How lucky we are finally to be able to discover the composer
Felix Weingartner. It is one of the many great, laudable achievements
of that enterprising record label CPO that they are unearthing
Weinberger’s music piece by piece, CD by CD. For every disc I
hear of his chamber or symphonic output, I become more willing
to chuck all records of “Weingartner the conductor” and embrace
“Weingartner the composer”. Who would ever say the same thing
about Furtwängler? Furtwängler, for all the respect and pleasure
- more of the former than the latter - I have for and gain from
his music, suffers from the dubious distinction of having managed
to combine the gaiety of Brahms with the brevity of Bruckner.
Which, if it needs spelling out, is to say that he created fearfully
towering, unsmiling symphonic behemoths (and sonatas) that offer
acoustic clarification of the difference between gigantic
and great.
Weingartner
is so very different. There is a smiling soul and Austrian
charm in his music that shines through, even in a relatively
somber, mourning First Quartet, op.24 in d-minor -
“The saddest of all keys”, as Nigel Tuffnell famously reminds
us. Schubert’s Death and the Maiden, late Beethoven,
and the Florestan side of Schumann are literally audible (Schubert)
and in spirit (Beethoven, Schumann). This romantic quartet
surpasses in immediacy of appeal even delectable Classical
Kleinmeister like Onslow or Ries or the Munich romantic
Ludwig Thuille. The Schubert theme for the first movement
came to Weingartner upon news of the deaths of Bismarck and
- more likely responsible for the incredible tenderness -
that of his former landlord’s young child. Now here’s “In
Memory of an Angel” without the atonal element! The work is
substantial, 37:45 in the Swiss Sarastro Quartet’s deeply
felt reading. Maybe the 9-minute Adagio assai could
be more succinct, but it’s beautiful enough that there really
is no reason to wish it shorter, even for the very few spots
that don’t progress the musical storyline. Beethoven rears
his head in the Allegro molto as if it were a collection
of loosely connected reminiscences of what Weingartner (a
noted Beethoven conductor and occasional orchestrator) liked
about Beethoven’s string quartet writing. Then, when the Finale
(Vivace – Andante Tema con Variazioni) hits upon the
Schubert theme again (c. 2:15), there emerges a sense of such
poised beauty that it seems a shame for any chamber-music-loving
ears not to have heard it. Meandering through Seven Variations,
it culminates in an exclamation mark of a flippant fugue on
the subject.
The
Third Quartet op.34 in f-minor, a wedding gift to his
second wife Feodora von Dreifuß, opens by spelling her name
out (F-E-Do-re-A – which sounds Beethovenesque)
only to just scrape by another near-direct Schubert quotation.
Ralph Orendain, Roman Conrard (violins), Hanna Werner-Helfenstein
(viola), and Stefan Bacher (cello) move the music along –
lyrical now, then lightly dancing – as if the Allegro commodo
didn’t quite know whether it wanted to be: either Allegro
or comodo. No ambiguities in the swift, driven Allegro
molto: galloping away with the players in tow, the four
voices ever more independent. It is the movement which sounds
least out of place in 1903 where Ravel and Debussy and Smetana
had already written theirs. The third and final movement Poco
adagio – Allegro giocoso brings calm once more, and once
more only temporarily. Of a wedding gift you might expect
a more optimistic tone, especially of Weingartner, than it
musters. Perhaps Weingartner (“no propaganda will help my
compositions if they’re no good and if they are good, they’ll
succeed eventually”) was as realistic about marriage as about
the ways of his music and its reception?
His
marriage with Feodora wasn’t likely a great success - he was
to marry twice more - but his quartets have now received the
treatment that should pave the way to their much deserved
recognition. This being CPO’s volume 1 of Weingartner’s string
quartets, the next round is awaited most eagerly.
Jens F. Laurson
Other Weingartner (composer)
reviews on MusicWeb International
Symphony
No. 2 (Lewis Foreman)
Symphony
No. 4 (Rob Barnett)
Sarastro Quartett
