Hans Pfitzner

[Cato]

I have no problem with Palestrina and Pfitzner being considered worthy of a listen: read my original post above!

Even Hans Zimmer has his moments!   0:)

But this is not case where you will be finding a forgotten Bruckner or Tchaikovsky. 

In either case, if you can find the CD at the library, borrow it before buying!   

[jlaurson]

I must admit that when heated debate becomes so angry I am deterred from continuing to contribute

Well, I've calmed. But it wasn't a debate that I felt was going on, but warrantless statements of opinionated derision without any observable attempt to do justice to Pfitzner. There's plenty that could be criticized in his music, perhaps even his style. But blanket dismissal with arguments that don't really fit is not helpful. Even if the ultimate response to his music should be negative (perfectly legitimate), it would behoove anyone to consider the very positive opinions of Pfitzner's music of his contemporaries (not the least of them Bruno Walter) who held him in the highest regard. Similarly, conductors so completely different than Ingo Metzmacher and Christian Thielemann think very, very highly of him, which ought to make us consider the possibility that there might be something more to this composer than so far thought of. The way that Pfitzner can set a mood within two, three bars, for example, is exemplary and perhaps even unparalleled.

Of course, if Pfitzner is not played very well, his music sounds like s&*#. That might itself be a sign of (lacking) quality... although I attribute that more to the musical language that Pfitzner writes in. (If Schoeck's Notturno or most of Berg is not played perfectly, it sounds ghastly, too... if it's played well it becomes obvious that Schoeck is hardly a fourth rate composer.)

An opera like "Die Rose..." has its moments, but in the end it's not much more than a second rate rehashing of Wagner. Pfitzner's "Guntram", if you will. (Surely that'd be no reason to dismiss his other works.) Even Palestrina hasn't entirely convinced me in the theater (although it wasn't helped by pedestrian conducting and a unloving production when I saw/heard it).

Yet there are highly modern, even progressive elements in Pfitzner's "Von Deutscher Seele", for example... quite different from what Richard Strauss wrote in Elektra or Salome and going well beyond what Strauss wrote at the time Pfitzner composed VDS. When played in concert with a work like Henze's Bassariden-Suite that modernity really comes out. (As does Henze's romanticism.)

Cheers,

jfl

[Bulldog]

(My emphasis)

Given that one should not be aping Schumann and Wagner c. 1920, (or ever?) and that aping 3rd and 4th level composers can never be good, I will submit that Pfitzner's cantata has indeed been neglected for musical reasons.

Check my "German Glazunov" comments above: are there some interesting and good moments?  Yes, but not enough to pull Pfitzner off the bench.

I suspect he is being rehabilitated as part of the desperate search to sell new tonal music to conservative philistines, as opposed to pushing e.g. Wyschnegradsky.

You seem to have a blind spot when it comes to Germanic late-romantic composers.  Perhaps you should concentrate on your English grammar thread where you do appear to have insight.

[Cato]

Cato recommends: Wyschnegradsky (), Haba, Scriabin, Charles Ives, Harry Partch, Respighi, Louis Vierne, Tibor Serly, Theodore DuBois, Julian Carrillo, among others.   

[Bulldog]

Cato recommends: Wyschnegradsky (), Haba, Scriabin, Charles Ives, Harry Partch, Respighi, Louis Vierne, Tibor Serly, Theodore DuBois, Julian Carrillo, among others.   

And those others include Glazunov, Pfitzner and the increasingly popular Louis Glass.

[Dundonnell]

Next up will be Max von Schillings

[snyprrr]

WOW!

to paraphrase Scripture:

"look at what a hubub a little string quartet question can engender"

at whatever point i happen upon his qrts., i am sure to cherish them, whether i like the music or not, based upon the amount of rufflage of feathers that this poor dear man elicits.

i'm sold

now you boys play nice and i'll check on you in a few hours. don't wake up grandma.

[Cato]

To show that Cato can indeed play nicely with others      he recommends Germanic post-Romantics Busoni, Alexander Zemlinsky, who kisses greatness now and then, along with the golden corn of Erich Korngold.

To the Pfans of Pfitzner I can only say "de gustibus..."  If you have not yet heard Pfitzner, but are starting to explore, I am always interested in your reaction.  Is he a Germanic Glazunov or not?

[snyprrr]

To the Pfans of Pfitzner I can only say "de gustibus..."  If you have not yet heard Pfitzner, but are starting to explore, I am always interested in your reaction.  Is he a Germanic Glazunov or not?
[/quote]
ahhhh....finally!!  I just got the VoxBox Pfitzner/Hartmann/Zimmerman with Pfitzner SQs 2-3 (along with Pfs Violin Cto, Hartmann Funebre, and Zimm cto f. violin-still haven't listened).

well, well....wow.  I started with the SQ 3 written in 1942 (PZ was in Germany) when PZ was in his 70s (keep in mind that Strauss really wrote no SQ).  I thought about the "old master", the "last romantic"- living in the midst of...

No.3 (Reger Quartet):

So, the SQ 3 is really, what can I say, I really liked it.  It's 20min (c minor- though not drammatically so), one movement (but with breaks).  I guess if Brahms lived at the time (though I hear more Beethoven)...I was just surprised by the non-yawn factor.  He has the "autumnal master" thing down, without being as obvious in his nostalgia as Strauss was around the same time.
Pfitzner is a melody machine!  And good, nice, hummable ones.  There is rythmic interest too, though the entire thing has such a gentle flow. LOOK- MY MOM LIKED IT!!! "nothing wrong with THAT" she said...and I don't know if my old old mum's OK poopoos the whole thing, but this quartet I really have to lift up as "the last Romantic SQ" until someone corrects me. 
Yes, I want to say on a par with aspects of late LvB.  I fully expect to come back to this one regularly.

No.2 (Austrian Quartet):

The notes said the SQ 2 (1925) in c# minor (yay!) was the more radical (tonality stretching yadayada), so I left it for seconds (in case I hated the 3rd).  Well, once again,...wow!  This quartet ROCKS!  Four mvmts/2 parts.
I mean, there is some slashing and burning going on here, chromatics up, down and around, crashing...plaints wailing out of the din...then spells of pure lyrico. At 30min, this is almost the perfect SQ of its kind (Hindy, Krenek, Schoeck, Schmidt, Wolf, Busoni, Weigl, et al).  It is wild...and sooo free.  It kind of has the kitchen sink feeling...in a GOOD way!
PZ has some interesting Scherzo ideas, but to me he seems to integrate all elements at all times, very streamlined, yet many times at the threshold of wildness (Hindy 3-4).  This is truly "serious guy w/goatee" music!!  Again, this is sliiightly heaven storming.

Now, I know the CPO is the "one to get", but the Vox was $5, and I don't find to much to fault.  There MAY be some crashing intonation disasters (which for this kind of music is death) due to the wildness (dense chromatics up and down), but it works for $5...none of my 5th rank SQ paranoias came into play.  I can ONLY imagine how fine the CPO must be (but at 2 cds @$40), but these recording have a homeyness about them.

OK, now on the meat of the matter. GLAZUNOV? The name conjures rivers of yawns from me, though I'm not familiar w/ the SQs.  Heard he was good at the Scherzo...that seems to be saying something.  Still, I'd like to hear a late work or two (last SQ-1930).  Also, I hear the curve of his melodies has an inherent blandness....snooziness...

I can't imagine PZs SQ No.2 to be written by a stereotype.  It's profile is slightly anonymous for the time, but historically it has a VERY etched profile.  Not to many people could have written it.

No.3, a classic, valedictory, old master work, COULD have been written by a "couple" of people, but their names start with B, not G.  It reminds me of the 50min Faure-ian SQ No.2 by Roger-Ducasse (1953-Lowenguth).  It is one of the gentlest, nicest...and I KNOW there will be some things lurking under closer inspection.

You know, I wasn't reaaally expecting too much from PZ, so chalk this one up as "reveletory".  Either he's not the German Glaz., or Glaz is a Russian Hugo Wolf!  Pfitzner, the German Miaskovsky??? 0:)

I haven't even heard the PZ Violin Cto with Lautenbacher yet.  Maybe in an hour I'll be back with another rave!

Anyhow, I'd been looking forward to replying for a while now,...I gotta tell ya,...really impressed by the "last romantic" (Schoeck not withstanding).

Some personal similarities between PZ and Pettersson that are interesting, too.

[snyprrr]

I listened to 4min of the Violin Cto...and laid it to rest. Does that make me a bad person?

I still stand by my hyperbole over the SQs, though!

[jlaurson]

I listened to 4min of the Violin Cto...and laid it to rest. Does that make me a bad person?

I still stand by my hyperbole over the SQs, though!

I actually don't yet now the VC -- but I know that many of his works, including his Cello Concertos, need absolutely perfect execution to sound good. I walked out after the first movement at a recent performance because I didn't want mediocrity to ruin my impression of Pfitzner.

And of course not all is good that he wrote... his opera "Die Rose vom Liebesgarten" is partly inspired but largely impotent (it's to Pfitzner what Guntram was to Strauss)... and even his magnum opus "Palestrina" isn't devoid of questionable lengths. (Again, it needs superb and very loving execution to sound good.) But there are moments in his chamber music (as you have found out) and his "Eichendorff Cantata" (a.k.a. Von Deutscher Seele) that are better--and certainly more modern--than just about anything R.Strauss wrote.

Having gone so far as to explore Pfitzner and given his SQ4ts credit, I think no one could blame you for laying the VC to rest after 4 minutes of non-inspiration. Perhaps you'll cross paths with it again, some time, when it's played so as to hint toward what is good about it (assuming there is anything good in it, in the first place, which I can't know.)

[Lethevich]

I listened to 4min of the Violin Cto...and laid it to rest. Does that make me a bad person?

Hehe, I did exactly the same thing when I first heard it. Something about it I couldn't stand or didn't have the patience for. But when I came back to it later on, and listened more sympathetically, I found it to be quite an enjoyable piece.

[snyprrr]

I just got Vol.2 in the "Franz Schubert Quartet"/CPO survey of the SQs of Hans Pfitzner. This cd contains his Op.13 & his last, Op.50.

I have Op.50 (in c minor; 1942) also in the Vox version with a fairly no-name group. That recording revealed a minor masterpiece to me, and this lovingly prepared performances comes close to sealing the deal on this SQ being something of a final gasp of the German tradition. It truly has that autumnal, melancoly yearning for things forever lost, a little like Myaskovsky. The CPO vesion isa full 7mins longer than the Vox version.

The group, known mostly for their Nimbus release of the Franz Schmidt SQs (and Dittersdorf on CPO), has had a pretty good reputation for playing these late-Romantic, complex scores. Some have noted a bit of intonation in the Schmidt, which my ears haven't picked up on. Foremost, they have a nice, homogenous, and thick, tone, yet they are very delicate and are able to clarify lines very well. The Schmidt disc is about one of the most florid accounts of string writing/playing that you are likely to find.

The revelation here is Pfitzner's 1st SQ proper (there is also a d minor written when he was 17), Op.13. This was championed by Alma Mahler around the time of Pfitzner's first successes (1904). It's really just a very well put together uber-quartet, full of the kitchen sink, as so many of Pfitzner's contemporaries were in the throes of producing at around the turn of the century, culminating right around 1919 (think of Bloch's 50min No.1, the student quartets of Myaskovsky, Rspighi, and the like; Schoeck).

Perhaps the most obvious highlight is the scherzo, Kraftig mit Humor. The humor starts off with a take-off on the bumbumbum of the three chords of Haydn's Emperor Quartet, the three most stereotypically "classical" notes you could find; and from there, Pfitzner skirts banality with a very imaginative takeoff on Haydnesque musical humor.

Overall, these SQs come off as Hindemith's older brother, or Strauss' hidden masterpieces. I'm going to rank these SQs very high (the 2nd is truly a wild masterpiece; I haven't heard the student work), right there with Hindemith as a matter of fact. They are more enjoyable than Reger's. I haven't yet heard the Schoeck, though I suspect it will be somewhat like No.2.

With such a plush performance and recording, these SQs are revealed to be masterpieces of ultra late Romanticism. Highly recommended!

[kentel]

I'm not very fond of the violin cto nor of Palestrina either. From what I've heard by Pfitzner, I have a preference for his lieder. Some of them are deeply moving and superbly written in his post-brahmsian style. Especially the first series from 1889 : op.3, op.5, op.6 and also the mysterious An der Mond op.18. You won't find anything like that in the vocal lines of Palestrina (the opera, not the composer).


I find his later works rather diluted into chromatisms and modulations of all sorts.

CPO has recorded all the lieder (with quite beautiful covers).

[Sergeant Rock]

Thank you all for the discussion, heated or otherwise. Pfitzner is a composer who is part of my collection but not in a major way. Of his "Romantic" contemporaries (e.g., Schmidt, Zemlinsky, Wetz, Schreker, etc) he's been my least favorite (I confess I even prefer Siegfried Wagner). But then I don't know his music intimately, or in depth (I own Palestrina, the cello concertos, Thielemann's disc of preludes, not much else). This discussion has made me curious about the Lieder, quartets and that alleged masterpiece or monstrous bore, the Eichendorff-Kantate "Von dt. Seele" op. 28.  CPO has boxed the Lieder and chamber works. Good prices, good performances, I don't think I can go wrong. The violin Concerto and Symphonies are also bargain priced now.

Still debating which version of the Kantate to get. Jens, have you heard the Andromeda recording with Wunderlich? Would I be making a mistake choosing Sieghart over Metzmacher? The '45 performance is relatively expensive in Europe.

Sarge

[jlaurson]

Still debating which version of the Kantate to get. Jens, have you heard the Andromeda recording with Wunderlich? Would I be making a mistake choosing Sieghart over Metzmacher? The '45 performance is relatively expensive in Europe.

Sarge

1.) I have not heard it. I've just e-mailed a colleague of mine who *really* loves one of the available early recordings of the Cantata... I always forget which one. I think the one with Krauss. In any case, I'll update this post as soon as he replies.

2.) No, I would not call it a mistake if you chose the Arte Nova over the--is it Capriccio? Phoenix... same thing. (Literally). The Sieghart was the first recording I had of the work and it certainly did not prevent me from falling in love with it, listening to it at night, on headphones, over and over. The Metzy has the better sound, but not by a distressing margin. Even so: http://www.weta.org/fmblog/?p=442

Ah... good I checked my own article and was reminded: It is the Krauss (Preiser) my colleague likes much better than Keilberth (Wunderlich) and Jochum (even though that's on the label he worked for). It's only $16,- on ArkivMusic -- but €38 on Amazon.de. Strange, huh?

[Sergeant Rock]

2.) No, I would not call it a mistake if you chose the Arte Nova over the--is it Capriccio? Phoenix... same thing. (Literally). The Sieghart was the first recording I had of the work and it certainly did not prevent me from falling in love with it, listening to it at night, on headphones, over and over. The Metzy has the better sound, but not by a distressing margin. Even so: http://www.weta.org/fmblog/?p=442

I appreciate the reply. This sold me: "...but unless price is an overriding argument (in which case Arte Nova wins out), this [Metzmacher] is the Eichendorff Cantata recording of choice."

I found an amazon seller who offers the Metzmacher new for €10.97 (as cheap as Sieghart) so price didn't enter into it.

Sarge

[snyprrr]

Thank you all for the discussion, heated or otherwise. Pfitzner is a composer who is part of my collection but not in a major way. Of his "Romantic" contemporaries (e.g., Schmidt, Zemlinsky, Wetz, Schreker, etc) he's been my least favorite (I confess I even prefer Siegfried Wagner). But then I don't know his music intimately, or in depth (I own Palestrina, the cello concertos, Thielemann's disc of preludes, not much else). This discussion has made me curious about the Lieder, quartets and that alleged masterpiece or monstrous bore, the Eichendorff-Kantate "Von dt. Seele" op. 28.  CPO has boxed the Lieder and chamber works. Good prices, good performances, I don't think I can go wrong. The violin Concerto and Symphonies are also bargain priced now.

Still debating which version of the Kantate to get. Jens, have you heard the Andromeda recording with Wunderlich? Would I be making a mistake choosing Sieghart over Metzmacher? The '45 performance is relatively expensive in Europe.

Sarge

I got my copy of SQs Vol.2 from Ebay. The 2 cds are pretty ridiculously priced on Amazon (Vol.1 goes for $55!). And, Vol.1 contains the wild No.2..., really the one to get.

The Vox 2-fer, with Hartmann, Zimmermann, and Pfitzer (w/S. Lautenbacher, violin) has Nos. 2-3 in fairly good performances (the group in No.2 is definitely thrown about a bit!) if you just want to hear the pieces, but the CPOs just have so much more nuance and sound and everything. One can never tell what's going to be stupid priced on Amazon (cds for $300???). On Amazon America, this cd does NOT list under "Pfitzner", but try the other names.

I hate it when you can get one volume of a series very easily, and then the other half takes one years to get,...uh, oh well!

btw- thanks for PM!

[springrite]

The lack of female voices may be one of the things that kept Palestrina from the standard repertoire (though Billy Budd did not seem to suffer?). But I just love that work. The other work that is mighty fine is the Cello Sonata. Other than that, the other works that I have heard certainly did not excite me. But I would certainly rate his highly just based on that one opera alone!

(Should look into that cantata...)

[Sergeant Rock]

The 2 cds are pretty ridiculously priced on Amazon (Vol.1 goes for $55!) One can never tell what's going to be stupid priced on Amazon (cds for $300???). On Amazon America, this cd does NOT list under "Pfitzner", but try the other names.

I hate it when you can get one volume of a series very easily, and then the other half takes one years to get,...uh, oh well!

I'm based in Germany. CPO discs are easy to obtain from JPC and they're usually cheap. The four disc box that includes the quartets is only €20 (and since I don't exchange dollars when buying from JPC or Amazon.de, the crappy dollar/Euro rate doesn't effect the price for me).

https://www.jpc.de/jpcng/cpo/detail/-/art/Hans-Pfitzner-Kammermusik/hnum/8472141

Thanks for your reviews. I'm looking forward to hearing this music.

Sarge