Just on behalf of those who love, or are fascinated, (like me) by late romantic Austro-German music, to draw attention to two compositions by the Frankfurt-born Walter Braunfels being performed on Afternoon Concert this week: the Orchestral Suite in E minor, Op 48 today, at 3.50pm, and the late Hebridean Dances, Op 70, tomorrow at 3.55pm.
Though almost a decade younger than Schoenberg, but almost the same age as Berg, Braunfels (1882-1954) adhered to an idiom heavily influenced by Strauss and early Mahler - perhaps over-richly scored and harmonically stretching the diatonic envelope to the extent of "Till Eulenspiegel" though not as far as Schoenberg's Kammersymphonie No 1 Op.9. The fact that Hitler sought to commission Braunfels to composer a work in praise of his new Nazi party in 1923, unaware of his Jewishness, offers an idea of his music, whose ingredients and language were in place before WW1, and although he managed to remain safe living in Germany under the Third Reich his music was banned, and, after the war, neglected as outdated and not part of the new aesthetic post-Darmstadt. Full works are accessible on youtube, and should be of interest to followers of Schmidt, Pfitzner, Schoeck or even Zemlinsky, but perhaps for his deepest thoughts one needs to turn to his large-scale religious settings: Braunfels was a religious man and almost lifelong Catholic, inspired by the example of Bruckner.
Though almost a decade younger than Schoenberg, but almost the same age as Berg, Braunfels (1882-1954) adhered to an idiom heavily influenced by Strauss and early Mahler - perhaps over-richly scored and harmonically stretching the diatonic envelope to the extent of "Till Eulenspiegel" though not as far as Schoenberg's Kammersymphonie No 1 Op.9. The fact that Hitler sought to commission Braunfels to composer a work in praise of his new Nazi party in 1923, unaware of his Jewishness, offers an idea of his music, whose ingredients and language were in place before WW1, and although he managed to remain safe living in Germany under the Third Reich his music was banned, and, after the war, neglected as outdated and not part of the new aesthetic post-Darmstadt. Full works are accessible on youtube, and should be of interest to followers of Schmidt, Pfitzner, Schoeck or even Zemlinsky, but perhaps for his deepest thoughts one needs to turn to his large-scale religious settings: Braunfels was a religious man and almost lifelong Catholic, inspired by the example of Bruckner.
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