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CHAN 9506 FRONT COVER.qxd 5/2/08 1:10 pm Page 1 Chan 9506 CHANDOS SYMPHONY NUMBER FOUR SCHMIDT STRAUSS SYMPHONIC FRAGMENT: JOSEPHS-LEGENDE DETROIT SYMPHONY ORCHESTRA NEEME JÄRVI CHAN 9506 BOOK.qxd 5/2/08 1:21 pm Page 2 Franz Schmidt (1874–1939) Symphony No. 4 42:07 in C major . C-Dur . ut majeur 1 Allegro molto moderato – 13:14 2 Adagio – 12:06 3 Molto vivace – 7:37 4 Tempo Primo un poco sostenuto 9:10 AKG Marcy Chanteaux cello soloist Richard Strauss (1864–1949) 5 Symphonic Fragment: ‘Josephs-Legende’, 23:14 Op. 64a Allegro moderato TT 65:34 Detroit Symphony Orchestra Neeme Järvi Franz Schmidt This recording was made possible in part, through the generous support provided by the friends of Detroit Symphony Orchestra Hall and the members of its Musical Legacy Society. 3 CHAN 9506 BOOK.qxd 5/2/08 1:21 pm Page 4 integrate its four movements into an passionato theme Schmidt wrote that it Schmidt: Symphony No. 4/Strauss: Symphonic Fragment: ‘Josephs-Legende’ unbroken span of music. It opens with an returns as ‘a dying in beauty, in which a extended solo trumpet theme – a recurring whole life passes by once more’. motto. Schmidt described it as ‘the last music Schmidt: Symphony No. 4 Schmidt served as a cellist during Mahler’s which one takes with one into the hereafter, Strauss: Symphonic Fragment: The programme of the 1934 concert in directorship. In his subsequent teaching having been born and lived one’s life under ‘Josephs-Legende’ which Schmidt’s Fourth Symphony received career (he became Director of Vienna’s State its auspices’. What follows, however, is no Strauss had difficulties with the biblical its first performance, between Schumann’s Academy of Music and Dramatic Arts in otherworldly vision but a rich engagement Josephs-Legende. His 1913 composition of the Piano Concerto and Strauss’s Also sprach 1927), Schmidt would nevertheless insist with life: first in music of gradual awakening, semi-balletic ‘Action in One Act’ required Zarathustra, was prophetic of Schmidt’s upon broad sympathies in his students, who then in an expansive, passionato theme, persuasive coaxing by his opera-librettist, posthumous reputation. Revered in his native he even introduced to the works of whose figuration recalls the Hungarian gypsy Hugo von Hofmannsthal, whose idea it had land, he has elsewhere been regarded as a Schoenberg. In the case of the Fourth music of Schmidt’s youth. The structurally been (the detailed descriptive text was minor Austrian composer who falls Symphony a personal tragedy further incomplete first movement gives way to a written by the aesthete and diplomat Count somewhere ‘between’ German romanticism unlocked a flood of shared Viennese moving Adagio, introduced by Schmidt’s own Harry Kessler). A new Hofmannsthal opera and early-twentieth-century modernism. experience. An elegy for a world that was instrument, the cello. This is the movement was being planned (Die Frau ohne Schatten) What complicates the picture is the quality gone (Schmidt had been born just inside the which most clearly functions (as Schmidt and Strauss had recently completed the and power of his finest works; the Fourth Hungarian part of the old, pre-1918, dual suggested) as a ‘requiem’ for his daughter; its Nietzschean Alpine Symphony. The Josephs- Symphony is undoubtedly one of these. Its monarchy of Austria–Hungary), it drew closing section has the underlying tread of a Legende’s chastely innocent shepherd boy language and structure are highly personal, equally upon the slow movements of funeral march. Out of the Adagio theme who dreams of angels was not to his taste. yet rooted in the world of pre-First World Bruckner and the urgent eloquence of Schmidt then fashions the primary motif of a Hofmannsthal’s conviction that a work for War Vienna – the world of Brahms, late Mahler. thematically retrospective scherzo, but its Diaghilev’s Ballets Russes would be seen in Bruckner and Mahler. Schmidt’s only daughter, Emma (by his animation is progressively undermined by influential theatres may have helped inspire The echoes of Mahler are surprising. first wife), had died in childbirth in 1932. pain. Regarding the scherzo as the the pragmatic composer, but it was an ill- Schmidt’s prodigious musical talent was Although he was not yet sixty, his own rather Symphony’s development section, Schmidt fated venture. The intended star and matched by a conservative temperament that poor health induced an elegiac and observed that its conclusion signified a choreographer, Nijinsky, got married at the would lead him to welcome Hitler’s valedictory mood. He feared unnecessarily ‘catastrophe’, heralding the recapitulation of end of 1913 and was dismissed by Diaghilev; annexation of Austria in 1938; it had that he might leave the Fourth unfinished the first movement: ‘in which everything Fokine took over the choreography, Leonid similarly caused him to react to Mahler with (subsequent works included the enormous appears in a more knowing and transfigured Massine the title role. The Paris premiere no better comprehension than his colleagues oratorio, Das Buch mit sieben Siegeln (The form’. The Symphony’s motto theme plays (May 1914) and a subsequent London in the Court Opera Orchestra, where Book with Seven Seals)) and worked hard to an eloquent role in this finale. Of the performance were successful, but the 4 5 CHAN 9506 BOOK.qxd 5/2/08 1:21 pm Page 6 outbreak of the First World War precluded Potiphar. It is his wife, however, who is now activities. The orchestra continues a of the Gothenburg Symphony Orchestra and further productions of such a lavish, fin-de- impressed. The boy’s dance in four sections distinguished recording history dating back Conductor Laureate of the Royal Scottish siècle theatre-piece. More recent attempts to (the third is much cut), begins with a gentle to 1928 and has released a large number of National Orchestra. Internationally re-stage it have been inspired not least by the motif, recalling a well-known Chopin recordings with Chandos. It also performs acclaimed through his appearances with the fact that Strauss returned to the score at the prelude, which is extended in fine Straussian regularly on radio in the USA where it is world’s most esteemed orchestras and annual end of his life, producing in 1947 a cut style in the following section, where Joseph is heard by over one million listeners weekly – international touring he is one of today’s version, with reduced orchestration, as the visited at night by Potiphar’s wife. She wakes more than any other American orchestra. best-known conductors. His enormous and Symphonic Fragment, Op. 64a. The mimed him with a kiss and is shocked into The orchestra is currently enjoying one of its eclectic repertoire, with a special emphasis on play of 1914 actually told a powerful, increasingly lustful admiration when he most successful periods and with Neeme Scandinavian and Russian works as well as perversely revealing story of pre-First World violently recoils, dropping the cloak that had Järvi as Music Director, it has much to look music from his native Estonia, is captured in War obsessions and fantasies about relations wrapped him and standing virtually naked forward to. a prodigious recording catalogue and since between the sexes. Retaining highlights of before her. The Symphonic Fragment omits emigrating to the USA in 1980 he has been the original score, in their correct order, the the scenes of Joseph’s threatened torture with Neeme Järvi is Music Director of the Detroit conducting major international orchestras on Symphonic Fragment can be explained as a hot irons for spurning Potiphar’s wife. It also Symphony Orchestra, Principal Conductor a regular basis in North America and Europe. compressed narrative. omits her grisly suicide (she strangles herself Expansive, ceremonial music sets the with a rope of pearls) but retains the cause: scene: Potiphar’s court, transposed into the Joseph is saved by a shining, armour-clad sumptuous Venice of Veronese. An oriental Archangel, who leads him away to music of Sheik is receiving a graphically depicted resounding triumph while other angels are stream of musical gold-dust in payment for a seen playing harps amidst the pink clouds of series of gifts and entertainments, all of a dawn sky. which initially fail to please Potiphar’s taciturn wife, whose gloomy chords end the © 1996 Peter Franklin first section. The erotic solo dance of a slave- woman which follows had originally formed The Detroit Symphony Orchestra is heard the climax of an extended scene for female live by over 440,000 people annually with a dancers. Appropriately, the following cut year-round performance schedule that takes us to the entry of Joseph: the beautiful, includes twenty-six weeks of annual god-seeking shepherd boy who is delivered subscription concerts, a Pops Series, an by the Sheik as a surprise, extra present to annual Christmas Festival and educational 6 7 CHAN 9506 BOOK.qxd 5/2/08 1:21 pm Page 8 schrieb er unter anderem noch das gewaltige Sinfonie betrachtet werden kann und sein Schmidt: Sinfonie Nr. 4/Strauss: Sinfonische Fragment: “Josephs-Legende” Oratorium Das Buch mit sieben Siegeln), und Abschluß eine “Katastrophe” darstellt, die die arbeitete hart an der Integration ihrer vier Reprise des ersten Satzes ankündigt, “in der Sätze in einen ununterbrochenen der alles gereifter und verklärter erscheint”. Schmidt: Sinfonie Nr. 4 Verständnis begegnete als seine Kollegen im musikalischen Ablauf. Das Werk beginnt mit Das Motto-Thema spielt in diesem Finale Schmidts Vierte Sinfonie wurde 1934, in Wiener Hofopernorchester, in dem Schmidt einem expansiven Trompetenthema – ein eine beredte Rolle. Über das Passionato- einem Konzert zwischen Schumanns während der Ägide Mahlers als Cellist tätig wiederkehrendes Motto.