Discovering Pfitzner

[verismissimo]

Somehow or other I've always bypassed Pfitzner, assuming (received opinion) that he was old-fashioned and not first-rate.

But recently I've been listening to his lieder. Really excellent. And certainly we no longer have to dismiss him because he wasn't Webern.

I've just ordered Palestrina. What else should I go for?

[Pabmusic]

I've just ordered Palestrina. What else should I go for?

I've had this for several years, and I think it's an excellent companion to Hansel and Gretel:

http://www.amazon.co.uk/Hans-Pfitzner-Christelflein-Richard-Salter/dp/B000BK53AQ/ref=sr_1_25?s=music&ie=UTF8&qid=1339752827&sr=1-25

[Don Petter]

There's quite a lot of chamber music, mostly on MDG and CPO, which is worth exploring.

Four string quartets, piano quintet, piano sextet, piano trio and violin sonata.

The third quartet, Op.50, has had at least two recordings which, in this field, probably makes it the most popular work!

[PJPJ]

Vol. 13 in the Hanssler Dresden Staatskapelle series has an excellent historic performance of the the Symphony in C. The orchestral works and concertos appear on cpo at a reduced price on 5 CDs.

Pfitzner, the conductor, is interesting, too, and should be sampled, and Pfitzner the man is worthy of study, too.

Link to cpo set, with sound-bites

http://www.jpc.de/jpcng/cpo/detail/-/art/Hans-Pfitzner-1869-1949-Orchesterwerke-Konzerte/hnum/6683656

[ferneyhoughgeliebte]

And certainly we no longer have to dismiss him because he wasn't Webern.

Did "we" ever do this? I've always neglected him because he wasn't Reger, or Schmidt, or Schreker, or Zemlinsky or Busoni. Or Palestrina! What I'd heard didn't stike me as being nearly as interesting as those composers - but, then, it is nearly thrity years since I listened to anything by Pfitzner and, thanks to this Thread, I shall have another go.

[JohnSkelton]

The famous DGG recording of Palestrina with Fischer-Dieskau conducted by Kubelík is now in the Brilliant Opera Collection (http://www.mdt.co.uk/MDTSite/product//9093.htm). Many years ago I tried with the work and that recording, but no joy. More recently I heard the string quartets in the performances in this box http://www.mdt.co.uk/MDTSite/product//9999962.htm (certainly well played); the sense I got - in the context of him not being Webern and ferney's list of other composers he wasn't! - was of a composer tooth-grittedly writing against contemporary music. Not of a composer whose style or harmonic language was 'naturally' conservative, but of a composer who wrote as he did for ideological reasons. That's often said critically of 'Darmstadt School' music of the 50s / 60s, but I've never felt so strongly about any other composer that the process and the result were so willed.

I didn't find the results attractive or compelling. I can believe the lieder are successful, though (I recall some D F-D recordings), the genre concentrating or distilling the idiom.

[verismissimo]

Did "we" ever do this? I've always neglected him because he wasn't Reger, or Schmidt, or Schreker, or Zemlinsky or Busoni. :

Seems to me that all those you mention, ferney, Pfitzner too, were rather written off when I was young, not dutifully following the modernist path.

Zemlinsky was perhaps granted a partial exception as precursor of Schoenberg.

[Roehre]

The string quartets, especially opus 36, IMO surprisingly fit very well within the canon of the 2nd Viennese school: Though Pfitzner was definitely too conservative (and too vitriolic) to appreciate the works of Berg, Schönberg and Webern fully, there isn't THAT much dividing this opus 36 quartet and Schönberg's opus 7 or the two early works of Webern's for this genre (string quartet 1905 and "Langsamer Satz", M.78 and M.79).

The quartet opus 36 was orchestrated, and became Symphony No.1 in C-sharp-Minor.
I personally have a slight (just slight) preference for the symphony op.36a. It's IMO the strongest of the 3 symphonies (op.36a, 44 and 46), though the Symphony in C op.46 from 1940 (of which the premiere recording by Böhm released in the already mentioned Dresden Staatskapelle box) is certainly most hummable, AND the most conservative of these works. (What a difference with that other Symphony in C of 1940: Stravinsky's )

Don't underestimated Pfitzner's other opera's either. There exists a DGG CD with symphonic intermezzi by Pfitzner (i.a. Das Herz and Rosengarten, with Palestrina) and Strauss. I must say that the Strauss works IMO are the "weakest" of the lot.

The Lieder have been mentioned already, but the orchestral songs are worth more than one hearing as well, especially a recording made by DFD in the late 1970s (out-of-print, but certainly worth a try), or this recent one on CPO

[verismissimo]

What a fine work Pfitzner's Violin Concerto op34 from 1924 is (I discover).

Premiered by the forgotten Aussie Alma Moodie (I also discover).

[Stanfordian]

Somehow or other I've always bypassed Pfitzner, assuming (received opinion) that he was old-fashioned and not first-rate.

But recently I've been listening to his lieder. Really excellent. And certainly we no longer have to dismiss him because he wasn't Webern.

I've just ordered Palestrina. What else should I go for?

I recall from attending last year's Berlin Musikfest a simply wonderful performance of Pfitzner's Prelude from act II of Palestrina (1917) played by the Berlin Philharmonic Orchestra under Andris Nelsons at the Philharmonie, Berlin on 10th September 2011.

I have a very fine disc of Pfitzner and Richard Strauss orchestral works played by the Orchester der Deutschen Oper Berlin under Christian Thielemann on DG. Beautifully played Thielemann is very much at home in this richly orchestrated late-Romantic Austro-German repertoire.

LinK: http://www.amazon.co.uk/Christian-Th...083129&sr=1-17

[David-G]

... I've just ordered Palestrina. ...

I saw "Palestrina" at Covent Garden a few years ago. I enjoyed it very much.

[Roehre]

I....
I have a very fine disc of Pfitzner and Richard Strauss orchestral works played by the Orchester der Deutschen Oper Berlin under Christian Thielemann on DG. Beautifully played Thielemann is very much at home in this richly orchestrated late-Romantic Austro-German repertoire.
LinK: http://www.amazon.co.uk/Christian-Th...083129&sr=1-17

A very fine CD that is.
The violin concerto is an exceptional work, which doesn't make it particularly popular with potential solists:
the violinist's part for the slow middle movement consists of exactly one word: tacet

[Don Petter]

A very fine CD that is.
The violin concerto is an exceptional work, which doesn't make it particularly popular with potential solists:
the violinist's part for the slow middle movement consists of exactly one word: tacet

Oh, I don't know - 'Round the back for the old brandy, then!'.

[Stanfordian]

I recall from attending last year's Berlin Musikfest a simply wonderful performance of Pfitzner's Prelude from act II of Palestrina (1917) played by the Berlin Philharmonic Orchestra under Andris Nelsons at the Philharmonie, Berlin on 10th September 2011.

I have a very fine disc of Pfitzner and Richard Strauss orchestral works played by the Orchester der Deutschen Oper Berlin under Christian Thielemann on DG. Beautifully played Thielemann is very much at home in this richly orchestrated late-Romantic Austro-German repertoire.

LinK: http://www.amazon.co.uk/Christian-Th...083129&sr=1-17

I forgot to add that in September 2011 at last year's Musikfest 2011 I saw Christian Thielemann conducting the Dresden Staatskapelle in Pfitzner’s Piano Concerto, Op. 31 with soloist Tzimon Barto. An interesting and reasonably appealing work that I would like to hear again. I also have two recordings of the Pfitzner Violin Concerto, Op. 34 which I rate rather higher.

[verismissimo]

Thanks to all for your suggestions and comments.

I've been listening to Pfitzner's orchestral music in recent months. It's a delight. Hard to connect with the difficult man of report.

I like his mockery in 1938 of the Jewish situation in Germany, announcing that he was afraid to see a celebrated eye-doctor in Munich because "his great-grandmother had once observed a quarter-Jew crossing the street."

Time to start on the chamber works.