The Art-Music, Literature and Linguistics Forum

Assorted items => Coming broadcasts and listen-later links => Topic started by: shamus on November 23, 2013, 02:47:31 pm



Title: Franz Schmidt Phantasiestuck on OE1
Post by: shamus on November 23, 2013, 02:47:31 pm
http://oe1.orf.at/programm/tag/20131124 (http://oe1.orf.at/programm/tag/20131124)

Wiener Symphoniker, Dirigent: Fabio Luisi; Jasminka Stancul, Klavier.
Franz Schmidt: Phantasiestück für Klavier und Orchester B-Dur (Uraufführung)
Zugabe der Solistin: Robert Schumann: Träumerei aus "Kinderszenen"
Gustav Mahler: Symphonie Nr. 9 D-Dur (aufgenommen am 10. November im Großen Musikvereinssaal in Wien in Dolby Digital 5.1 Surround Sound)

If anyone knows the story behind this only now having its world premiere, I would appreciate knowing about it. Thanks, Jim


Title: Re: Franz Schmidt Phantasiestuck on OE1
Post by: Wheesht on November 24, 2013, 07:06:24 pm
Thank you for drawing my attention to this broadcast! According to the monthly journal of the "Gesellschaft der Musikfreunde" in Vienna the orchestral score for this work, the only large scale work for piano that Schmidt wrote for two hands (all his other pieces were written for the one-armed pianist Paul Wittgenstein), came to light only recently. Before, there had just been a score for two pianos. The article in German can be found here:[http://www.musikverein.at/monatszeitung/show_artikel.php?artikel_id=1628]


Title: Re: Franz Schmidt Phantasiestuck on OE1
Post by: guest54 on November 25, 2013, 08:16:49 am
Yes, thanks to Shamus for spotting this one! I have recorded the broadcast, and I can make it available in the downloads section later to-day if any one wants that.

By the way, it is a year or two since I last looked at the Austrian Radio web-site, and I see that they now do "on-demand" for the past seven days. A useful improvement - must give it a try!


Title: Re: Franz Schmidt Phantasiestuck on OE1
Post by: mjkFendrich on November 25, 2013, 11:03:35 am
By the way, it is a year or two since I last looked at the Austrian Radio web-site, and I see that they now do "on-demand" for the past seven days. A useful improvement - must give it a try!

I've tried to record this concert directly via my cable connection (in order to get the best digital quality),
but for OE1 no data has been transmitted. So I had to stay with their "on-demand" service, which unfortunately
is only of moderate audio quality (96  kB/s).
So I hope you have got a better recording of it.


Title: Re: Franz Schmidt Phantasiestuck on OE1
Post by: Dundonnell on November 25, 2013, 04:52:13 pm
Can anybody add any information-in English-on when this work was composed and the circumstances of its discovery ???


Title: Re: Franz Schmidt Phantasiestuck on OE1
Post by: Wheesht on November 25, 2013, 06:25:02 pm
The (manuscript) score apparently came into the possession of the Austrian National Library in a roundabout way - from a collection in the Far East. According to the website of the Franz Schmidt Society there's no publication year on the score, but elsewhere on the site they refer to it as an early work. It does not seem to be clear at this point whether the opera Notre Dame (1902-1904) was first and the Phantasiestuck quotes music from it or if it was the other way round.


Title: Re: Franz Schmidt Phantasiestuck on OE1
Post by: Dundonnell on November 25, 2013, 08:13:56 pm
Thanks for that info' :)


Title: Re: Franz Schmidt Phantasiestuck on OE1
Post by: HerbieG on November 26, 2013, 10:46:22 pm
Anything new by Schmidt is most welcome!

I seem to recollect that the Intermezzo from Notre Dame was written before the opera, as a stand-alone work.  I am intrigued by this 'new' work, which I suppose may have been an early one, except that from the outset it sounds like Schmidt, not an early student work heavily influenced by his predecessors.  I even began to suspect that this was some kind of hoax piece when the Notre Dame Intermezzo appeared, except that Luisi's credentials are absolutely beyond question - he has already recorded the four symphonies and the piano concertos.

It seems that there are also two piano sonatas by Schmidt; they are listed as lost in Grove 6 but Harold Truscott comments on them in his book about the composer in such a way that he must have seen the scores.  And there is another intriguing work of which there is no recording as far as I know - the Tullenbacher Blasmusik, for 2 oboes, 2 horns, 2 trumpets, bass and percussion.  The sheet music is available from Doblinger - it's on Amazon - and I assume that it's not by another Franz Schmidt - but the work is not mentioned in any articles about Schmidt that I have seen so far.  Is there anyone out there who could get together an ensemble that could play this and post it on this site?


Title: Re: Franz Schmidt Phantasiestuck on OE1
Post by: guest54 on November 27, 2013, 12:26:24 pm
A member has kindly pointed out that the first recording I posted has a glitch or gap of around three seconds. I don't know how that happened. So anyway, I have now posted a second version, which should be complete. It comes from the "on demand" page, and the only drawback is that the quality of the second version is 96 kb/s rather than 112 kb/s, as pointed out by mjkFendrich above. Apologies!