Antonin Dvorák · Erich Wolfgang Korngold · Johann Michael Haydn
Three composers featured in the series of concerts in 2004
“The men who at present interest us most in music are so terribly serious. We have to study them and when we have studied them we have to buy a revolver so as to defend our opinion of them. I like to think if only a musician would come along again about whom one would need to argue as little as about springtime”, avowed the renowned German music critic Louis Ehlert in November 1878. And he was able to inform his readers that such a musician as he had described, in happy anticipation, had indeed arrived, a previously completely unknown Bohemian, a certain “Antonín DvoŠrák (pronounced Dvortschak)”.
Sounds of Moravia, op. 32, had been published only a few weeks earlier as well as his Slavonic Dances, op. 46, in Berlin. Ehlert’s effusive words unleashed a “veritable stampede on the music stores”. Even though that article brought overnight fame for the 37-year-old Czech composer it established an image of DvoŠrák that in the long run proved to be somewhat one-sided in assessing how his œuvre was received. “This music is flooded by a heavenly naturalness and that is why it is so popular. There’s not a trace of anything ponderous or contrived in it”, enthused Ehlert, and he was not alone: many publishers urged the composer to write works in popular strain, Bohemian tunes and national dances, until finally DvoŠrák reacted with annoyance: “No symphonies, no great vocal works and no instrumental music, only perhaps here and there a few songs, piano pieces or dances and I don’t know what. As an artist who wants to have some significance, I just cannot do that!”
DvoŠrák enjoyed unprejudiced acclaim first in England, where already during a guest appearance in March 1884 he was celebrated as the “musical hero of the hour”. In 1890 he created his setting of the Latin Missa pro defunctis for the music festival in Birmingham and it is this truly “great vocal work”, the Requiem op. 89 that is solemnly and symbolically at the centre of the concert series with which the Salzburg Festival pays tribute to the composer who died one hundred years ago on 1 May 1904. Which orchestra could be more appropriate for this dignified musical and festive celebration than the Czech Philharmonic, whose foundation concert in 1896 was conducted by none other than Antonín DvoŠrák? Furthermore we may take it as good news that Gerd Albrecht, the orchestra’s former principal conductor, whose artistically rewarding term of office came to an early, politically motivated end, is returning to the CŠeská Filharmonie. Now everything points towards harmony and reconciliation in the midst of old, happily united Europe.
Giuseppe Verdi, Don Carlo
The performance of the Requiem, on 16 August in the Felsenreitschule, will be framed in the days before and afterwards by two extremely unusual song recitals by the baritone Thomas Hampson. The programmes are devoted to works by DvoŠrák, his companions, friends and pupils. The Vienna Philharmonic also open and close their series of concerts with works by Antonín DvoŠrák. Right at the beginning, under the baton of Seiji Ozawa they play the symphony ‘From the New World’ and their series of concerts comes to an end with two matinees conducted by Nikolaus Harnoncourt; the programmes are devoted exclusively to the œuvre of the Czech master.
Erich Wolfgang Korngold, born in 1897 in Brno in Moravia, admired as a composing child prodigy in Vienna, died at the age of sixty in Hollywood as a film composer and Oscar prize-winner. His life began with such promise before the “young matured genius”, as Richard Strauss admiringly described him, became an embittered pessimist in American exile, far away and estranged from home. The production of his opera Die tote Stadt in the coming summer in Salzburg is reflected in the entire programme of the Festival. Compositions by Korngold form the dramaturgical and systematic thread running through the various concert series. In the opening concert performed by the Vienna Philharmonic Benjamin Schimid is the soloist in the Violin Concerto, a work which has a great affinity to film music. In August the Deutsche Kammerphilharmonie makes a guest appearance and on the programme of their concert is the Symphonic Serenade composed after the second world war. Towards the end of the Festival the Radio Symphony Orchestra of Vienna performs the late F sharp major symphony. The rarely, indeed hardly ever performed chamber music by Erich Wolfgang Korngold is represented by his Piano Quintet, op. 15, the first String Quartet, op. 16 and the suite commissioned by the pianist Paul Wittgenstein for two violins, violoncello and piano (for the left hand), op. 23. In the series of concerts entitled “Salzburg Debuts” the young Austrian violinist David Frühwirth has Korngold rarities on his programme.
A well-known name and yet a largely unknown composer: Johann Michael Haydn was not spared the ambiguous posthumous fame of being Joseph Haydn’s younger brother, who came to Salzburg in 1763, entered the service of the prince-archbishop as a court musician and concert master and moreover in 1782 (as successor to Mozart) became the court and cathedral organist. In each of next year’s Mozart matinees compositions by the “other” Haydn will be performed: regimental marches, concertos, symphonies and the requiem for Archbishop Siegmund Christoph Graf Schrattenbach, who died in 1771, the Missa pro Defuncto Archiepiscopo Sigismundo are the works chosen by Ivor Bolton, the Salzburg Bach Choir and the Mozarteum Orchestra for their concerts together. Michael Haydn and Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart, nineteen years his junior, held each other in great esteem, indeed they enjoyed a cordial friendship. In the Mozart Matinees they meet again, in their works, the two “local” composers, the Salzburger by choice and the Salzburger who escaped.
Wolfgang Stähr
Guest orchestra
16 August, 8 p.m.
Felsenreitschule
Antonín Dvorák Requiem op. 89
Conductor Gerd Albrecht
Soprano Soile Isokoski
Contralto Monica Groop
Tenor Piotr Beczala
Bass René Pape
Chorus master Jaroslav Brych
Choir of the Czech Philharmonic Prague
Czech Philharmonic Prague
Song Recital
13 August, 7.30 p.m.
Kleines Festspielhaus
Selected songs by Antonín Dvorák, Johannes Brahms etc.
Baritone Thomas Hampson
Piano Wolfram Rieger
Song Recital
17 August, 7.30 p.m.
Kleines Festspielhaus
Antonín Dvorák und seine Zeit
Soprano Barbara Bonney
Mezzo-soprano Michelle Breedt
Baritone Thomas Hampson
Bass Georg Zeppenfeld
Piano Wolfram Rieger
Salzburg Debut
1 August, 4 p.m.
Mozarteum
Hans Gál Sonata for Violin and Piano, op. 17
Ernst Krenek Sonata for Violin and Piano, op. 99
Erich Wolfgang Korngold
Heliane’s Song for Violin and Piano from The Miracle of Heliane,
op. 20
Much Ado About Nothing Suite for Violin and Piano, op. 11
William Walton Toccata for Violin and Piano (1922/23)
Violin David Frühwirth
Piano Henri Sigfridsson
Guest orchestra
20 August, 8 p.m.
Kleines Festspielhaus
Erich Wolfgang Korngold Symphonic Serenade in B flat major, op. 39
Ludwig van Beethoven
Concerto for Piano and Orchestra No. 3 in C minor, op. 37
Symphony No. 8 in F major, op. 93
Conductor Paavo Järvi
Piano Olli Mustonen
Deutsche Kammerphilharmonie Bremen
Guest orchestra
26 August, 8 p.m.
Kleines Festspielhaus
Igor Strawinsky Jeu de cartes
Richard Strauss Four Last Songs
Erich Wolfgang Korngold Symphony in F sharp major, op. 40
Conductor Bertrand de Billy
Soprano Soile Isokoski
Radio Symphony Orchestra of Vienna
Telephone +43 (0) 662 8045-500
Telefax +43 (0) 662 8045-555
E-mail: info@salzburgfestival.at
Production photos © Karl Forster