Four Centuries of Great Music December 22, 2024 Sesquicentennial of the birth of Franz Schmidt

Today, December 22nd 2024 is the Sesquicentennial of the birth of a composer who have probably never heard of - Franz Schmidt.   Don’t feel bad if you have never heard of him, as it was only a couple of years ago when my friend JoAnn Falletta introduced me to this composer in first an album she released with the Buffalo Philharmonic and then a conversation we had about this album.  We had a conversation about an album by JoAnn and the Buffalo Philharmonic called ‘Forgotten Treasures” on my Sunday night show “Evening Eclectic” back on June 5, 2022 which included a work by Franz Schmidt entitled Notre Dame - Intermezzo.  Our conversation about that album can be streamed at www.wruu.org/broadcasts/34083.  And I highly recommend you stream that show to learn more about these “Forgotten Treasures” and these forgotten composers.

This episode of Four Centuries of Great Music is being dedicated to the music of Franz Schmidt in honor of the Sesquicentennial of his birth.  And because of her introducing me to a wide range of composers of whom I was unfamiliar including Franz Schmidt, I am dedicating this episode of Four Centuries of Great Music to my friend JoAnn Falletta.

In learning about the music of Franz Schmidt, I am inspired to do two shows on his music.  I wanted to explore his music throughout his oeuvre, but also I thought it was important to share with you his oratorio “The Book with Seven Seals” which will take up a full episode.  So in a few weeks I will do a show centered on this work.

Franz Schmidt was born on December 22, 1874 in in Pozsony/Pressburg, in the Hungarian part of Austria-Hungary empire (today Bratislava, Slovakia).  He began his musical studies with his mother,  Mária Ravasz, who was a an accomplished pianist, who gave him a systematic instruction in the keyboard works of J. S. Bach. He received a foundation in theory from Felizian Josef Moczik, the organist at the Franciscan church in Pressburg.  He moved to Vienna with his family in 1888, and studied at the Vienna Conservatory.  He studied composition with Robert Fuchs, cello with Ferdinand Hellmesberger, and, for a few lessons, counterpoint with Anton Bruckner, who was already seriously ill at that time, graduating "with excellence" in 1896.

Interestingly although piano was his primary instrument, he became most known as a cellist.  He was in great demand as a cellist (an occasionally as a pianist) in chamber music circles in Vienna as cellist with the Vienna Court Opera Orchestra, where he played until 1914.  Here he often under the baton of Gustav Mahler. Mahler habitually had Schmidt play all the cello solos, even though Friedrich Buxbaum was the principal cellist.

As a composer, early on he was influenced by the romantic composers, Schubert, Brahms, and Bruckner.  So his early compositions were much in the late romantic style.  But his close friendship with Arnold Schoenberg lead him to more experimentation in tonality beginning in the 19 teens.  But with the critical failure of his second highly experimental opera, Fredigundis, in 1922, he reverted to the more opulent and tonal music of his early years.  

I must touch on the controversy over his connection with the Nazis in Austria.  As one of the most prominent composers in Austria in the early 20th century, his music was known by Hitler and his movement away from musical experimentation in the later 1920s appealed to the taste of those in the Nazi party both in Germany and Austria.  Schmidt's oratorio “The Book with Seven Seals”(which premiered just after Germany annexed Austria shortly before the Anschluss) was greatly praised by the Nazis press. One individual, Georg Tintner, who revered Schmidt, reported seeing him give the Nazi salute.  And a conductor of many of his orchestral works, Oswald Kabasta was apparently an enthusiastic Nazi who, being prohibited from conducting in 1946 during de-nazification, committed suicide. These facts long placed Schmidt's posthumous reputation under a cloud. His lifelong friend and colleague Oskar Adler, a Jew who fled the Nazis in 1938, wrote afterwards that Schmidt was never a Nazi and never antisemitic but was extremely naive about politics. Hans Keller gave a similar endorsement. Regarding Schmidt's political naivety, Michael Steinberg, in his book The Symphony, tells of Schmidt's recommending Variations on a Hebrew Theme by his student Israel Brandmann to a musical group associated with the proto-Nazi German National Party. Most of Schmidt's principal musical friends were Jews, and they benefited from his generosity and to a person have stated he was not antisemitic nor a Nazi.

So lets begin with his music - an early work and the work that JoAnn Falletta used to introduce me to his music, the Intermezzo from his opera Notre Dame.

Schmidt began writing  his first opera Notre Dame when he had not quite turned 30 years old in 1904 and completed it in 1906.  This opera was opulently scored and highly melodious and was a great success.  Although there are recordings of the entire opera, two pieces from it the Intermezzo and Carnival music that are most commonly heard.  Interestingly, these two works were composed earlier in 1902 and were added to the opera as it neared completion.

Here is a performance of Franz Schmidt:  Notre Dame - Intermezzo  by JoAnn Falletta and the Buffalo Philharmonic Orchestra from their album Forgotten Treasures Beau Feuve Records

You have been listening to performance of Franz Schmidt’s  Notre Dame - Intermezzo  by JoAnn Falletta and the Buffalo Philharmonic Orchestra from their album Forgotten Treasures

Next on this celebration of the sesquicentennial of the birth of Franz Schmidt is his Quintet in G Major for 2 Violins, Viola, Cello and Piano Left Hand.  It is in 4 movements: I. Lebhaft, doch nicht schnell; II. Adagio; III. Sehr ruhig and IV. Sehr lebhaft


Franz Schmidt; Quintet in G Major for 2 Violins, Viola, Cello and Piano Left Hand: I. Lebhaft, doch nicht schnell
Franz Schmidt; Quintet in G Major for 2 Violins, Viola, Cello and Piano Left Hand: II. Adagio
Franz Schmidt; Quintet in G Major for 2 Violins, Viola, Cello and Piano Left Hand: III. Sehr ruhig
Franz Schmidt; Quintet in G Major for 2 Violins, Viola, Cello and Piano Left Hand: IV. Sehr lebhaft

Leon Fleisher, piano; Yo-Yo Ma, cello; Joseph Silverstein & Joel Smirnoff, violins & Michael Tree, viola
Music for Strings and Piano Left Hand
Sony

You have been listening to Franz Schmidt Quintet in G Major for 2 Violins, Viola, Cello and Piano Left Hand performed by Leon Fleisher, piano; Yo-Yo Ma, cello; Joseph Silverstein & Joel Smirnoff, violins & Michael Tree, viola from the album Music for Strings and Piano Left Hand

I will close this first hour with Franz Schmidt’s Romance for piano performed by Stanislav Mucha from the album Schmidt: Clarinet Quintet in B-Flat Major    Marco Polo Records

I will be opening this second hour of today’s Four Centuries of Great Music featuring the music of Hungarian born, Austrian composer Franz Schmidt with his Symphony #4.   I also want to remind everyone that this episode is dedicated to my friend JoAnn Falletta who introduced me to Schmidt’s music.

Symphony No. 4 was composed following the death of his daughter in childbirth in 1933 and Schmidt called it "A requiem for my daughter”.  The symphony is in the key of C Major and includes four movements, all performed attacca (without pause).
I. Allegro molto moderato
II. Adagio
III. Molto Vivace
IV. Tempo primo un poco sostenuto

The symphony begins with a long 23-bar melody on an unaccompanied solo trumpet.  The work also features prominent cello solos at the end of the first movement and beginning of the Adagio, the second movement.  This cello solo serves as a bridge from the first movement into the adagio.

The Adagio is an immense ABA ternary structure. The first A is an expansive threnody on solo cello (Schmidt's own instrument) whose seamless lyricism predates Strauss's Metamorphosen by more than a decade.  The B section is an equally expansive funeral march (unmistakably referencing the Marcia Funebre from Beethoven's Eroica in its texture) whose dramatic climax is marked by an orchestral crescendo culminating in a gong and cymbal crash (again, a clear allusion to similar climaxes in the later symphonies of Bruckner, and followed by what has been described as a "reverse climax", leading back to a repeat of the A section.

The third movement is a scherzo and its theme arises from the theme of the second movement but highly modified to form the scherzo.

In the fourth movement, themes developed earlier are transfigured to create a new feeling but reflect upon the earlier part of the symphony.   The trumpet solo returns at the symphony's close, "transfigured" by all that has intervened.

This symphony is contemplative and reflective in nature.  Some feel that it is both Schmidt coming to terms with his own death in addition to his daughter's since the composer's physical health was beginning to decline at the time he started it’s composition. This symphony also breaks from the Mahlerian drama characteristic of much post-Romantic Austrian classical music.

Here is a performance of Franz Schmidt: Symphony No. 4 in C major by Paavo Jarvi conducting the Frankfort Radio Symphony from the album Franz Schmidt: Complete Symphonies Deutsche Grammophon

Franz Schmidt: Symphony No. 4 in C major  I. Allegro molto moderato
Franz Schmidt: Symphony No. 4 in C major  II. Adagio
Franz Schmidt: Symphony No. 4 in C major  III. Molto Vivace
Franz Schmidt: Symphony No. 4 in C major  IV. Tempo primo un poco sostenuto


I will closed today’s today’s Four Centuries of Great Music featuring the music of Hungarian born, Austrian composer Franz Schmidt to honor the sesquicentennial of his birth with his Three Fantasy Pieces: No. 1 in G marked Allegretto;  No. 2 in D marked Allegretto con Moto - Adagio; and  No. 3 In D Minor marked Allegro Vivace performed by Nancy Green, cello and Frederick Moyer, piano from the album Brahms: Hungarian Dances JRI Recordings

Three Fantasy Pieces: No. 1 in G:  Allegretto
Three Fantasy Pieces: No. 2 in D: Allegretto con Moto - Adagio
Three Fantasy Pieces: No. 3 In D Minor: Allegro Vivace

You have been listening to Franz Schmidt’s Three Fantasy Pieces performed by Nancy Green, cello and Frederick Moyer, piano from the album Brahms: Hungarian Dances

Thank you for joining me on Four Centuries of Great Music and join me again next Sunday at 3pm for a new episode.