559282 bk Toch US 8/10/06 2:40 PM Page 12 AMERICAN CLASSICS Ernst TOCH Tanz-Suite • Cello Concerto 8.559324 Spectrum Concerts Berlin Christian Poltéra, Cello 8.557199 “It takes supreme technical control and a sixth sense for delicate nuance to fully convey the work's subtle sound world ... all of the performances are on the highest level.” — Classics Today 8.559282 12 559282 bk Toch US 8/10/06 2:40 PM Page 2 Ernst Toch (1887-1964) Tanz-Suite, Op. 30 • Cello Concerto, Op. 35 Also available: Silence is part of music’s morality. One does not hear the numerous relatives from the Holocaust. From 1938 to unwritten works and the creative silence but they 1945 Ernst Toch wrote almost nothing that he wanted to influence everything which will be written afterwards. conceive and elaborate on, writing practically only film They are part of the artistic essence and character of an scores from which he was able to earn a living for himself artist just as much as the works which were finished. The and his family. same holds true for Ernst Toch. His works fall into two The Tanz-Suite, Op. 30, and the Cello Concerto, 8.559173 large groups, works composed up to 1938 and those Op. 35, written in 1923 and 1924 in Mannheim, where composed after 1945. Having lived in Berlin since 1929, Toch had been a professor of composition at the “The disc of John Harbison’s Toch left Germany shortly after the National Socialist Musikhochschule since 1913, are associated with his chamber music is an absolute party took power and emigrated, via Paris, to London. successful career during the 1920s; they show his winner... Everyone who loves before finally settling in the United States. individual and integrating position amid the different Born in Vienna, Toch received the Mozart prize in currents and trends of the post-war period of disruption. chamber music needs this disc.” 1909 and the Mendelssohn prize in 1910. He was, to a The Cello Concerto was published in 1925 by Schott in — Fanfare large extent, self-taught. Not only was he able to claim a Mainz. The score bears the following imprint: “Awarded a place for himself in the vivacious music scene of the early prize in the 1925 publishing-house competition”. twentieth century, but developed into one of the most often In his Tanz-Suite for chamber ensemble, with performed serious composers through his sheer creative prominent percussion, Toch comes to terms with energy and intellectual scope. This was the state of his contemporaries such as Igor Stravinsky and Béla Bartók. reputation at the time he left Berlin in 1933 to finish and Bartók composed his Tanz-Suite like Toch in 1923; synchronize his great music score for Katharina die Große Stravinsky had compiled already before the First World (Catherine the Great). He would never return to Germany War excerpts from his ballets into suites for concert or Austria again. Ernst Toch died at almost 77 years of age performance. Toch’s Dance Suite consists of six on 1st October, 1964, in Santa Monica where, after a two- characteristic movements of different lengths, written like year period in New York, he spent altogether 28 years, the miniature dance scenes, structured in short but distinctive longest period living in one place in his whole life. sections which are partly repeated and varied. One can The fact that Toch could not achieve the level of imagine various kinds of choreographies: a ballet with a 8.557153 success in the United States that he enjoyed in Europe was fantasy story (the music assumes a narrative quality over a accepted by him as a fate largely shared with other longer period), an abstract ballet which leaves the “...these are among the composer’s immigrants. His music, which came to terms with all responsibility for the inner coherence to the music, or a most winning music, making up a modern musical trends in an idiosyncratic and creative piece in the mood of Oskar Schlemmer’s Triadic Ballet, superb disc, brilliantly played and way, without being completely committed to any one, replacing human dancers with movable puppets. All three recorded ... inspiring dedicated seemed certain of broad acceptance, as had happened with types were cultivated during the 1920s, and Toch was Igor Stravinsky and Paul Hindemith. Yet Toch was not more or less focused equally on all three forms (even if the playing...” — The Guardian good at selling himself. “He could not even promote a Triadic Ballet only appeared a few years after the Tanz- glass of water“(Herbert Zipper). He initially concentrated Suite). his energies on rescuing his relatives, amid the A concert performance without the visual aspect of developments in and around Germany, from Nazi- the dance gives the listener not only the opportunity of free persecution and helping them to emigrate to America. He association but also draws one’s attention to the musical later became deeply depressed as he was not able to save structure such as the relationship between solo phrases and 8.559282 211 8.559282 559282 bk Toch US 8/10/06 2:40 PM Page 10 exponiertem Schlagzeug) setzt sich Toch mit Das Cellokonzert op. 35 vereint Modernität mit duos, trios and ensembles. The dance is sublimated in The first movement impresses with a delicate and Zeitgenossen wie Igor Strawinsky und Béla Bartók musikantischer Unmittelbarkeit. Darin steht es Paul itself, the individual actions of the protagonist, the Pas de subtle texture where the main events return again and auseinander. Bartók komponierte seine Tanz-Suite wie Hindemiths Kammermusiken für ein Soloinstrument deux, Pas de trois and group dances. The art of dance has again, only to integrate themselves back into the fiiligree Toch 1923; Strawinsky stellte schon vor dem Ersten und Ensemble nahe. Trotz seiner symphonischen thus become music with its complete spectrum of texture. The soloist has the leading part, playing now and Weltkrieg Auszüge aus seinen Balletten zu Suiten für Dimensionen ist es als ein Kammerkonzert für einen expressions from the elegaic to the grotesque. The then by himself, most of the time as first among equals. den Konzertgebrauch zusammen. Tochs Opus 30 Solisten und eine elfköpfige Instrumentalgruppe beginning is conceived as an overture; the finale is a great The whole movement is composed like a multilayered besteht aus sechs charakteristischen Sätzen komponiert. Damit griff Toch einen Trend auf, der in waltz scene. Calm and animated, melancholic and serene, dialogue, like finely illuminated dialectics between the unterschiedlicher Länge. Sie sind in sich wie Schönbergs und Schrekers Kammersymphonien und in with intervening alternating bitter-sweet and ironic individual and the whole. The fast second movement is Tanzszenen en miniature angelegt, gegliedert in kurze, Alban Bergs Kammerkonzert seinen exponierten phrases. Toch’s Dance Suite comes at the point of one of those pieces which one would describe as deutlich unterschiedene Abschnitte, die zum Teil Ausdruck fand. Alle diese Werke zielten auf intersection of several tendencies of the 1920s. The ‘motoric’. Toch’s kinetic energy occurs when quick wiederkehren und variiert werden. Man kann sich Transparenz, auf Klarheit des musikalischen Satzes, auf composer was on the promising path to success. march-like rhythms meet unbroken elements which can verschiedene Arten von Choreografien dazu vorstellen: Deutlichkeit jedes Einzelereignisses und auf innere The Cello Concerto, Op. 35, combines modernity build up to a perpetuum mobile. In contrast the third ein Ballett mit einer Fantasiehandlung (die Musik Konsequenz. Toch stattete sein Ensemble außerdem mit with musical immediateness, thus being close to Paul movement starts more introspectively with a cello solo, an nimmt über weite Strecken erzählerische Qualitäten an), einem ungewöhnlich reichen Schlagzeug aus. Hindemith’s chamber works for solo instrument and expressive melody. The solo part gradually fans out into a ein abstraktes Ballett, das der Musik die Verantwortung Der erste Satz besticht durch das zarte, feine Gewebe ensemble. Despite its symphonic dimensions it was complete ensemble of the strings before the oboe für den inneren Zusammenhang überlässt, oder eine der Stimmen, aus dem Hauptereignisse immer wieder composed as a chamber concerto for a soloist and eleven introduces an additional melody. The brilliance of the last Inszenierung im Sinne Oskar Schlemmers „Triadischen hervortreten, um sich wieder in das filigrane players. Toch took up a trend which was expressed in movement comes from the virtuoso collaboration of the Balletts“, das menschliche Tänzer durch bewegliche Gesamtgefüge zu integrieren. Der Solist spielt die Schoenberg’s and Schreker’s Kammersymphonien and in individual players and the ensemble. Puppen ersetzte. Alle drei Arten wurden in den Hauptrolle, agiert dann und wann allein, meist aber als Alban Berg’s Kammerkonzert. All these works aimed at zwanziger Jahren gepflegt. Toch stand gleichsam in Erster unter Gleichen. Der ganze Satz ist wie ein transparency, clarity of musical movement, distinctness of Habakuk Traber ihrem Fokus (auch wenn das „Triadische Ballett“ erst vielschichtiger Dialog komponiert, als fein each single incident and at inner logic. Toch also enriched einige Jahre nach der Tanz-Suite aufkam). ausgeleuchtete Dialektik zwischen Einzelleistung und his instrumentation with an unusual display of percussion. English translation: Markus Koch Eine konzertante Aufführung lässt dem Hörer nicht Gesamtwirkung. Der rasche zweite Satz gehört zu der Art nur die Freiheit der Assoziation, sie lenkt die von Stücken, die man gern als „motorisch“ bezeichnet, Aufmerksamkeit auch stärker auf die musikalische weil sie konzentrierte Bewegungsimpulse mitreißend Spectrum Concerts Berlin Struktur, etwa auf das Verhältnis solistischer Passagen ausspielen. Die kinetische Energie entsteht bei Toch aus zu Duos, Trios und Ensembles. Darin ist der Tanz selbst der Spannung zwischen schnellen, marschartigen Founded by the American cellist Frank Dodge in 1988, Spectrum sublimiert, die Einzelaktion des Protagonisten, die pas Rhythmen und ungebrochenen Bewegungen, die sich Concerts Berlin has become one of Germany’s most significant voices in de deux, pas de trois und Gruppentänze.