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Zemlinsky at 150

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Albion
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Frederic Cowen (1852-1935)


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« on: May 08, 2021, 09:44:43 am »



To mark 150 years since Alexander von Zemlinsky's birth, Capriccio are issuing (re-issuing)

a modest "Edition" - https://www.prestomusic.com/classical/products/8915416--alexander-zemlinsky-anniversary-edition



Es War Einmal - https://www.prestomusic.com/classical/products/8915414--zemlinsky-es-war-einmal-once-upon-a-time



Der König Kandaules - https://www.prestomusic.com/classical/products/8915415--zemlinsky-der-konig-kandaules-king-candaules



Zemlinsky has always been a favourite of mine, as have Schreker and Korngold: I tend to bracket the three together. It is good to see that he's getting some recognition in his anniversary year.

 :)
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paul corfield godfrey
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« Reply #1 on: May 08, 2021, 10:46:46 am »

Might I suggest that it might be an even more fitting tribute to Zemlinsky if Capriccio's reissues of the operas came complete with texts and translations, as did the original boxed issues? Or at least make the material available online?

I suspect the answer will be no, since Capriccio have uniformly failed to provide the most basic explanations of plot with their reissues over recent years (their Kurt Weill boxed edition, Schmidt's Notre Dame, etc). These are valuable and unique recordings which are fatally compromised by a lack of essential background information. I have complained in reviews of the new sets of CDs about this on several occasions, and my pleas have fallen on totally deaf ears.

I suspect that if Warner/EMI ever get round to reissuing their recordings by James Conlon of this repertory they will be given similarly shabby treatment, since their track record in this department is equally abysmal. It is not even as if translations can be obtained from any other source - online or printed. How can one be expected to appreciate the music if one has no idea of what is actually going on?
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« Reply #2 on: May 08, 2021, 10:56:55 am »

Might I suggest that it might be an even more fitting tribute to Zemlinsky if Capriccio's reissues of the operas came complete with texts and translations, as did the original boxed issues? Or at least make the material available online?

I suspect the answer will be no, since Capriccio have uniformly failed to provide the most basic explanations of plot with their reissues over recent years (their Kurt Weill boxed edition, Schmidt's Notre Dame, etc). These are valuable and unique recordings which are fatally compromised by a lack of essential background information. I have complained in reviews of the new sets of CDs about this on several occasions, and my pleas have fallen on totally deaf ears.

I suspect that if Warner/EMI ever get round to reissuing their recordings by James Conlon of this repertory they will be given similarly shabby treatment, since their track record in this department is equally abysmal. It is not even as if translations can be obtained from any other source - online or printed. How can one be expected to appreciate the music if one has no idea of what is actually going on?

Complete agreement here! The lack of texts/ translations (even synopses) is absolutely ridiculous when you're dealing with less-than-standard repertoire.

 ::)

The otherwise wonderful recording of Schreker's Der Schatzgraber on Challenge Classics (Marc Albrecht and the Netherlands PO, 2013) at least supplies the text, but only in German: alas, I am not a cunning linguist...

 ;)
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« Reply #3 on: May 10, 2021, 10:11:04 am »

The old Capriccio set of Schreker's Der Schatzgräber issued in 1989 came complete with a ninety-page booklet containing not only the complete text but also an English translation by Lionel Salter - which, judging by the copyright date, had been commissioned specifically for the CD release.

Regarding Capriccio's cheese-paring approach to their reissues, I can do not better than quote from my MusicWeb review last year of their recording of Zemlinsky's Der Traumgörge, which I think sums up the position pretty comprehensively:

"From the 1980s onwards the enterprising Capriccio label released a whole raft of recordings of rare German operas of the early twentieth century, many of them indeed world premières on disc. They included works by Kurt Weill that had been comprehensively neglected even by the programme of recordings instituted by Lotte Lenya, operas by composers outlawed by the Nazis such as Franz Schreker (anticipating the discoveries of Decca’s ‘Entartete Musik’ series), Schmidt’s rarely heard Notre Dame and a wholesale exploration of never-before-heard operas by Alexander Zemlinsky, who was just beginning to emerge from obscurity after decades of total oblivion. The recordings were mostly based on the programmes of German provincial opera houses, who were starting to rediscover these operas afresh, and the casting was therefore not always of the best; and some of the editions employed were annoyingly subjected to cuts both major and minor. But some of the performances did feature singers of the very first rank; and although the covers were plain and functional at best, the presentation otherwise was superlative. We were provided with full texts and translations, together with sometimes lengthy essays on aspects of the works themselves, in solidly bound booklets which enabled the first-time listener (and most of us were first-time listeners) to appreciate fully what was going on in the stage action and to follow the plots.
Some years ago Capriccio began to reissue these pioneering sets, gathering the Kurt Weill rarities into two boxes and providing new covers for the other releases. But at the same time they did their level best to render the performances totally unintelligible to newcomers by omitting the previously supplied texts and translations, not even making them available online although they had clearly been originally provided at considerable initial expense and effort. They then added insult to injury by retaining most of the analytical essays, less than useful to anyone who did not understand the plot of the opera in question. And they also retained the synopses from the original issues; but since these had originally been provided to be read in conjunction with the texts and translations, they made little sense on their own and were woefully inadequate for any attempt to enlighten the innocent listener. The synopsis for this issue of Zemlinsky’s Der Traumgörge consists of less than one miserable page, totally devoid of any cues to connect the text to the music on disc, and totally insufficient to make sense of a highly symbolic plot – it does not even indicate where one Act ends and another begins. The track listing does provide English translations for the opening words of each track, but that hardly begins to address the matter of comprehensibility for anybody other than a fluent German speaker."

As a composer myself, who when writing dramatic works regards the comprehension of the texts by the listener as of paramount importance, I cannot begin to comprehend how any record company could begin to regard the reissue of these recordings in such a cheese-paring manner as a tribute to the composer in any manner whatsoever. Even if cost considerations prohibit the provision of perhaps bulky texts and translations with the CDs themselves, there can be no reasonable excuse not to make them available to purchasers online.

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« Reply #4 on: May 10, 2021, 10:19:28 am »

Absolutely spot on.

Incidentally, do you know if any of the available recordings of Schreker's Der ferne Klang contain a competent English version of the composer's libretto? When I saw Opera North's wonderful production in Manchester several decades ago I seem to remember that the programme contained an excellent translation - alas my copy has long-since been lost in transit.

 ::)
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« Reply #5 on: May 10, 2021, 12:01:02 pm »

Absolutely spot on.

Incidentally, do you know if any of the available recordings of Schreker's Der ferne Klang contain a competent English version of the composer's libretto? When I saw Opera North's wonderful production in Manchester several decades ago I seem to remember that the programme contained an excellent translation - alas my copy has long-since been lost in transit.

 ::)

I've checked and it was sung in English in a translation by Paul Daniel! I'd completely forgotten that (well, it was way back when)...

 :o

As far as I can see there's no online version of the text in English.

 ::)

It was broadcast (from Leeds) on 23rd January 1992:

https://genome.ch.bbc.co.uk/bed693e7a7c84a81a1f53fa308372a40

Does anyone have or know of an off-air recording?

 :)
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« Reply #6 on: May 10, 2021, 04:40:08 pm »

For Die ferne Klang there was a Capriccio set available which did come with both texts and translations (both have disappeared with the reissue). Unfortunately my copy of the set was purchased second-hand and the booklet had already gone walkabout. Nor was the casting the stuff of one's dreams.
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« Reply #7 on: May 10, 2021, 04:47:25 pm »

For Die ferne Klang there was a Capriccio set available which did come with both texts and translations (both have disappeared with the reissue). Unfortunately my copy of the set was purchased second-hand and the booklet had already gone walkabout.

I've got the original 1991 Capriccio set (60024-2), complete with booklet - there's the libretto in German only (just a synopsis in English).

Nor was the casting the stuff of one's dreams.

Y'aint kidding! Gabriele Schnaut (b.1951) should have been incarcerated decades ago for crimes against music - her vocal "rendition" of the role of Els in Capriccio's Der Schatzgraber is truly something to wonder (and shudder) at. The Penguin Guide is spot-on: "[she] seems happiest when she is scything your ears with loud and often unsteady top notes"...



 :o

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