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Contents:
DDD 76.16 Recorded: Potton Hall, Suffolk, England, 20-25 November 2004 T A collection of shorter compositions, which – prompted by the musician Fanny Hünerwadel among various composers – have found their autographed entry in a music album of a wide range, are in first place on this CD. The musician as a composer comes in second place: six songs printed posthumously and a piece of work, also vocal but only handed down in writing are partly recorded on this CD for the first time. Finally there is a series of six songs, which had been dedicated to the singer Fanny Hünerwadel in a print by the composer Wilhelm Baumgartner. In the centre is Fanny Hünerwadel, who was born in Lenzburg on 26 January 1826 – the eldest of four children – as the daughter of the doctor and music lover Friedrich Hünerwadel and Regula Speerli, who was very fond of piano-playing and singing. Initially she was given music lessons by her mother, then by musicians in Lenzburg, where she was also allowed to take part in various performances in the choir or even as a piano player. Since the age of 20 she was financially supported by her mother’s brother, the banker Johann Jacob Speerli, with a view to her future musical education. The pianist, conductor and composer Alexander Müller (1808 – 1863), who worked in Zurich and was well-known as a highly regarded piano teacher, of e.g. Wilhelm Baumgartner (1820 – 1867) and Johann Carl Eschmann (1826 – 1882), promoted her talents and let her perform in various concerts in Zurich. This resulted in many different contacts to musicians, who worked locally and internationally. Her social commitments often led her to visit the mental home in Zurich on a Sunday evening, where she tried to calm down unfortunate patients therapeutically with music, at least with the result that it was easier to treat patients the following day. In 1851 Fanny travelled to Paris and London to study, and in July 1853 she moved to Italy for an extended educational tour, from where she regularly corresponded with her Uncle Speerli. Shortly before her planned return to Switzerland, she caught typhoid in Rome, and died on 27 April 1854 at the mere age of 28. In her obituary written by Hans Conrad Ott-Usteri, the then president of the Allgemeine Musik-Gesellschaft in Zurich, Fanny Hünerwadel’s music education, her extensive knowledge of languages and wide general knowledge are praised. Ott describes her also as an “excellent piano player, a singer with a very beautiful voice, both attributes meriting our concerts, familiar with the theory of composition,…”. The only thing lacking in her singing was apparently “the intonation and lively performance”, something Ott put down to a certain self-consciousness and shyness during her public performance. “After her return from her Italian journey, fulfilled and elated by all the impressions of a rich and eventful life of art, her singing would have undoubtedly developed with a greater confidence. But she was taken from life’s richness in her prime.” (115. Neujahrsblatt der Allgemeine Musik-Gesellschaft Zürich, 1927, p. 26)
Fanny Hünerwadel’s musical album (nowadays it belongs to the family of Niklaus Appenzeller, Küsnacht) was the basis of the existing sound recordings. Following informations in the Lenzburger Neujahrsblätter by Emil Braun in 1932, it was first described in full by Werner Breig in the essay “From Alexander Müller to Richard Wagner and Franz Liszt: the musical album of the Swiss singer, pianist and composer Fanny Hünerwadel” (in: Musikalische Quellen – Quellen zur Musikgeschichte. Festschrift für Martin Staehelin zum 65. Geburtstag, Göttingen 2002, p. 405–423). Breig put the cause as well as the development of the individual compositions in a sociological and chronological context. The entries into the album, consisting of individual sheets of paper with a format of approx. 27 x 17 cm kept in a cassette, are intentionally collected, starting in April 1852 and continuing until July 1853. The recording of the pieces follows the numbering, which is unknown in its origin, as available in the album. This order does not correspond with the chronological sequence of the entries, but could have been made by Fanny Hünerwadel, as it reveals a certain evaluation regarding the people (Müller as her first teacher also in first place) and the representatives of the subjects (two violin virtuosos together; Liszt and Wagner together). The list of male composers – Teresa Milanollo acts as the only woman among those entering – is very diverse and shows the extensive network of relationships of the young musician. These are her teachers (Alexander Müller, Christian Gustav Gottlieb Rabe), musicians, who let her perform as an interpreter at their venues (e.g. Johann Wenzel Kalliwoda, Carl Leopold Böhm, Ferdinand Huber), virtuosos and composers, she admired (Henry Vieuxtemps, Teresa Milanollo, Richard Wagner, Franz Liszt etc.). To the same extent as the album reveals these biographical relationships, this musical collection serves as a source for compositions of her contemporaries, although it is not determinable in each case, whether the entries have immortalised their music only in this album or to the contrary taken it from a music text already in existence. The latter could for instance be clarified with the incompletely written down, with the contribution by Franz Liszt marked with an “etc”: the autograph from the album is in immediate relation to the Cantique d’amour from the Harmonies poétiques et religieuses (published in 1853), with whose help the fragmentary album sheet could be led to an intermediate end extended by a few bars, which was musically tenable. Another extension with regards to content was made with the Wagner entry. For one single piece we know neither the writer nor the date of origin: Vocalizzo. For practical reasons the players for the recording of this textless composition was chosen to be with transverse flute and piano. Werner Breig says it may be possible that this piece may have originated during her journey to Italy and was perhaps added to the album after Fanny’s death. In the end one is tempted to imagine how the album would look even more extensive and colourful if Fanny had been able to carry out her collecting activities for longer than only merely a year. There remain some piano pieces and seven songs for voice and piano by Fanny Hünerwadel as a composer. The second block of this CD is dedicated to all of the songs. Six of them were printed shortly after her death by Philipp Joseph Fries (1815 – 1890) in Zurich, and dedicated to her uncle and patron Johann Jacob Speerli. The seventh song is preserved in two autographical versions, one – in Fanny’s estate at the Peter Mieg Foundation Lenzburg – for voice and piano, the other one – the property of the Zentralbibliothek Zürich – for voice, flute and piano (the latter can be heard on the CD). Contrary to the pure piano music, which hardly leaves the scope of widespread salon-like music, there are clearly more interesting and harmonic phrases and a flair for well-balanced and graceful melodies in the songs. Her songs prove that “our good young lady” Fanny, as Richard Wagner called her in a letter to Wilhelm Baumgartner, has a not insignificant place as a composer, especially in the musical history of Zurich and Lenzburg around the time of 1850. In the third and last place on this CD there are the Sechs kleine Lieder (six small songs), op. 4, for one voice and piano, dedicated to Fräulein Fanny Hünerwadel und composed by Wilhelm Baumgartner (1820 – 1867). He had – even if some years before Fanny Hünerwadel – also visited the lessons in piano-playing and composition by Alexander Müller. During the time when Fanny was further educated by Müller and performed musically in public, Baumgartner had already returned to the Limmatstadt after his stay in Germany. They certainly met each other on the occasion of the concerts of the Allgemeine Musik-Gesellschaft, and they also performed together. Probably because Baumgartner had personally shown Fanny Hünerwadel the reference with his dedication of songs on the occasion of such a concert in 1849, and afterwards also with op. 4, Fanny possibly did not think it necessary or even improper to ask the composer, who was mainly working in Zurich, for a special entry into the album. As there is no corresponding contribution in this autograph collection, he should at least be represented with the songs op. 4 on the CD. Bernhard Hangartner
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