Though there has undoubtedly been an upsurge
of interest in the music of Ernst Toch over the last fifteen
years or so, as evidenced by a number of recordings (see links
to reviews below), it cannot really be said that he now occupies
any kind of settled place in the modern mainstream. He seems
doomed to remain to some extent an outsider, perhaps not inappropriately
given the circumstances of his life and career.
Toch was one of
the many musicians whose lives were disrupted and distorted
by the ascendancy of the Nazis. Escaping actual death at their
hands, his career as a composer was robbed of the possibility
of organic development.
Born in Vienna,
Toch had established himself as a significant composer in Weimar
Germany by the 1920s. Compositions such as the Piano Concerto,
premiered in 1926 by Walter Gieseking (conducted by Hermann
Scherchen), his early quartets and piano sonatas, his opera
Die Prinzessin auf der Erbse (1927), all served to raise
him to a position of some prominence. His music merited discussion
in the context of the work of such figures as Berg, Krenek,
Weill and Hindemith. With the rise of Hitler – the significance
of which Toch realised sooner than some of his even less fortunate
fellows – he took an early opportunity to flee abroad. In April
1933 he was attending a musicological conference in Florence;
instead of returning to Germany he made his way to Paris and
then to London, where his wife and young daughter joined him;
in 1934 the young family moved to America.
It took Toch the
composer a very long while to recover from this major fracture
and dislocation. He taught (one pupil, indeed, was Andre Previn)
and he wrote film scores. Between 1934 and 1950 he wrote relatively
little ‘serious’ music. From about 1950 until his death, however,
he began to write with real energy and commitment again – producing,
amongst other important works, seven symphonies, a further opera
and a number of chamber works.
The works on this
outstanding disc, however, come from his years in Germany. To
say that the music makes one think, at one time or another,
of Stravinsky or Weill, of Prokofiev or even Milhaud (the Milhaud
of Création du Monde) does not, emphatically not, make
him a derivative imitator; such names are invoked, rather, to
indicate the kinds of music the unfamiliar listener will hear
hinted at and alluded to in these works, and to suggest that
it is not absurd to think of these early works in the context
of such names – this is fine music, eclectically modernist but
altogether accessible.
The six movements
of the dance suite are delightfully inventive. The first movement
(Roter Wirbeltanz) is intensely energetic, but some,
at least, of its intensity carries an edge of threat, as if
the composer was already aware of the dangers building up, the
political intensities and energies which were later to disturb
so much. There’s an edge of menace, too, in the second movement
(Tanz des Grauens), especially in some of the pizzicato
writing for strings and some biting passages for clarinet. The
first Intermezzo (Fliessende Achtel) is less troubled,
but fades away before it can really insist on a change of mood,
before it can affirm the possibility of any emotional stability
or simplicity. Complexity and emotional irony return in the
Tanz des Schweigens, with a sense of foreboding,
although the possibility of contentment is hinted at too. The
fifth movement is another Intermezzo (Lebhaft) is acerbically
assertive, a reminder, perhaps of the destructive threats hinted
at earlier in the work. The last movement – the longest – carries
the title Tanz des Erwachens; it opens in a sense of
mystery, and seems to chart a transition from darkness into
light, even if a hesitant light. Toch’s musical digestive system
seems to have processed materials from both Debussy and Wagner,
certainly both are present here, though both are finally subsumed
in a conclusion which one might describe as Toch’s reinscription
of the Viennese Waltz – and the work ends on a note of optimism
(without ever encouraging the listener to forget the threats,
the glances at the macabre and the hints of destructive madness
which mark some of its earlier movements). A fine, subtle piece,
which, while accessible and entertaining, certainly doesn’t
give up its secrets easily – I shall certainly want (need) to
listen to it many more times.
Cellists ought to
be queuing up to play the Concerto. It is a beautiful piece,
and it is not hard to understand its early popularity – Emanuel
Feuermann, who gave the premiere, is said to have performed
it some sixty times in Germany in the late 1920s. It is full
of complex – but not confusing – rhythmic twists and turns,
but full also of a slightly acerbic lyricism. Written for chamber
orchestra – and the resources are brilliantly exploited – the
sound textures are always transparent, making it easier to follow
Toch’s interesting musical argument. All four movements have
pleasures to offer, whether it be the elegant second movement
(marked agitato) or the well-made finale and the whole
is more than just the sum of its parts. But the outstanding
movement is perhaps the Adagio, with some quite gorgeous writing
for the cello, richly expressive and beautifully integrated
into the ensemble writing as the movement goes on.
The performances
here are all that one could ask. They are – of course – technically
assured; but far more than that they are both thoughtful and
passionate (like Toch’s music), both committed and ironic (ditto).
The recorded sound is excellent. The very same programme was
recorded by the cellist Susanne Műller-Hornbach and the
Mutare Ensemble in 1999 and issued on cpo 999 668-2 (see review
by Jonathan Woolf ). I haven’t heard that recording, so I can
make no kind of comparison. I find it hard, though, to imagine
that it can be significantly better than this new version –
even if there is a certain sad irony in the fact that it should
be issued in the Naxos American Classics series.
Glyn Pursglove
Links to other reviews of Toch's music:
http://www.musicweb-international.com/classrev/2004/Jun04/Toch1_4.htm;
http://www.musicweb-international.com/classrev/2006/Apr06/Toch_symphonies_7771912.htm;
http://www.musicweb-international.com/classrev/2002/Mar02/Toch_quartets.htm;
http://www.musicweb-international.com/classrev/2001/sept01/Toch_cello.htm;
http://www.musicweb-international.com/classrev/2005/Sep05/toch_cantata_8559417.htm;
http://www.musicweb-international.com/classrev/2005/Feb05/Toch_Piano.htm
Naxos American Classics page
Christian Poltéra
(cello); Spectrum Concerts Berlin: Priya Mitchell*, Julia-Maria
Kretz (violin); Hartmut Rohde* (viola); Frank Dodge (cello); Stacey
Watton* (double-bass); Marieke Schneemann* (flute); Nigel Shore
(oboe); Lars Wouters van der Oudenwijer* (clarinet); Catherine Maguire
(bassoon); Bernhard Krug (horn); Daniel Tummes* (percussion) / Thomas
Carroll.
