Hans Pfitzner

Started by snyprrr, March 12, 2009, 07:28:21 AM

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#60
Quote from: jlaurson on November 25, 2010, 09:15:31 PM
This is the attitude I wish everyone listening to classical music had.
For what it's worth, my access to Pfitzner was the Eichendorff Cantata ("Von Deutscher Seele"); listening to it repeatedly (for no good reason, because I knew nothing at all of Pfitzner then, nor having an inkling of whether it 'should' turn out rewarding) late at night, on headphones, before falling asleep.

Well thank you, but I can't claim that my mind was as open back then as it is now. I've had some musical awakenings since I've heard Pfitzner's music. My only wish is that people keep an explorer's attitude when listening to music. There's always something great just around the corner, but all that is required from the listener is making the effort in order to understand the music. There's going to music we all don't understand, like, for example, I'm still making an effort with Schoenberg's 12-tone output. Very difficult music to grasp fully. I can handle Berg and Webern with no problems, it's just there's something about Schoenberg's music that isn't quite connecting with me.

Anyway, listening to something one time and saying it's garbage isn't really giving music a chance. Some things require more time and effort. People say life's too short to listen to music you don't like or understand, but I say that if one is born with musical ability or finely tuned ears, then music is like the ocean, there's so much discovery, so why limit yourself to only a handful of composers or musicians? There are certainly more worth exploring I think.

jlaurson

#61
Sarge-Alarm



Pfitzner Piano Concerto


Tzimon Barto
Christian Thielemann

Lucerne
September






Picture of Piano Part for Pfitzner's Konzert für Klavier in Es-dur. The Boesendorfer upright on the wheel-about contraption nearly toppled over when the pianist pictured dug into it to give me a few examples of the highlights of the concerto.

Sergeant Rock

Quote from: jlaurson on January 31, 2011, 09:51:21 PM
Sarge-Alarm

Looks like I'll be attending not only Salzburg this year, but Lucerne also  8)

Sarge
the phone rings and somebody says,
"hey, they made a movie about
Mahler, you ought to go see it.
he was as f*cked-up as you are."
                               --Charles Bukowski, "Mahler"

jlaurson

Quote from: Sergeant Rock on February 01, 2011, 04:59:25 AM
Looks like I'll be attending not only Salzburg this year, but Lucerne also  8)

Sarge

Speaking of Salzburg: I should like to think that you will find the (English) liner notes on that composer whose symphony you are going to Salzburg for particularly lucid.  :) [Unlike this contorted sentence.]

Sergeant Rock

Quote from: jlaurson on February 01, 2011, 05:02:57 AM
Speaking of Salzburg: I should like to think that you will find the (English) liner notes on that composer whose symphony you are going to Salzburg for particularly lucid.  :)

Written by you?
the phone rings and somebody says,
"hey, they made a movie about
Mahler, you ought to go see it.
he was as f*cked-up as you are."
                               --Charles Bukowski, "Mahler"


snyprrr

Just got the Piano Quintet and Sextet (Orfeo).

Surprisingly, I was totally unmoved by the PQ!?! It's an earlier work, but I liked the earlier SQ much more. I was really surprised here. Ha, I'm starting to get extremely spoiled here in the PQ department!

The Late Sextet, however, is a 'perfect' work in the style of HP's last SQ No.3. If you like the autumnal melancoly of that piece, then this Sextet is for you. Very very nice.

abidoful

Quote from: snyprrr on February 01, 2011, 07:08:46 AM
The Late Sextet, however, is a 'perfect' work in the style of HP's last SQ No.3. If you like the autumnal melancoly of that piece, then this Sextet is for you. Very very nice.
Thanks for the tip, I like the SQ 3 very much.

Leo K.

Pfitzner is another composer I've been revisting, having enjoying his amazing piano quintet some time ago.

I recently acquired a vinyl rip of his Symphony in C, Op.46 (Dir. Ferdinand Leitner/BPO on DG) and was so overtaken I had to listen again. It is a short work, only 16 minutes or so, but wow, it still has an epic feel, and the beauty of the orchestration is enchanting, with the melody to back it up. Incredible.

So I acquired a broadcast recording of his violin concerto from the Unsung Composers forum, and again, I was overtaken by the sounds I was hearing, this blend of memorable harmony and orchestration.

I now have his piano concerto and Symphony no.1 in C minor next in line!



Brian

From MusicWeb this week:

"For his 80th birthday [in 2017], Klaus Heymann is planning to give himself the present of a recording of the complete orchestral music of Hans Pfitzner. He waxes most lyrical about the music from Pfitzner's opera Palestrina."

Karl Henning

Do I read that as the Klaus-ster giving Palestrina as an entire opera, a miss?
Karl Henning, Ph.D.
Composer & Clarinetist
Boston MA
http://www.karlhenning.com/
[Matisse] was interested neither in fending off opposition,
nor in competing for the favor of wayward friends.
His only competition was with himself. — Françoise Gilot

Brian

Quote from: karlhenning on May 15, 2012, 06:11:57 AM
Do I read that as the Klaus-ster giving Palestrina as an entire opera, a miss?

Most likely. He said in the same interview that they did that series of Janacek opera "suites" because, as dearly as he loves the Janacek operas and as much as he wants to record all of them, he realized there was little to no money to be made in a complete-opera series.

Karl Henning

I should have guessed so, and he is in a position to do better than guess.
Karl Henning, Ph.D.
Composer & Clarinetist
Boston MA
http://www.karlhenning.com/
[Matisse] was interested neither in fending off opposition,
nor in competing for the favor of wayward friends.
His only competition was with himself. — Françoise Gilot

Guido

#73
I just got the full score of Palestrina for free - they were chucking it out at work!
Geologist.

The large print giveth, and the small print taketh away


Scion7

Quote from: Dundonnell on September 11, 2007, 04:42:24 PM
For example, I too regard the attitudes taken by Hans Pfitzner to most of his fellow composers with a goodly measure of contempt although it is probably fair to say that Pfitzner was a pretty unpleasant man for most of his life and that his jealousy of (some) other composers had led him to denigrate their work long before 1933. It is also true to say that his apparent admiration for Hans Frank, the Governor-General of Poland, was largely the consequence of Frank taking him in and looking after him in Cracow after he had fallen out with Hermann Goering! Should I stop listening to Pfitzner's music? I don't know.

Frank turned on him, so to speak, later, in getting him removed from his music position at Munich.
I was just listening to his Opus 1 cello sonata.  Not bad, a little engaging work that no one will confuse with Brahms, for example, but it's a solidly crafted 3rd-tier work from a composer who lived a life that from what I have read, was not that happy.  A bit of a crank, drawn to National Socialism in its early days from a fiercely German nationalist standpoint, but alienated by it by 1934, and who tried to protect his Jewish friends, not always successfully.  Cursed by Hitler after his one meeting with him in a hospital, he tried to survive in an environment run by thugs, winding up homeless from Allied bombing and then going through the de-Nazification process (probably unnecessary) and eventually insane.  A good craftsman, like the majority of composers, with a couple gems under his belt like Palestrina and the G-minor cello concerto.  Will need to spend some more time at the University library with that biography I found on him.
When, a few months before his death, Rachmaninov lamented that he no longer had the "strength and fire" to compose, friends reminded him of the Symphonic Dances, so charged with fire and strength. "Yes," he admitted. "I don't know how that happened. That was probably my last flicker."

SurprisedByBeauty


cilgwyn

Unsure whether to push the boat out and actually buy cds of his music,I recently (well,before Xmas) made some cd-r's of Pfitzner's orchestral works from videos on Youtube. I must say,I actually found his music very interesting,and not what I would expect from him,based on what I have read over the years. I listened to the symphonies and Piano Concerto,by the way. Again,it didn't bowl me over,but I did find it interesting,if not quite engrossing.

SurprisedByBeauty

#78
Quote from: cilgwyn on March 16, 2017, 07:53:13 AM
Unsure whether to push the boat out and actually buy cds of his music,I recently (well,before Xmas) made some cd-r's of Pfitzner's orchestral works from videos on Youtube. I must say,I actually found his music very interesting,and not what I would expect from him,based on what I have read over the years. I listened to the symphonies and Piano Concerto,by the way. Again,it didn't bowl me over,but I did find it interesting,if not quite engrossing.

The "Eichendorff Cantata" is one of my favorite 20th century pieces of music, I have to admit somewhat sheepishly.

cilgwyn

Perhaps politics does have something to do with it? I have Naxos cds of him conducting Beethoven,and they are well worth hearing,imho,through the rainstorm,pops and clicks of the extremely ancient recordings!