Karl Amadeus Hartmann! (Random Reviews from the Overflow Room 1)

[00:00:00]Hello, friends. This is Dave Hurwitz, executive editor at ClassicsToday.com.

[00:00:06]Here with random reviews from the overflow room.

[00:00:13]>> [music] >> And today, we are talking [music] about the single finest post-war German symphonist, Karl Amadeus Hartmann.

[00:00:27]Now, Hartmann Hartmann was an interesting character. He really was. I you know, he was a a First of all, a principled anti-Nazi. He went silent during the entire Nazi period. And on the other side of it, he basically looked at everything that he had written before and disowned it. Um and although some of it we are in the process of reviving or has been revived, but basically he took his earlier music and he revamped it as a series of eight symphonies. Um and that's his entire output, his entire mature output. Was the series of eight symphonies. And they are remarkable works. They are quasi-tonal.

[00:01:09]Um somewhat not, somewhat yes, heavily contrapuntal, uh fully modernist, and passionate works.

[00:01:19]Works with real emotional substance. Not terribly long, but incredibly dense. And uh he's his stuff is really worth discovering if if you like something you can sort of chew on.

[00:01:34]And [snorts] there's some other pieces besides the symphonies from before the the the war. And um I have Well, I basically have whatever you there is. I think I have pretty pretty well covered.

[00:01:44]First, we have this set of the eight symphonies and the Gesangsszenen, the song scene. The first symphony is called Versuch eines Requiems. And it's it's based uh on Walt Whitman poetry, of all things, believe it or not. Now, these are performances on Virgo, and Virgo is the record label of Schott Music Publisher, who was Hartmann's publisher.

[00:02:06]Um, and, these are mostly radio recordings, um, and things that they managed to get off of the, uh, German radio network, as it were, and and and release them. There have been more modern recordings of these symphonies.

[00:02:20]The performances are are variable, sonically and in terms of orchestral steadiness. The music is extraordinarily virtuosic and difficult.

[00:02:29]>> [snorts] >> Uh, so, you've got, uh, symphonies one, uh, symphony number one is with is under Fritz Rieger, with Doris Soffel, alto.

[00:02:39]Um, number three, it's coupled with number three, which is from 1948-49, under Ferdinand Leitner. Um, and these are these are all with Bavarian Radio, by the way.

[00:02:52]Uh, number two is with Rafael Kubelik.

[00:02:54]That's probably the best known of all the symphonies. It's subtitled Adagio.

[00:02:58]It's only 15 minutes long, in a single movement, and it's really a powerful work, beautiful work. Uh, [snorts] number four is for string orchestra.

[00:03:07]Number five is a symphony concertante for strings and winds. That's, um, basically 16 minutes long.

[00:03:14]Um, number six is from '51-'53. Number seven is '56-'58, and number eight is from 1960-62.

[00:03:23]And then there's the the song Gesangsszene, you know, the scene the Scheina, the song scene from Words from Sodom and Gomorrah by Jean Giraudoux, for baritone and orchestra. That's from 1961-63, with Fischer-Dieskau and Kubelik. I mean, these were really serious, solid performances, a little bit shaky orchestrally, a little bit sonically, you know, maybe not the finest, but uh it was the only show in town for a long time. And so, we will get to other shows that have come about since. Then we have his opera, uh Simplicius Simplicissimus, which is three scenes from his youth after after um H. J. Christian Grimmelshausen von Herman. Yes, there we go, von Herman Scherchen, Wolfgang Petzold, and Hartmann, all these people worked on the libretto. 1934-35.

[00:04:26]So, it's one of these pre-war works, um which has survived, and it's only an hour and a half long, and it's oodles of fun. I mean, oodles of fun in the, you know, expressionist horror kind of German way. Um so, that's on Wergo. Then we've got his Oh, this lovely attractive disc called Funebre. Everyone's going to run out and buy that, right? You can do that with classical music. Uh the Concert Funebre for solo violin and string orchestra, the Fourth Symphony for string orchestra, and the Chamber Concerto for clarinet, string quartet, and string orchestra. These are all earlier works, except for the Fourth Symphony. Um with Isabelle Faust, violin, Paul Meyer, clarinet, and the Petersen Quartet on ECM. I These were all sort of new discoveries when these things were recorded because, as I said, Hartmann's output was, you know, his acknowledged output for the most part was just the eight post-war symphonies.

[00:05:19]Number one was on the cusp, it was just before. Um but basically, that's what we had.

[00:05:26]And so, these were all kind of like new things. We've got his String Quartet Number One with the Zehetmair Quartet, with Thomas Zehetmair and others, and Bartók's Quartet Number Four.

[00:05:41]Um this is not a relaxing recording, believe you me, but it's a very, very intense one.

[00:05:48]Uh and then we've got string quartets one and two with the Pellegrini They're only two. With the Pellegrini quartet.

[00:05:54]Um so the second quartet came from 1945-46.

[00:05:59]Um the first quartet is subtitled Carillon. Uh by the way, and it's from 1933.

[00:06:04]Uh with the Pellegrini quartet on CPO.

[00:06:07]So it really makes sense to get both of them. I much of the Zehetmair quartet I think is probably a little better um than the Pellegrinis, but you know, part four you can get a million places. And here you can get both of them on CPO. So that's worth having. And then some more symphonies. This is Berlin Classics symphonies five, six, and eight.

[00:06:26]Um five and six are with Berlin Symphony under Günther Herbig. And number eight is with the uh Leipzig Radio Symphony under Herbert Kegel. Uh these were recorded in 1981 and '72 for the Kegel. Um and generally quite good sound. The performances are just fine. Um so this was a really nice Hartmann symphony disc at a time when there were not many Hartmann symphony discs. So there we are. Hartmann number one. We have another video coming of Karl Amadeus Hartmann. He deserves the attention. And uh the next video has some really cool stuff as well. So keep on listening, friends. Thanks for joining me. Take care.