LAW ART

Taking Sides, a 1995 play by British playwright Ronald Harwood, reconstructs the American investigations, during the post-war United States denazification, of the German conductor and composer Wilhelm Furtwängler on charges of having served the Nazi regime. In Collaboration (2008) Harwood dramatizes the artistic cooperation between Richard Strauss and Stefan Zweig on the opera The Silent Woman, the political circumstances and repercussions of its première in Dresden and the composer’s involvement with Hitler’s regime. Considering the similarity of the issues raised by these works, the essay aims to examine, in an historical-juridical perspective, the two dramas as if they were one with the same subject: the fatal confrontation between culture and power and between freedom and compromise.

„And that is how my first records appeared under the name of Dr Richard Strauss“

The paper deals with the first recording of Richard Strauss’s tone poem Don Juan, of which the first half (i.e. the first two of a total four sides of this 1916 78-rpm recording) has repeatedly been said to be conducted not by Richard Strauss, but by George Szell who served as Strauss’s assistant at the Berlin court opera at that time. By a close examination of written accounts, I wish to clarify the background of this narrative which Peter Morse, somehow misleadingly, has called an “old story” as early as in 1977, though it seems that it was not given currency prior to the late 1960s when Szell himself mentioned the recording en passant during an interview. In a second step, comparative analyses of certain sections from both this 1916 and Strauss’s later recordings of Don Juan will not only proof Szell’s participation, but aim at determining the respective interpretational concepts in their differing performance choices. Finally, further comparison between Szell’s later Don Juan recordings (1943, 1957, 1969) and selected performances by contemporary conductors intends to help situate Szell within the Austro-German Espressivo tradition, whereby the detailed analysis of tempo-dramaturgical strategies in these recordings will itself contribute to a differentiation of the frequently simplified notion of “Espressivo.”

Is Romance Dead? Erich Korngold and the Romantic German Lied

<p>Far from being the operatic aria's less glamorous sister, the Romantic German Lied offers much dramatic scope for the classical performer. It has been described as the “quintessential Romantic genre”: the balanced and harmonious union of the music and text, in which the pianist and singer are equals. As accessible at private music gatherings as in concert halls, the Lied enjoyed popularity in German-speaking countries for over a hundred years, before facing its greatest adversary: Modernism. Romanticism, as an artistic movement, fought to survive in the uncertain musical and political landscape of the twentieth century. In Erich Korngold, Romantic music found a staunch advocate, and Lieder gained one of its most gifted contributors. Following in the daunting footsteps of Richard Strauss and Gustav Mahler, Korngold's unashamedly luscious, rich orchestrations and soaring melodies earned him the nickname “the Viennese Puccini.” A child prodigy, Erich Korngold's rise was swift and glorious; his fall coincided with that of the German Lied and Romanticism itself. Romance may not have “died”, but it became outdated in the twentieth-century push for modernity and innovation across all art forms. In encyclopedias little is written of Korngold and his compositional output beyond his most famous and enduring opera Die tote Stadt, and his pioneering film scoring in pre- and post-war Hollywood. In my research I will show that Korngold is deserving of a place in the music canon as not only one of the last great composers of Lieder, but one of the last great Romantics, whose life and works sit on the cusp between the old world and the new. Furthermore, I will address the question of whether Romanticism died with the arrival of Modernism and revolutionary experimentation in music, or whether it lives on today, albeit in different forms.</p>

Is Romance Dead? Erich Korngold and the Romantic German Lied

<p>Far from being the operatic aria's less glamorous sister, the Romantic German Lied offers much dramatic scope for the classical performer. It has been described as the “quintessential Romantic genre”: the balanced and harmonious union of the music and text, in which the pianist and singer are equals. As accessible at private music gatherings as in concert halls, the Lied enjoyed popularity in German-speaking countries for over a hundred years, before facing its greatest adversary: Modernism. Romanticism, as an artistic movement, fought to survive in the uncertain musical and political landscape of the twentieth century. In Erich Korngold, Romantic music found a staunch advocate, and Lieder gained one of its most gifted contributors. Following in the daunting footsteps of Richard Strauss and Gustav Mahler, Korngold's unashamedly luscious, rich orchestrations and soaring melodies earned him the nickname “the Viennese Puccini.” A child prodigy, Erich Korngold's rise was swift and glorious; his fall coincided with that of the German Lied and Romanticism itself. Romance may not have “died”, but it became outdated in the twentieth-century push for modernity and innovation across all art forms. In encyclopedias little is written of Korngold and his compositional output beyond his most famous and enduring opera Die tote Stadt, and his pioneering film scoring in pre- and post-war Hollywood. In my research I will show that Korngold is deserving of a place in the music canon as not only one of the last great composers of Lieder, but one of the last great Romantics, whose life and works sit on the cusp between the old world and the new. Furthermore, I will address the question of whether Romanticism died with the arrival of Modernism and revolutionary experimentation in music, or whether it lives on today, albeit in different forms.</p>

Richard Strauss' Skizzen zu den „Metamorphosen“ und ihre Beziehung zu „Trauer um München“

Die Untersuchung aller Skizzen zu den <Metamorphosen> von Richard Strauss (o. op. 142) kann Eigenheiten des Strauss'schen Kompositionsprozeß aufdecken, die für das Verständnis des fertigen Werkes eine wichtige Rolle spielen. Unter anderem wird die Themengenese unter dem Aspekt der Ausarbeitung eines primären kurzen Gedankens, der Substanzgemeinschaft und der Zusammenstellung einzelner Themenbausteine (anstelle von herkömmlicher thematisch-motivischer Arbeit) besprochen. Die bekannte Skizze <Trauer um München> stellt, entgegen der bisherigen Meinung, kein frühes Stadium eines Themas der <Metamorphosen> dar. (Lodes, Birgit)