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DDD 64:39 - Recorded: Reformierten Kirche Bachs (ZH) Switzerland on 10 - 12 December 2005 TLHans Schaeuble was born in Arosa on 31 May 1906 as the son of a chemist. He was already focused on music in his early years. After all, it was the occasion of the regular concerts of the Orchestre de la Suisse Romande conducted by their chief conductor Ernest Ansermet – among others with works by Igor Strawinsky, Claude Debussy and Maurice Ravel -, in the first instance that aroused his desire to dedicate himself totally to music as a conductor. In order to expand his knowledge and skills – so far he had mainly educated himself - and above all to position his acquired knowledge on a solid basis he took up his studies – as had so many Swiss people before him – at the Leipzig Conservatory in 1927, receiving composition lessons from the former Reger student and composer Hermann Grabner, and piano lessons from the pianist and piano teacher Carl Adolf Martienssen until 1931. Among his fellow students at that time were Hugo Distler and Wolfgang Fortner. First concerts at the Conservatory and on the radio gave hope for a musical career. In 1931 Schaeuble moved to Berlin, where he lived and worked until October 1942 – interrupted by a stay in Switzerland from 1939 until 1941. During these years many of his works were created, which were successfully performed in concert halls and on the radio. The composer seemed to have achieved his artistic breakthrough with the première of his Sinfonische Musik für großes Orchester (op. 22) (Symphonic Music for Large Orchestra) by the Berlin Philharmonic under the baton of Carl Schuricht in March 1939. This success was emphasised by the offer of the renowned Berlin music publisher Bote & Bock to publish several of Schaeuble’s works – among them Musik für Streichquartett (op. 19) (Music for String Quartet), recorded on this CD. After his return to Switzerland, where he continued to live in Zurich as a freelance composer, Schaeuble, however, experienced a sudden turn in this very promising development. His stay of several years in Berlin during the years of National Socialism aroused great disapproval among his fellow countrymen, and he was repeatedly subjected to unjust accusations of having been too “pro-German” and a “National Socialist”. Only few of his works found their way into the concert halls. Schaeuble never got rid of the thought that he had become victim of a conspiracy, which had been mainly responsible for his failures. He composed less and less in the following years and mainly restricted himself to repeated revisions of his earlier works. After his death in Zurich on 19 December 1988 – according to his wish – a foundation was established, which promotes young musicians and musicologists who study Schaeuble’s work. Schaeuble left behind a varied range of work with contributions to vocal music, stage and instrumental music, which was mainly determined by his earlier examination of the compositions by Paul Hindemith, Igor Strawinsky, Béla Bartók and later also Frank Martin. Even if in his more recent works he occasionally used twelve-tone series in a linear sense as a construction principle (as e.g. in his piano concerto op. 34 from 1949), he remained committed to neo-classic formal principles with horizontal command of lines and differentiated melodic and rhythmic characteristics throughout his life. On the occasion of his String Quartet published in 1936 Schaeuble himself made the following explanatory notes in the announcement by Bote & Bock (“Internal information by the publishers, September 1937): “ The “Music for String Quartet” was created at the beginning of 1936, and was premièred by the Lutz-Quartett in Berlin in July of the same year. The piece itself consists of 5 parts and shows a completely free tonal connection to G major. A short measured introduction, which returns in the last movement, thus giving the piece its formal rounding, is followed by the second movement, a very gentle flowing part, interrupted by a few strong stresses. With a completely calm ending it is taken over by the third scherzo-like piece, which puts high demands on the executors in a rhythmic connection. The fourth movement follows as a core piece of the whole, which again is taken over by the final movement, similar to a baroque aria. A strong theme repeatedly dominates rondo-like after the two violins, concert-like, in between parts almost become independent. After a slightly calmer interim movement, there is a partial reprise, which itself, following a strong unisono, literally leads into the introduction to the whole piece. Once again the main theme appears forcefully, in order to then – hardly having started – ending in a calm G major.” Meinrad Schütter, born in Chur on 21 September 1910, came in contact with the works of Othmar Schoecks, Arthur Honegger, Paul Hindemith and Igor Strawinsky in early years. He received his first music theory lessons from Antoine-Elisée Cherbuliez, prior to transferring to the Zurich Conservatory. With the help of a scholarship, Schütter spent the year 1939 in Rome, where he concerned himself intensively with the twelve-tone technique – especially under the influence of Luigi Dallapiccolas, who was working in Florence as a piano teacher. During the following war years, which the composer mainly spent on an air defence location in Prättigau and later on the San Bernadino, he took a correspondence course in composition with Willy Burkhard, who was taking a cure in Davos. From 1950 to 1954 he finally studied under Paul Hindemith at the Zurich University. For many years, Schütter earned a living as a ballet répétiteur and lighting assistant at the Zurich Opera, where he often had the opportunity to work on performances of the great contemporary works of the music theatre – thus e.g. Benjamin Brittens Peter Grimes or Arnold Schönbergs Moses and Aron (whose stage première took place in Zurich in June 1957). When Schütter died in Küsnacht on 12 January 2006, he left behind an extensive und varied œuvre, which equally includes orchestra compositions, ballet music, piano and chamber music, as well as choral works, operas and numerous songs with piano, ensemble or orchestra accompaniment. Even though at the end of the 1930s the composers Hermann Scherchen and Alexander Schaichet had discovered Schütter’s compositions and had primarily performed his orchestra work, the war years were most probably the reason for preventing a further spreading of his work, as well as a continuation of his early success. For some years now, however, Schütter’s name has been re-appearing more and more often at concert programmes at home and abroad. The string quartet composed in 1990 and revised in 1996 is, after the 1988 string quartet, titled Metamorphoses II, the second and also last piece of work with this instrumentation. As most of his works, the piece in four movements develops an individual tonal language, following no traditional form pattern through its free tonal, though undeniably influenced by twelve-tonal technique, fragmental way of composing with a special emphasis on colour and high motif density. Erich Schmid, born in Balsthal in the canton of Solothurn on 1 January 1907, received his first music lessons between 1922 and 1926 at the Solothurn teachers’ seminar, in which the art subjects of literature and music had a relatively high standing. In addition, he was taught music theory by the composer Max Kaempfert, who was born in Berlin. The years 1924 and 1925 hold important musical impressions for the later work of the composer and conductor, such as a concert by the Basle Choir with the oratorio Le Laudi by Hermann Suter, who was best friends with Schmid’s father, as well as with Max Reger’s Hölderlin setting An die Hoffnung (op. 124). During the same concert Suter also conducted Arnold Schönberg’s choral piece Friede auf Erden about texts by Carl Ferdinand Meyer, which obviously made a very special impression on young Schmid: “This piece of work has had an indelible impression on me and has haunted me during the following days; it was the first encounter with Schönberg’s music”. Approximately one year later he witnessed the performance of two Swiss composers, whose work was felt to be quite avant-garde at the time, in the context of the Schweizerischen Tonkünstlerfestes (Swiss Composers Festival) in Bern with Arthur Honegger’s Pacific 231 and the ballet music for the opera Amarapura by Robert Blum. From 1927 on Schmid took lessons with Bernhard Sekles in composition, Fritz Malata in piano and Hermann Schmeidel in conducting at the Dr. Hoch’schen Konservatorium in Frankfurt am Main. Schmid had his first great success in November of the following year: with a string quartet movement and a song about a pre-set text by Christian Morgenstern he won the sought after Mozart-Prize of the City of Frankfurt – the panel of judges included: Joseph Haas, Emil Reznicek and Hermann Scherchen. During the years 1930 and 1931 the composer continued his studies with Arnold Schönberg in Berlin. Several times Schmid described this year as the most important for his further development Subsequently, he returned to Frankfurt and worked there as a freelancer for the broadcasting services. As a result of the political developments in Germany, Schmid was forced to return to Switzerland in 1933, where he initially worked as a music director in Glarus and from 1949 on conducted the Tonhalle Orchestrer in Zurich, as the successor of Volkmar Andreae. In 1957 he was appointed to the Radioorchester Beromünster as a chief conductor, which he conducted until 1972. At the same time, he was head of the conducting classes at the Basler Musikakademie for several years (1963 – 1973, and repeatedly performed as a guest conductor at home and abroad - especially in England, and there among others with the various BBC orchestras and the London Symphony Orchestra. Schmid was committed his whole life to contemporary music – e.g. the compositions by Arnold Schönberg, Bohuslav Martinus, Luigi Dallapiccolas, Ferruccio Busoni or Alban Berg – and he conducted numerous premières of works written by various Swiss composers such as Othmar Schoeck, Robert Blum, Rolf Liebermann or Wladimir Vogel. Schmid died in Zurich on 17 December 2000. As a composer Schmid left behind a manageable œuvre with a total of only 16 pieces of work. Primarily composed in the late 1920s and 1930s and the majority handed down as manuscripts, his compositions are almost without exception committed to the technique of series. Next to Alfred Keller, who was also a student of Schönberg in Berlin, Wladimir Vogel, as well as at times also Frank Martin, Schmid is one of the few Swiss composers to consistently use the twelve-tone-technique in the 1930s and early 1940s. In all of his compositions the composer preferred small forms and chamber-musical orchestration. He only composed his third opus for orchestra. The string quartet op. 4 “in modo classico”, written during his studies with Schönberg in 1930/31 and revised again in 1934, which only includes three movements, is one of the first pieces of work, in which Schmid used a strict twelve-tone technique. It was introduced for the first time to an audience shortly after its creation – on Schönberg’s instructions several times and partly extensively revised – during the context of a concert at the Preussische Akademie der Künste (Prussian Academy of Arts) in Berlin, at the occasion of which some students from Schönberg’s composition master class presented their works. Both, the dense motif-thematic developments and the structures of movements, as well as the use of classical forms show Schönberg’s influence. Page revised Tuesday October 17 2006 | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
