NORBERT VON HANNENHEIM Works for viola & piano Aida-Carmen Soanea Igor Kamenz 1 NORBERT VON HANNENHEIM Works for viola & piano Aida-Carmen Soanea viola Igor Kamenz piano | Adrian Pinzaru violin* NORBERT VON HANNENHEIM (1898-1945) Stück Nr. 1 Sonate Nr. 1 für Bratsche und Klavier [1] Etwas Langsam 2:07 [13] Andante con moto 3:46 [2] Heiter, ironisch 2:56 [14] Presto 4:29 Stück Nr. 3 Sonate Nr. 2 für Bratsche und Klavier (1937) [3] Sehr lebhaft 5:12 [15] Allegro 2:18 [16] Adagio 2:50 Stück Nr. 4 [17] Presto 2:00 [4] Leicht bewegt 3:14 [5] Lebhaft 4:19 total time 52:20 Duo für Geige und Bratsche* [6] Allegro 4:57 [7] Molto largo e dolcissimo 1:48 [8] Presto 2:53 Suite für Viola und Klavier (1937) [9] Moderato 1:44 [10] Animato 1:44 [11] Lento 3:42 [12] Presto 1:41 4 5 Norbert von Hannenheim Blinded by racial fanatism, the Nazis not only murdered or sent into exile Jewish atonal music, he came under the curse of so-called “Entartete Musik” composers as part of an insane musical policy, they also stopped the careers („degenerated music“). of promising artists in a way that any memory of them was almost completely extinguished. One of such tragic case was the destiny of composer Norbert As a student he had already lived in very poor conditions, hungry for days. But von Hannenheim. now, banned from composing, his existence was practically destroyed. He survived daily life by copying and editing scores. Eventually, he was He was born in 1898 in Hermannstadt, Transylvania (now Sibiu, Romania). forced by these circumstances to indirectly assist Nazi ideology by making He showed musical talent from an early age, but it was only at the age of 24 arrangements of German folk songs. that he began regular studies at the Leipzig Conservatory with Paul Graener, a well-known composer of his time. By 1933, no publisher dared to print his music, which meant his complete works existed only as manuscripts. During the war, his few friends advised him to The first important award that he won was the George Enescu Prize in 1925, deposit a big suitcase full of compositions at the Commerzbank in Berlin. This after which he continued his studies; first in Budapest with Alexander Jemnitz office in the Tauentzienstrasse was bombed in November 1943. No one knows and finally in the class of Arnold Schönberg at the Academy of the Arts in Berlin. what happened to the suitcase. Schönberg thought of him as “one of the most interesting and talented pupils... his talent, his seriousness, his productivity are certainly exceptional, and I think, If it wasn’t destroyed in that bombing, it was likely stolen or disposed of with confidently, that he will have a word to say in the development of music and the rubble after the bombing. that his work will carry through.” With his entire catalog destroyed, his life once again turned in a tragic direction. In 1932, Hannenheim won the Felix Mendelssohn Bartholdy Prize. His second After suffering a schizophrenic attack, he was committed to the “Wittenauer piano concerto with small orchestra was very successful and broadcasted Heilanstalten Berlin-Reinickendorf” mental institution on July 6, 1944. A month internationally. Soon after he started to be well known abroad, the Nazis later, on August 30, 1944, he was deported to a euthanasia center in Obrawalde destroyed his artistic future. Hannenheim was German, but as he composed near Meseritz (today Miedzyrzecz, Poland) approximately 75 km away from Frankfurt/Oder. 6 7 Hannenheim survived the end of the war and died on September 29, 1945, Schönberg did attribute him with remarkable productivity. In the estate in Obrawalde. The life of an atonal composer who lived in poverty only for of Emil Seiler were conserved two sonatas and a four movement suite. his devotion to art, and due to the unpredictable games of life finished in The „3 Bratschenstücke“, which do not have a title in the manuscript, insanity, almost unmistakably resembles the revival of Thomas Mann’s strangely came to light in the estate of Isolde von Geyer, widow of the character Adrian Leverkühn. painter Hans von Geyer zu Lauf, where they were identified as Hannenheim’s works by Prof. Holtmeier. His biography could have caused a stir of interest in his oeuvre, but it took more than 50 years until his rediscovery. The musical world was amazed when Ludwig Two expert testimonies of the „Amt Rosenberg“ regarding the first Holtmeier, a musicologist from the Freiburg Musikhochschule, published his sonata and the suite did survive. This surveillance office propagated the article in 1998 about the „Berlin School“ of Arnold Schönberg. Did it oppose cultural policy of the Nazi regime. The first report dated February 3, 1936, the „Viennese School“ of Arnold Schönberg, Alban Berg and Anton Weber? characterizes Hannenheim as „a musician with remarkable counterpoint skills Who were these names which no one had so far heard about? It is generally but considerable intellectualizing characteristics, who develops performing believed that artistic value gets through in spite of unfavorable facts. But what energies through an overbred harmonic. The talent is obvious.“ if a bomb destroys an artist’s entire catalog which was fully recognized during his lifetime? The „Bratschenstücke are too ramified in their lines and stay too academic to give the impression of a lively expression of true contemporary musical By pure chance, some of his works have been rediscovered. The source was a emotion“. At least the standard reproach of „decadent cultural bolshevism” festival in 2001 called „Berliner Schule – Arnold Schönbergs Meisterschüler an was missing. The second report stays to the point: „it is constructive music der Preußischen Akademie der Künste“ in Berlin, where some of Hannenheim’s which individualizes each tone and refuses any functional interference.“ works were highlighted. Of about 240 works registered at STAGMA (the Only themes and rhythms act as coherent powers. precursor of GEMA) and reviewed in known articles, some 45 works (or 19%) have been rediscovered. The already known five works for viola represent a 1. Construction and ‘thematics’: Hannenheim did sometimes compose in a large part of it. In around 1936, Hannenheim showed his first Viola Sonata strict dodecaphonic style (12-tone), but in the viola works he developed the to Emil Seiler (1906-1998) by chance. He liked it so much that Hannenheim principle of composing with a tone row in an original way. He leads not from immediately wrote a second one for him, as he liked to write several pieces an „only“ dodecaphonic tone row but from a melody treated like a tone row. for the same instrument nearly simultaneously. In the first movement of the Viola Sonata the row has 54 tones, in the first 8 9 movement of the suite 30. Hannenheim replaces the „abstract row“ by a long, Aida-Carmen Soanea, an eclectic and charismatic violist, won first prize at the shaped „theme“ which, when being repeated, changes only rhythmically and 2005 Bucchi Viola Competition in Rome. She was already established as one of stabilizes the structure of the movement like a cantus firmus. the most formidable talents of her generation when she won second prize at the Bashmet Viola Competition in Moscow (2000) and received awards from the 2. Rhythm: Hannenheim loves concise, often dancing rhythms, meters who “Deutsche Stiftung Musikleben” Foundation in Hamburg, the German Academic change in pairs like 2/4+3/4, 4/4+3/4, which could easily be united as 5/4 or Exchange Service (DAAD) and the German Academic Scholarship Foundation. 7/4. It is not clear if he was inspired rather by Romanian folk music or Bartok’s rhythms. In any case, his music owes its vitality mostly to its lively rhythms. As a soloist, Aida-Carmen has appeared in music festivals, such as Internationale Osterfestspiele Luzern, Rheingau Musikfestival, Musikfestspiele Sanssouci, 3. Harmony: Hannenheim composes tonally very unconventionally. His spectrum Musikfestival Mecklenburg Vorpommern and has performed with different goes from sharp atonal dissonances and massive six-tone chords in the first ensemble formations, including Gustav Mahler Youth Orchestra, English Youth Viola Sonata to C-major sound surface in the second sonata, where in all Orchestra, European Chamber Orchestra and the Berliner Symphoniker. She three movements his principle is to confront a C-major chord with an F sharp shared the stage, playing concerts together with Tabea Zimmermann at the Cité major chord (the augmented fourth) in order to create an opposite pole. de la Musique Paris, Renaud Capuçon at the Lucerne Spring Festival, making her Normally a strict dodecaphonist shies away from any chord, but Hannenheim debut in the Berlin Philharmonie with Tanja Becker-Bender. She has also toured enthusiastically takes conventional chords in the ‘heiter und ironisch’ of the all over England performing Mozart’s Sinfonia Concertante with Tasmin Little. ‘3 Bratschenstücke’, where he begins in E major and A major. In spite of any constructivism, he preserves his natural sense of harmony. An avid chamber musician, Aida-Carmen regularly performs with pianists José Gallardo and Andrej Jussow and has also performed with Natalia Gutman, Hannenheim has a similar background in folk music as Bela Bartok. He was Kolja Blacher and Rainer Kussmaul, with whom she appeared several times at the a prize student of Arnold Schönberg and, it is said, the only one capable of “Berliner Festwochen“. Aida-Carmen also has been a guest of many European unabashedly contradicting his master. This connection between grounded festivals, where she collaborated with wonderful musicians as the Vertavo Quartet, musicality and authentically constructive thinking is rather uncommon.