinion of Schoeck’s biographer Chris Walton about the opera 'Das Schloss Dürande', which was first performed at the Berlin State Opera in 1943, at the height of the Second World War.

"The libretto by Hermann Burte, for which Schoeck was also in part responsible, remains from today's perspective the weak point of the opera. Its style is awkward, and the quality of the verses is variable. Alongside pretty, ingenuous, folksy verses and hearty revolutionary songs, we also find amateurish rhymes and linguistic embarrassments. Today, it’s the national-socialist phrases and ideological elements of the libretto that are most problematic. But Schoeck’s music is of such high quality that it is more than worth re-engaging with the opera today.

"The Bern University of the Arts (HKB) accordingly embarked on a project funded by the Swiss National Science Foundation (SNSF) to investigate the opera’s genesis in the context of the German/Swiss cultural exchanges of its time (the results have since been published in book form: ''Als Schweizer bin ich neutral'. Othmar Schoeck's Oper 'Das Schloss Dürande' und ihr Umfeld' – ''As a Swiss, I’m neutral'. Othmar Schoeck’s opera 'Das Schloss Dürande' and its milieu'. Schliengen: Edition Argus 2018). At the same time, Francesco Micieli was commissioned to get to grips with Burte’s text and embark on a radical act of prising it apart – the rhymes in particular. After some hesitation, Micieli agreed: 'It needs a large-scale act of de-kitschification. For me, the novella remains the source we must draw upon, and whose language we should endeavour to approximate'.

"Micieli’s new text is an object lesson in libretto-writing. In it, he endeavours to re-engage with Eichendorff's original text in a reflective, mediating fashion. The ideological, artistically problematical verses are here replaced, while the dramaturgical significance is heightened of the struggle songs and the folk-like verses inserted by Burte.

"So in concrete terms, what were the challenges Micieli faced, and what was his approach to solving
them?

(Armand, hält den Becher)
'Heil dir, du Feuerquelle,
Der Heimat Sonnenblut!
Ich trinke und küsse die Stelle,
Wo deine Lippen geruht!'

(Armand, holding the goblet)
'Hail to thee, thou spring of fire,
The blood of our homeland's sun!
I shall drink, and kiss the spot
where your lips touched!'

'Heil', 'Feuerquelle', 'Heimat', 'Sonnenblut' – all these are core words in the vocabulary of the Third Reich (the 'Lingua Tertii Imperii' as Victor Klemperer called it). They are here condensed in a pathosladen context and intensified by the exclamation marks and the end rhymes. The alliteration 'Heil – Heimat', with its echoes of Stabreim, serves to dot the i's, as it were. The second half of the strophe is pedestrian, pretentious and crassly different in tone. These four lines alone demonstrate how the duo of Burte and Schoeck accommodated themselves to the Nazi regime and how the vocabulary, pathos, rhymes and linguistic banalities of the text disqualified their opera for later generations. The solution proposed by Micieli is radically different – it is a kind of textual counter-proposition, though one that actually reflects the pianissimo that Schoeck wrote in his score at this point: 

'Komm leise da herüber
zum schattig verschwiegenen Baum.
Ich trinke und küsse die Stelle,
die deine Lippen berührt.'

'Come softly over here
To the secluded shade of the tree.
I shall drink, and kiss the spot
That your lips have touched'.

Francesco Micieli’s new version sees itself as a creative experiment in reaction to the original libretto. It is without rhyme, without any pomp, and it is gentle. Astonishingly, the prosody of the German text fits better here, too. The furtive invitation 'Komm leise da herüber' masks the metre, suppressing all accents. And 'schattig, verschwiegend' points to a different world, to that of dreams.

"Micieli’s chosen artistic approach to his task is intentionally ahistorical, for he is convinced that the opera cannot be performed any other way (as already explained through its reception history above). His arrangement in a sense carries over the procedures of historical performance practice into the creative process, taking up ideas that Schoeck and his contemporaries had already considered at the time, but had only realised in part.

"Schoeck reacted critically to the text that Burte gave him, even while he was at work on the opera. He did not like its dramaturgy at all, and his own scenario pointed more clearly back to Eichendorff. Schoeck was also vehemently opposed to any psychological simplification. Burte was obviously out of his depth in trying to turn his personae into operatic characters possessed of an equal degree of ambivalence to their originals in the novella. His depictions are overwhelmingly simplistic. The dreamlike quality of Eichendorff is lost, and everything is translated into concrete action. Schoeck brought his own suggestions, but often felt as if he was banging his head against a brick wall, and complained bitterly about it. In some places he simply changed the text himself, though from our viewpoint today he didn’t do so often enough. His first biographer, Hans Corrodi, was able to get him to include two poems by Eichendorff in the finished libretto. All the same, not all the problems of Dürande can be laid at Burte’s door as commentators have been wont to do. The composer himself also brought in a number of ideas that cannot but seem dubious to us today.

"After the opera's second production was a flop – it took place at the Zurich City Theatre, also in 1943 – Schoeck’s circle of friends endeavoured to save what they could and proposed making the necessary repairs. The literary scholar Emil Staiger suggested cuts to Schoeck, along with improvements to the worst of the libretto's rhymes. Gerd Albrecht made a half-hearted attempt to revive the opera in Berlin in 1993, but this failed too – though the music itself received praise: 'The music more or less tries to win back the typically Eichendorffian atmosphere that the libretto had lost.' One critic even suggested writing a new libretto: 'They didn’t succeed in saving the opera. For that, it will need a new text.'

"Our new text has adapted some 60% of the original and succeeds in both creating a different tone and reinventing the characters. The demeanour, dramaturgy and overall utterances have been altered. It is as if a new opera has emerged, whose motto is 'Back to Eichendorff!'. This approach uses literary means to analyse what goes on when you re-write a libretto. What happens with the language, how does its demeanour change, and how does this alter the psychology of the characters, their disposition and the dramaturgy? And what does this mean for the text’s relationship to the music? How does the process of enlarging on Eichendorff actually take shape? It is essentially a kind of restitutive update (Willi Schuh, the former music critic of the 'Neue Zürcher Zeitung', might have called it a 'retrotransfer').

"Practical issues come first: 'Just how slavishly do you have to keep to the number of syllables and stresses, and how freely can we let it unfold?' Time and again, the discussion about the work in progress came back to the significance of the actual process: 'This engagement with the libretto sees itself as a kind of 'artistic laboratory', and doesn’t really aim to be complete.' 

"In a further step, the initial, poetic version had to be made congruent with the vocal lines, which was Mario Venzago’s task. A syllable was omitted here, one added there, while this or that stress was altered and the melodic line and the rhythms adjusted appropriately. The varying literary quality of the original text posed a particular challenge. The style of Micieli’s language – and of Eichendorff’s – is at times fundamentally different from that of Burte, making 'fractures' evident when they clash up against each other. Leaving such ruptures visible might be an acceptable mode of operation when restoring a physical work of art, for example, but they can hinder the musical flow of an opera. As a result, smoother transitions had to be achieved: 'Francesco [Micieli] can also proceed more freely. Often the right words come through simply when you play the music.' 

"It is relatively easy to cope with small changes to the numbers of syllables and to shifts in the placement of accents, but the challenge is far greater when you’re dealing with a quite different amount of text to be sung. As a shrewd man of practice, however, Venzago was able to make suggestions that might otherwise have seemed quite unusual: 'Because I had too much text (and because you simply can’t churn out the text when you’re singing high notes), I’ve place the voices on top of one another.'

"When adopting passages from the original novella, some passages intentionally remained in the third person, which creates quite new effects. Here, the participants in the process had to rethink things scenically. What happens when you speak in the third person; when is this at all feasible, and when not? If it’s not just a matter of Gabriele speaking in the third person, but of having her words divided up between her and her brother Renald, then the result is a double act of alienation that reflects her somnambulistic character, but also her uncertainty, indeed her heteronomy. Ultimately, the interlacing of the siblings' text creates a subtle sense of inner commonality.

"This reworking of 'Das Schloss Dürande' aims to restore to the international operatic stage a significant opera of late-tonal Modernism that in the long term will have to find its own way into the repertoire alongside the works of Richard Strauss, Leoš Janáček, Franz Schreker and Alexander Zemlinsky. Its late-Romantic style, which is common to the 'lyrical' Schoeck of the songs and the 'dramatic' Schoeck of the opera 'Penthesilea', here explores the very boundaries of what the idiom would allow. At the same time, both these aspects of his oeuvre are so closely interwoven that the result in Dürande – which we are now able to rediscover for ourselves – is wholly autonomous and appropriate to its subject, almost postmodern in conception, and still capable of sweeping us off our feet today." (Thomas Gartmann. From the liner notes.)

Performers: Berner Symphonieorchester, Mario Venzago

1.1. Akt I: 'Ein Junger, Fremder Mann'
1.2. Akt I: 'Am Liebsten Würd Ich Nach Dem Fremden Zielen'
1.3. Akt I: 'Still! Da Amtet Es Im Wald'
1.4. Akt I: 'Renald, So Falsch, So Dumm!'
1.5. Akt I: 'Sie Beteuerte, Dass Sie Es Nicht Wisse'
1.6. Akt I: 'Wie Heuchlerisch Du Das Erzählst!'
1.7. Akt I: 'Was Hast Du Da-Zeig Her!'
1.8. Akt I: 'Gute Nacht, Mein Selig Vater Und Mutter'
1.9. Akt I: 'Gabriele, Sie Lauschte Am Fenster'
1.10. Akt I: 'Verzeih Mir, Bruder, Im Zimmer Ist Eine So Dumpfe Luft!'
1.11. Akt I: 'Was Will Sein Stampfen Und Pochen?'
1.12. Akt I: 'Gabriele! Alles Leer!'
1.13. Akt I: 'Ich Hab Gesehn Ein Hirschlein Schlank'
1.14. Akt II: 'Angelus Domini'
1.15. Akt II: 'Eine Gems Auf Dem Stein'
1.16. Akt II: 'Sie Legte Den Kopf Auf Ihr Bündel'
1.17. Akt II: 'Es Ist Nun Der Herbst Gekommen'
1.18. Akt II: 'Ich Möchte Mich Gerne Bei Nacht Verirren'
1.19. Akt II: 'Wein Gereift Im Sonnenstrahl'
1.20. Akt II: 'Renald Dubois, Warum So Gehetzt?'
1.21. Akt II: 'Wie, So Geschwind Wieder Bei Kräften?'
1.22. Akt II: 'Wer Beschreibt Die Große Freude'
1.23. Akt II: 'Ich Schwang Mich Auf Vom Gitter'
1.24. Akt II: 'O, Wie Mich Der Gedanke Mitten Ins Leben Trifft!'
1.25. Akt II: 'Der Zweite Schluck Vom Neuen Wein'
1.26. Akt II: 'Er In Paris, Sie Hier Im Kloster!'
1.27. Akt II: 'Gestern, Brüder, Könnt Ihrs Glauben!'
1.28. Akt II: 'Endlich Am Ort Der Ehrwürd'gen Frauen'
1.29. Akt II: 'Zum Teufel, Wo Sind Meine Sachen?'
1.30. Akt II: 'Hi Hi! Sie Sind In Paris!'
1.31. Akt II: 'Bleibe Er Brav!'

2.1. Akt III: 'Ihr Leute Von Paris!'
2.2. Akt III: 'Sie Kommen Aus Dem Süden Her, Sagen Sie?'
2.3. Akt III: 'Er Will Sein Recht Vom Grafen Von Dürande'
2.4. Akt III: 'Ein Advokat, Ein Niemals Angelangter'
2.5. Akt III: 'Herz, In Deinen Sonnenhellen Tagen'
2.6. Akt III: 'Wer Ist Der Herr, Den Wir Erwarten?'
2.7. Akt III: 'Mein Diener Nicolas Hat Den Raum Bestimmt'
2.8. Akt III: 'Ich Kann Dein Held Nicht Sein!'
2.9. Akt III: 'Fortgespült Der Garten'
2.10. Akt III: 'Nachts Durch Die Stille Runde'
2.11. Akt III: 'Herr Wirt, Die Polizei!'
2.12. Akt III: 'Nun, Lieber Graf, Erwacht Vom Träumen?'
2.13. Akt III: 'Der Liebste Ist Davongegangen'
2.14. Akt III: 'Gefunden! In Nacht Und Bangen'
2.15. Akt III: 'Der Jäger Frei'

3.1. Akt IV: 'Was Für Eine Welt!'
3.2. Akt IV: 'Achille, Hyppolit Ferdinande!'
3.3. Akt IV: 'Nur Knapp Entkommen!'
3.4. Akt IV: 'Da Draussen Gellt Die Verrückte Zeit'
3.5. Akt IV: 'Lasst Mich Herein, Ich Muss Zum Grafen!'
3.6. Akt IV: 'Könnt Ich Mich Niederlegen'
3.7. Akt IV: 'Auf Die Höh'n! Die Schauer Wehen!'
3.8. Akt IV: 'Wie Von Nacht Verhangen'
3.9. Akt IV: 'Da Steht Im Wald Geschrieben'
3.10. Akt IV: 'Ich Bin Zu Spät!'
3.11. Akt IV: 'Mein Liebster! Bei Dir!'
3.12. Akt IV: 'Der Wind Hat's Gebracht Und Genommen'
3.13. Akt IV: 'Gerächt Die Schande Der Schwester'
3.14. Akt IV: 'Da Ist Der Alte Baum Nicht Mehr'

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Bass Clarinet

"Romantic expression emerged as an urgent desire and need in music at the beginning of the nineteenth century and introduced sweeping changes and innovations into all the areas constituting the general field of music. 

"The chromatic extension of harmony and melody gradually moved out toward the limits of tonality and necessarily sped up the technical development of the orchestral instrumentarium, especially of the family of wind instruments. The expansion of form, larger dynamic ambitus, and increasing importance of the rhythmic element also required the continuous expansion of the orchestra. This tendency finally culminated in the mingling of new tone colors with the extended tone masses. 

"Mozart's quest for such new tone colors had led him to discover the beauty of the low clarinet registers. He introduced the basset horn, a variant of the alto clarinet, into some of his works. Thus it is not surprising that the romantic period witnessed the addition of a bass instrument to the clarinet family, the youngest of the orchestral wind groups. The bass instruments constructed in French, German, Italian, and Belgian workshops during those years (often independently of each other!) today remind us not so much of bass clarinets proper as of the primitive musical implements of indigenous peoples. 

"The initial design of the bass clarinet, with its bent, doubled wooden tube reminiscent of the bassoon or tangled windings, was nothing short of a monstrosity. Its design notwithstanding, the early bass clarinet was distinguished by a tonal magic that earned it the name of glicibarifono, 'sweet-deep-toner.' The Belgian music scholar Francois Joseph Fétis certified its special tonal qualities at a bass clarinet presentation around 1832, 'At the sight of this huge, downright gigantic instrument most members of the audience believed that they would be hearing harsh and rough tones. Instead they heard full strong, and mellow tones.' 

"Giacomo Meyerbeer (1791-1864), a great name in the field of the grand opera, was so fond of the melodious sound of the bass clarinet that he assigned the instrument a major recitative in his opera Les Huguenots (1836), the first bass clarinet solo in the whole of music history! During the same period the famous Belgian instrument maker Adolphe Sax (1814-94) developed a model with an elongated tube form, the immediate precursor of today's bass clarinet, and thus paved the way for the instrument's rapid dissemination. In subsequent years there was hardly an opera composer who did not avail himself of the bass clarinet for the heightening of the mood at the major turning points in the action. Richard Wagner and Giuseppe Verdi employed the bass clarinet to create emphases of the greatest intensity. 

"Since the romantic symphonic literature was slower to move away from the traditional orchestral instrumentation, we do not meet with the bass clarinet here until later on. The 'modernists' Berlioz and Liszt, the late romantics, and composers of the twentieth century, however, have fully exploited the tonal diversity of the bass clarinet. Soon its tonal diversity was featured even outside of noble legato passages. The bass clarinet also became in-dispensable in film music. Borrowing on its employment and function in the opera orchestra, the bass clarinet succeeds in heightening even the most electric cinematic suspense. 

"The development of the bass clarinet from a successfully integrated orchestral instrument to an emancipated solo instrument was a gradual one. Most compositions for solo bass clarinet date from the decades after 1950. A few isolated works form the only exceptions: August Klughardt's 'Romanze' (ca. 1890), Francois Rasse's 'Song' (1911), and Othmar Schoeck's 'Sonata for Bass Clarinet and Piano op. 41' (1928)." (From the liner notes. Translated by Susan Marie Praeder.)

Performers: Renata Rusche, Berliner Symphoniker, Neil Varon, Stefan Pintev, Rodrigo Reichel, Thomas Oepen, Christoph Groth, Werner Hagen

1. Othmar Schoeck - Sonata, Op. 41: I. Gemessen

2. Othmar Schoeck - Sonata, Op. 41: II. Bewegt

3. Othmar Schoeck - Sonata, Op. 41: III. Bewegt

4. Olivier Messiaen - 'Abime Des Oiseaux'

5. Frits Celis - 'Da Uno A Cinque', Op. 27: I. Andante Sostenuto - Quasi Berceuse

6. Frits Celis - 'Da Uno A Cinque', Op. 27: II. Molto Agitato - Allegro Con Fuoco - Molto Tranquillo

7. Harald Genzmer - Bass Clarinet Sonata: I. Moderato

8. Harald Genzmer - Bass Clarinet Sonata: II. Presto

9. Harald Genzmer - Bass Clarinet Sonata: III. Intermezzo: Tranquillo

10. Harald Genzmer - Bass Clarinet Sonata: IV. Finale: Vivacissimo, Moderato

11. Dietrich Erdmann - Bass Clarinet Concerto: I. Adagio,Vivace

12. Dietrich Erdmann - Bass Clarinet Concerto: II. Adante, Quasi Sostenuto

13. Dietrich Erdmann - Bass Clarinet Concerto: III. Poco Adagio, Cantabile

14. Dietrich Erdmann - Bass Clarinet Concerto: IV. Allegro Grazioso

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Othmar Schoeck - Penthesilea

"He was a quiet artist, a composer who consciously chose to avoid styles and schools. Is the time perhaps now ripe for us to appreciate him not only as a 'pioneer' who set out in completely new directions but also as a 'perfecter'? 

"By 'we' I mean the third generation of music lovers no longer completely under the spell of the Second Viennese School, we who no longer as our fathers — often at the risk of life and liberty — have to contend for Schönberg and his circle, who can finally utter names like Zemlinsky, Schreker, Busoni, Korngold or Schoeck without fear of ridicule, as was the case just ten or twenty years ago. Nothing is more cruel than time: it enshrouds the past. Yet nothing is more just: it allows us to rediscover, to hear and see anew; it turns victory to defeat and corrects misunderstandings. 

"How many of these misunderstandings must be corrected? It would suffice to correct just one — namely, that except for 'Elektra', 'Erwarning', and 'Wozzeck', only second-rate works were composed. He certainly didn't make it easy for us, the 'minor Swiss Lieder composer' Schoeck. Why did he choose Kleist of all people? And why his grimmest work, 'Penthesilea'? Why the bizarre instrumentation: only four solo violins, but a disproportionate number of violas, cellos and double-basses; no harps, instead two pianos, no bassoons, only a bass bassoon, but ten (!) clarinets, four trumpets in the orchestra and three much-used trumpets on stage. A devil's advocate would identify one particular sore spot for the performers: the demands placed on the singers who must move from the sung to the spoken word, and not to dialogue à la 'Fidelio', but to the most demanding Kleist verse — a challenge for even the best stage actors. 

"If I may reply as Schoeck's advocate: Could a director or dramaturge have edited the work more expertly for the stage than Schoeck has? Who could not succumb, after repeated listening, to the austere, yet expressive sound of the orchestra. And on the transition from the sung to the spoken word, Schoeck's friend Hermann Hesse observed that 'throughout the work, with an almost frightening confidence, the finger is placed on the centre, on that point where the experience of the poem converges on a single word or on the vibrations between the words'. Again and again we are confronted — and estranged — by how much more conservative musicians are than writers or artists. There they sit on the treasure of the 'time-proven' and 'familiar', like Fafner guarding the Rheingold. The time has come to add the gold piece 'Penthesilea' to the hoard." (Gerd Albrecht, tr. Lionel Salter. From the liner notes.)

Performers: Symphonieorchester und Chor des ORF, Gerd Albrecht, Helga Dernesch, Jane Marsh, Marjana Lipovšek, Theo Adam

1. 'Was Gilt's? Dort Naht Die Unheilkunde Schon'
2. 'Hetzt Alle Hund' Auf Ihn!'
3. 'Hier, Meine Wackeren Aetolier, Heran!'
4. 'Der Weicht, Ein Schatten, Vom Platz'
5. 'Sie Lebt Nicht Mehr'
6. 'Penthesilea! O Du Träumerin'
7. 'Er Wär' Gefangen Mir?'
8. 'Komm Jetzt, Du Süßer Nereidensohn'
9. 'Wir Treten Jetzt Die Reise Gleich Nach Themiscyra An'
10. 'Argiver Nah'n, Erhebt Euch!'
11. 'Triumph, Triumph!'
12. 'Ein Herold Naht Dir, Königin'
13. 'Ha! Stellt Sie Sich?'
14. 'Entsetzen! O Entsetzen!'
15. Trauermarsch/'Seht! Seht Ihr Frau'n'
16. 'Ach, Prothoe'
17. 'Was Brütet Sie, Die Schreckliche, Wohl Jetzt?'

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Othmar Schoeck - Notturno

"Othmar Schoeck (1886-1957) was one of a troika of Swiss composers (the others being Frank Martin and Arthur Honegger) who were instrumental in establishing Switzerland as a force to be reckoned with on the European music scene. He was born in Brunnen on the banks of Lake Lucerne, a stunning spot that in fact out-idylls just about anywhere else in the land. He studied first at the Zurich Conservatory, went to Leipzig in 1907 to spend a year writing reams of counterpoint exercises under Max Reger, then returned to Zurich, never to leave again except for concert engagements and holidays. Schoeck made his living primarily as an orchestral conductor and as a piano accompanist, but it was as a composer that he attained real significance. His oeuvre comprises eight operas, some four hundred songs, and just a few minor instrumental works. The dominance of the word in his oeuvre has not made it easy for his music to gain recognition beyond the linguistic boundaries. Even his Expressionist operatic masterpiece 'Penthesilea' (1923-5), which has enjoyed two recordings and over a dozen productions in the past quarter-century, has only once been performed outside the German-speaking world. 

"Nor is Schoeck's music always immediately easy on the ear—the idyllic was not a register he employed often. Ironically, his essentially late-Romantic style was after the Second World War nevertheless considered 'too accessible' at a time when the avant-garde was noisily sweeping all before it. Schoeck was simply a composer who managed to fall between all possible stools. But in his day, his music was admired by Alban Berg, Wilhelm Furtwängler, Paul Hindemith and many others, while his staunchest champion among performers was Dietrich Fischer-Dieskau. And if there is one work of Schoeck's to prove how well-founded was their admiration, it is surely the 'Notturno for string quartet and voice' of 1931-3. It was by no means the first-ever vocal work with string quartet accompaniment, though it is particularly remarkable for the virtuosity with which it merges vocal and instrumental forms (and is in this reminiscent of Alban Berg's opera Wozzeck, which Schoeck knew well). It was first performed on 18 May 1933 in Zurich by Felix Loeffel and the Zürcher Streichquartett. Despite its immense technical difficulties, it has proven one of Schoeck's more often-performed works — not least thanks to the persistence of Dietrich Fischer-Dieskau, who recorded it and kept it in his repertoire for over a decade. 

"The Notturno sets ten poems in five movements. The inner movements have one poem each, while the first has four, the last three. All the poems except the tenth are by the German Romantic poet Nikolaus Lenau (1802-50), one of Schoeck's favourite authors. There is no 'story' in this cycle, which is unified instead by its overall tenor of darkness (hence the title). While there is no doubt that Schoeck was troubled by the political developments to the north of the Swiss borders in the early 1930s, the dark night of the soul depicted in the 'Notturno' is in fact of purely personal origin. This is reflected in the music fabric itself by the use of a specific, recurring musical theme. It first appears in the opening movement, at the line 'Der immer naht, ihr immer doch zu fehlen' ('He approaches but never does he reach her'), then forms the basis of a subsequent sonata-form interlude for quartet alone, and returns later to dominate the final movement of the work." (Chris Walton. From the liner notes.)

Performers: Rosamunde Quartett, Christian Gerhaher

1. Notturno, Op. 47: I. Ruhig
2. Notturno, Op. 47: II. Presto
3. Notturno, Op. 47: III. Unruhig Bewegt
4. Notturno, Op. 47: IV. Ruhig Und Leise
5. Notturno, Op. 47: V. Rasch Und Kräftig (Quasi Recit.)

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Othmar Schoeck - Summer Night

"The time of absolute music is over, declared Othmar Schoeck in 1927: 'Perhaps it was altogether only a mistake [...] all music [...] is song.' Such pronouncements—which he made at regular intervals throughout his working life—should not surprise us unduly, coming from a composer whose oeuvre includes some three hundred songs for voice and piano, several song cycles with ensemble or orchestra, and eight operas. But in fact, Schoeck only ever uttered such criticism of instrumental music when he was secretly writing some himself. He was so uncertain about his compositional gifts outside the realm of vocal music that he felt a need to lower expectations in advance whenever he was about to write a sonata, a quartet or an orchestral work. But he needn’t have worried. While his instrumental output is relatively small, these works have in fact become among his most popular and most-often recorded.

"The most successful of Schoeck’s orchestral works is 'Sommernacht', Op. 58 ('Summer Night'), a small tone poem for strings. In the spring of 1945, just days after the end of the Second World War, the Bernese Music Society asked Schoeck to write a new work for the local symphony orchestra. He hesitated–not least because he had suffered a debilitating heart attack a year earlier that had seriously undermined his health. Then, one day, his twelve-year-old daughter Gisela came home from school, gushing about a poem by Gottfried Keller her class had just read: 'Sommernacht'. Schoeck knew it well. He had even considered setting it to music a few years earlier, though it had resisted musical treatment at the time. Now, however, he used it as the program for a 'pastoral intermezzo' for string orchestra which he composed with ease.
 
"The poem tells of an ancient custom according to which the young men of a village help harvest the field of a widow or orphans who are unable to do the work themselves. Keller’s visual imagery—the shimmering fireflies, the silvery glittering of the scythes—was transformed by Schoeck into aural experiences. Thus we hear the chirping of crickets, the 'happy cries' of the peasants, the strains of the accordion, and the birdsong of the early morning (in which the 'Forest Murmurs' from Wagner’s Siegfried are never far away). The arrival and departure of the country folk in the fields also provide Schoeck with the opportunity to tell his tale in a three-part form with a neat recapitulation. The musical language of 'Sommernacht' is thoroughly tonal. On the whole, it seems to endeavor to evoke a pristine, untouched, ideal world, far-removed from the horrors that had only just come to an end across the Swiss border. There may be orphans and widows in this work, but here they have happy, grateful peasant friends to stand by them. No one is left to suffer alone; loss finds its compensation; and no one questions his place in the scheme of things. 'Sommernacht' was given its first performance in Bern under Luc Balmer on December 17, 1945. It was performed in Winterthur and Zurich in the following weeks, and has since become Schoeck’s most often-performed instrumental work, both at home and abroad." (Chris Walton. From the liner notes.)

Performers: Chamber Orchestra I Tempi, Gevorg Gharabekyan, Christoph Croisé

1. Suite In A-Flat Major, Op. 59: I. Andante Maestoso
2. Suite In A-Flat Major, Op. 59: II. Pastorale Tranquillo
3. Suite In A-Flat Major, Op. 59: III. Tempo Di Marcia Allegro
4. Suite In A-Flat Major, Op. 59: IV. Poco Adagio
5. Suite In A-Flat Major, Op. 59: V. Presto
6. Cello Concerto, Op. 61: I. Allegro Moderato
7. Cello Concerto, Op. 61: II. Andante Tranquillo – Più Lento – Tempo 1
8. Cello Concerto, Op. 61: III. Presto
9. Cello Concerto, Op. 61: IV. Lento – Molto Allegro
10. Pastoral Intermezzo, Op. 58 'Sommernacht'

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Othmar Schoeck - Lieder

"'I still have a strong desire to sing his songs, even though every performance outside of Switzerland seems to meet with misunderstanding or a condescending failure of appreciation ('Helvetism', 'Provincialism').' This declaration by Dietrich Fischer-Dieskau strikes to the heart of a problem. touching on a particularly sore point. Throughout his lifetime Othmar Schoeck suffered from a diminution in stature to that of an imitator — relegated to the rank of a footnote to such earlier giants as Schumann. Brahms and Wolf. His critics looked down on him as someone who had largely failed to recognize the signs of his time or, at least, had failed to play an active pad in it. Instead, they regarded him as having his view directed backwards to the past. as being stuck in the Romantic world of 19th-century song. 

"In Fischer-Dieskau's words, the singer must 'invest more in his assignment than he can hope to effect in its external presentation'. Singing Schoeck presupposes extensive experience with Schubert, Schumann, Brahms and Wolf. but simultaneously it requires a clear understanding of early 20th-century music, with its melancholy, fin-de-siecle awareness of loss and alienation in a new world. 

"Keller's poem 'Ein Tagewerk I' ('A Day's Work I') focuses on this sense of loss: 'Jedoch mein Lied — es rang sich nicht zu Tee' ('But my song — it did not come to light'). The time is past when one could find one's song in the Romantic forests! Meyer's Reisefantasie longs for a return to the Middle Ages of castles and fortresses. For stalwart chivalry and a potent backdrop to life, instead of a weary zeitgeist that weighed down Meyer's feeling of aliveness to the point of depression. Many aspects of Schoeck reveal a spiritual affinity with this poet; or was it purely coincidental that he ended his Eichendorff cycle op. 20 with 'Nachruf' ('Obituary'), whose central strophe reads: 'Was wollen wir nun singen / hier in der Emsamkeit, / wenn alle von uns gingen, / die unser Lied ertreutl?' ('What is now the point of singing here and in solitude, when all have departed from us who took pleasure in our song?'). 

"No other interpreter could compare with Fischer-Dieskau in his ability to recapture the Romantic worlds of Eichendorff and Mörike and, simultaneously, to express the awareness of the loss of these worlds that resonates in Schoeck's lieder. Romanticism, insofar as it appears in these works as carefree happiness, is never taken by Fischer-Dieskau at face value; rather it is approached with a differentiated declamation that questions Romanticism's contradictory nature: an approach inclined to passionate outbursts, to the engagement of his whole artistic personality, to recreating emotional upheaval and blissful assuagement. The sound of his voice here takes on an unaccustomed brightness and softness, in combination with a suggestive lightness of articulation. There is nothing superficial to distract the attention — on the contrary, this is internalized singing, so to speak, that concentrates on the finest nuances of colour, on text-responsive diction, on carefully controlled vocal and verbal gestures. The sense is always perceptible behind the vocal timbre, a feeling not only for beauty or melancholy but also for its underlying poetic foundation." (Werner Pfister, tr. Richard Evidon. From the liner notes.)

Performers: Dietrich Fischer-Dieskau, Margrit Weber, Karl Engel

1. Ein Tagewerk I, Op. 55 No. 23/I
2. Ein Tagewerk I, Op. 55 No. 23/II
3. Frühgesicht, Op. 55 No. 17
4. Reisefantasie, Op. 60 No. 3
5. Das Ende Des Festes, Op. 60 No. 15
6. Nachruf, Op. 20 No. 14
7. Jugendgedenken, Op. 24b No. 10
8. Peregrina II, Op. 17 No. 4
9. Auf Ein Kind, Op. 20 No. 1
10. Dämmrung Senkte Sich, Op. 19a No. 2
11. Ach, Wie Schön, Op. 33 No. 1
12. Nachklang, Op. 19b No. 1
13. Höre Den Rat, Op. 19b No. 5
14. Venezianisches Epigramm, Op. 19b No. 13
15. Jetzt Rede Du, Op. 60 No. 28
16. Auskunft, Op. 8 No. 3
17. Aus Zwei Tälern, Op. 8 No. 2
18. Kennst Du Das Auch?, Op. 24b No. 4
19. Ravenna I, Op. 24b No. 9
20. Das Ziel, Op. 24b No. 8
21. Keine Rast, Op. 24b No. 7
22. Kindheit, Op. 31 No. 2
23. Im Kreuzgang Von Santo Stefano, Op. 31 No. 3
24. Liederzyklus, Op. 44: I. Nachtgefühl
25. Liederzyklus, Op. 44: II. Magie Der Farben
26. Liederzyklus, Op. 44: III. Verwelkende Rosen
27. Liederzyklus, Op. 44: IV. Abends
28. Liederzyklus, Op. 44: V. Mittag Im September
29. Liederzyklus, Op. 44: VI. Blauer Schmetterling
30. Liederzyklus, Op. 44: VII. Pfeifen
31. Liederzyklus, Op. 44: VIII. Sommernacht
32. Liederzyklus, Op. 44: IX. Für Ninon
33. Liederzyklus, Op. 44: X. Vergänglichkeit

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Othmar Schoeck - Venus

"On two successive nights - Geneva, 26 February, and Lausanne, 27 February - I attended performances in which a statue of Venus is a major participant. Othmar Schoeck's aptly entitled Venus is a conflation of short stories by the ill-assorted Merrimée and von Eichendorff, a combination which posed almost insuperable difficulties for the composer's librettist friend Armin Rüeger. Merrimée's anecdote concerns a recently uncovered statue of Venus which is given as a wedding present to a young man who becomes obsessed by it. Eichendorff's novella puts a metaphysical spin on the same basic narrative and it is the German poet's approach rather than the Frenchman's trivial narrative which clearly offered the major appeal. Mario Venzago's advocacy of his fellow countryman's music has been amply demonstrated with his 1992 recording of the work on the Swiss label MGB (CD 6112). At that time a few cuts were made due to the lack of agreement between orchestral and piano scores along with some verbal modifications to remove some of the librettists worst infelicities." (Joel Kasow. From CultureKiosque.)

Performers: Philharmonische Werkstatt Schweiz, Kammerchor Heidelburg, Knabenchantorei Basel, Mario Venzago

1.1. Orchester
1.2. Akt I: 'Frühling Hat Die Welt Erlöst'
1.3. Akt I: 'Simone, Geliebte!'
1.4. Akt I: 'Hörch, Wieder Singt Sie'
1.5. Akt I: 'Halt! Gemach, Sonst Stört Ihr Sie'
1.6. Akt I: 'Wer Vor Dem Heidentum Erschrickt'
1.7. Akt I: 'Au! Verflucht'
1.8. Akt I: 'Rosen Und Lilien Sollen Dich Kränzen'
1.9. Akt I: 'Nehmt Die Angst Der Guten Kinder Nicht Zu Ernst'
1.10. Akt I: 'Ach, Mich Fürchtet Fast Zu Sagen'
1.11. Akt I: 'Göttliches Hab'ich Verglichen'
1.12. Akt I: 'Küsst Euch Ihr Biden'

2.1. Akt II: 'Eins, Zwei, Drei'
2.2. Akt II: 'Das Brautpaar'
2.3. Akt II: 'Habt Erbarmen, Dunkle Mächte'
2.4. Akt II: 'Wo Weilest Du, Mein Geliebter'
2.5. Akt II: 'Seht Die Beiden Eng Umschlungen'
2.6. Akt II: 'Welch Mir Vertrautes Antlitz'
2.7. Akt II: 'Amor Ist Uns Durchgebrannt'
2.8. Akt II: 'Pah! Dieser Ring Soll Dich Nicht Stören'
2.9. Akt II: 'Blinde Lieb' Am Gängelband'
2.10. Akt II: 'Ein Neidliches Spiel'
2.11. Akt II: 'Was Gabs? Wer Schrie?'
2.12. Akt II: Gewitter
2.13. Akt III: 'Der Mondschein Narrte Mich'
2.14. Akt III: 'Seltsame Worte Eines Jungen Gatten'
2.15. Akt III: 'Die Einz'ge Tugend Ist: Ergriffen Sein'
2.16. Akt III: 'So Höre!'
2.17. Akt III: 'Bin Ich Verloren?'
2.18. Akt III: 'Neffe, Trit Nur Auch Heran'
2.19. Akt III: 'Venus, Sei Mir Gnädig'
2.20. Akt III: 'Die Arme Welt Träumt Nur Davon'

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Othmar Schoeck - Elegie

"The Elegy op. 36 for baritone and chamber orchestra was created between 1921 and 1923. It is Schoeck’s first lieder cycle after he had written a great number of single lieder before. The cycle opened a new dimension of creativity to him. In it he was able to show the emotional developing process of the lyrical ego in a way that would not have been possible without the cyclic structure.

"In his Elegy Schoeck combined 24 poems by Nikolaus Lenau (18) and Joseph von Eichendorff (6), the arrangement of which re-enacted the experience of the lyrical ego from memory, like love and memory, farewell, sorrow and melancholy and loneliness, the transfiguration of pain in the face of death, and the consolation of the world. The seasons and natural phenomenons symbolically serve as an emotional reflection of the lyrical ego, as the wanderer thematic symbolizes his indefatigable longing and persuit.

"Schoeck consciously choose lyrics with a confessional character. In them he digested his own and unrequited love to a young pianist from Geneva.

"Furthermore the unity of the cycle results from its frame structure. The unforgotten love affair is embedded in a second subject area containing the existential subject of the poet, which consists of the conflict between general expectation and his own feeling and the obsession to have to write poetry. This problem can also be associated with Schoeck’s biography, which was a musical tightrope walk between tradition and modern age and the effort to maintain his point of view in a time of fast and progressive development." (Marina Staude, tr. Winfried Maas. From the liner notes.)

Performers: Mutare Ensemble, Gerhard Müller-Hornbach, Klaus Mertens

1. Wehmut
2. Liebesfrühling
3. Stille Sicherheit
4. Frage Nicht
5. Warnung Und Wunsch
6. Zweifelnder Wunsch
7. Waldllied
8. Waldgang
9. An Den Wind
10. Kommen Und Scheiden
11. Vesper
12. Herbstklage
13. Herbstgefühl
14. Nachklang
15. Herbstgefühl
16. Das Mondlicht
17. Vergangenheit
18. Waldlied
19. Herbstentschluß
20. Verlorenes Glück
21. Angedenken
22. Welke Rose
23. Dichterlos
24. Der Einsame

mp3/320kbps