REZNICEK Symphony No. 1, “Tragic.” 4 Songs of Prayer and Repentance 1 • Frank Beermann, cond; Marina Prudenskaja (mez); 1 Brandenburg St O Frankfurt • cpo 777 223 (68:50)


In some ways, Reznicek might be described as the poor man’s Richard Strauss. Cpo, which is engaged in a project to record Reznicek’s orchestral output, has already released the composer’s Second and Fifth Symphonies and two tone-poems, Schlemihl and Raskolnikoff , reviewed by Henry Fogel in 28:2. Schlemihl has been dismissed in some quarters as the effort of a jealous and bitter Reznicek to parody and deflate the puffed up ego of Strauss’s Ein Heldenleben, schlemihl being Yiddish for an unlucky, incompetent boob upon whose head every manner of misfortune falls—in effect, the anti-hero to Strauss’s Übermensch . But the non-Jewish Reznicek, as Fogel pointed out, may have misconstrued the caustic connotation of the word, which imparts the flavor of not just a pitiable sad sack, but of a fool who invites bad luck and ridicule; for Reznicek’s trials and tribulations—the deaths of two children and his first wife—were real and indeed heartbreaking.


Like Brahms, who didn’t complete his First Symphony until he was 43, Reznicek was 41 in 1901 when he wrote his Symphony No. 1 in D Major. The original booklet essay written in German by Eckhardt van den Hoogen is, in translation at least, incomprehensible gibberish. I was unable to make heads or tails of its mishmash of arcane literary references and absurdist metaphors—“the Criminal Tango of the first movement and the Jesus Christ Superstar of the last movement”—not to mention the mental imagery of “pulling on the pigtails of Mendelssohn’s Violin Concerto,” and the depiction of Reznicek’s beard as a “foot muff” that put me off my dinner. From what I was able to glean, it seems that the only “tragedy” that led the composer to subtitle the work “Tragic” was a ride on a crowded city train in which a pretty young girl who caught Reznicek’s eye got up and offered the “old man” her seat.


So what does this “tragic” concoction sound like? Well, a bit like Strauss being badgered by Pauline to go to his room and compose something. Then, beginning at 12:08 in the first movement, a sequence that seems to mimic the development section in the first movement of Tchaikovsky’s “Pathétique” makes a discomfiting appearance. Here comes a snippet of Schumann, there a scrap of Brahms, and everywhere the oddments and leftovers of Liszt. This symphony would be a piece of utter trash were it not for the twofold fact that it was obviously written by a master orchestral craftsman of the first order, and that it buys one entrance to a musical circus of clowns dressed up as Tchaikovsky, Strauss, Wagner, and Liszt somersaulting around the ring. I defy anyone to listen to Reznicek’s Symphony No. 1 and not laugh out loud as the parade of jesters passes by. If the piece had been written after Schlemihl instead of before it, a more appropriate subtitle might have been Schlamazel.


Having had my say on the Symphony, let me turn now to the Four Songs of Prayer and Repentance after words of the Holy Scriptures. Reznicek really ought not to be judged by his First Symphony, which has got to be either an aberration or some sort of off-color, politically incorrect joke. He was a serious composer with a quite significant catalog of works to his credit: five symphonies, a dozen operas, numerous orchestral and concerted compositions, at least five string quartets, two piano trios, and a considerable volume of solo piano and organ pieces. Very little of it has been recorded; and, except for the Donna Diana Overture, I’ve no recollection of hearing any of it performed live—which is a shame, because the Four Songs are gorgeous.


Written in 1913, long before Strauss said sayonara with his Four Last Songs , Reznicek’s songs take their cue from Brahms’s Four Serious Songs , though they are not nearly as reverential and austere. Where Brahms chose Biblical texts that reflect the fatalism of his last years—“for that which befalls man befalls beasts”—Reznicek selected verses from Ecclesiastes and The Book of Sirach that focus on comforting, acceptance, and the beauty that is to be found in wisdom—“The pipe and the psaltery make sweet melody, but a pleasant tongue is above them both.” Reznicek’s songs are supple and sensuous, but not sensual in that steamy, erotic way that many of Strauss’s songs are. The orchestral accompaniments caress the words with an angelic tenderness.


Marina Prudenskaja, who is identified as a mezzo-soprano, actually has more of a dark-hued contralto quality to her voice that reminded me a bit of Rita Gorr. She has the right timbre and range, I think, to be an ideal candidate for Brahms’s Alto Rhapsody.


Despite what you may have concluded from my opinion of the Symphony, this disc comes with a hearty endorsement, and not just for the Four Songs , which are lovely beyond description, but yes, for the Symphony, too, which is a laugh-a-minute Hooterville riot. Performances and recording are first-class.


FANFARE: Jerry Dubins

Our comprehensive and successful Reznicek edition now presents three very different works – the Symphonic Suite No. 1 (1882), Dream Play Suite (1915 / 21), and Carnival Suite (1932) – which the composer nonetheless assigned to the suite genre. Taken together, they document his compositional and stylistic development over the decades. Moreover, they are performed by an orchestra that Reznicek himself once had conducted for a short time: the Weimar State Orchestra. His Symphonic Suite is more like a three-movement symphony for full orchestra. It is clearly audible that here Reznicek is not concerned with motivic work and thematic fission but with the contrast of moods. The harmony and the instrumentation leave little doubt about its source of inspiration in Wagner. The suite from the incidental music to Strindberg’s Dream Play is a series of short, atmospherically dense musical pictures, and in terms of its compositional history the Carnival Suite is a symphonic intermezzo dividing the opera Gondoliere des Dogen into two parts. In the manner of a Baroque suite, it consists of seven parts: March – Introduction – Pierrot and Columbine – Gigue – Furlana – Passepied – Aria – Gypsy March. The relation of the suite to the rest of the opera music results from the circumstance that here too the rhythm of the Furlana (dance from the Friuli region) is omnipresent.

Reznicek continues to impress as the biggest fin-de-siècle discovery since Korngold. If you took my extremely wise advice and purchased Schlemihl, the prequel to Der Sieger, then you may have an idea of what to expect, except that this work is even better. True, there's no Witches' Sabbath featuring a naked hag with pendulous breasts riding around on a pig singing "Ach! Du lieber Augustin". But then, how many times can you repeat that? Instead this three-movement extravaganza, scored for tons of winds, brass, percussion, alto soloist, and choir, features a central Dance around the Golden Calf based on the Dies Irae that's even wilder and more brilliantly scored.


Prior to that, we have a Straussian (only better orchestrated) Ascent and Female Companion--not that one has much to do with the other--and the work concludes with, you guessed it, Death. After the finale paroxysm, the soloist and choir deliver the moral of the story with positively sadistic sweetness: being wealthy is worthless, being poor is worthless, everything is worthless. After all that has come before, this is decadence and nihilism on a scale that will leave you breathless with admiration. I do hope that CPO gets around to recording Reznicek's "Ironic" Symphony. I'll bet that's a hoot too.


As with the previous release in this series, Michail Jurowski and the WDR orchestra play the living daylights out of the music. The brass handle the considerable demands that Reznicek makes on them with aplomb, the singers sound aptly mellifluous, and CPO's recording is outstanding. If you like big orchestral works of the Mahler/Strauss school, then you owe it to yourself to hear this. Reznicek has a distinctive voice and a technique as virtuosic and highly polished as anyone's from the period. Outstanding. [8/23/2004]
--David Hurwitz, ClassicsToday.com

Emil Nikolaus von Reznicek had a very conflicted relationship with the German symphonic legacy. His First Symphony, subtitled “Tragic,” is anything but. The Second, the “Ironic,” is arguably too cute for its own good. The Fifth is a suite of dances orchestrated from piano originals–it’s not really a symphony at all. The two immaculately crafted works on this release make the best impression so far, while confirming that when it came to dealing with the imposing musical tradition that he inherited, Reznicek basically hadn’t a clue. Even so, there are times when failure can be interesting, especially when it’s done with such craft.

The Third Symphony, subtitled “In the Olden Style” (in the score, not on the tray card), is written for classical orchestra: double winds, two trumpets, four horns, timpani and strings. Its music is pure pastiche. It begins with a 15th century folk song, and continues with a first movement that recalls Schumann, albeit with better orchestration. The third movement is a faux Haydn minuet (sound clip) with tipsy harmonies, while the finale takes the accompaniment of the opening of Mendelssohn’s Italian Symphony and combines it with the tune of the Scottish Symphony’s scherzo. It tries really hard to be adorable, but winds up sounding forced and tired. The trio of the minuet is a bland Ländler, and the finale fails to sustain the energy of its opening. It’s really a bit sad.

The situation hardly improves in the Fourth. Its slow movement is a “Funeral March for a Comedian,” and might strike you as a bit like Prokofiev, without the melodic character. The scherzo is just a good piece of traditional symphonic writing, but the outer movements are a mess. This work adds trombones,and features two crashes for cymbals and bass drum in the finale, but is otherwise just as conservative, not to say inhibited, as its predecessor. The grand chorale at the end never quite achieves the culmination that Reznicek obviously intends, and like the Third Symphony you get the sense that the medium simply resists the composer’s best efforts to write something plausibly honest and genuine.

In short, these two decadent relics are fun to listen to as desperate attempts to grapple with a tradition that, however vital and vibrant just about everywhere else in the world, was truly dead in Germany. They are fascinating documents of their time (the first decades of the 20th century), and Frank Beermann contrives to offer the most successful release thus far of the three devoted to Reznicek’s symphonies.

-- David Hurwitz, ClassicsToday.com

Classical Music

Emil Nikolaus von Reznicek devoted himself primarily to the opera and to orchestral music in his capacity as a composer; chamber and piano music played a rather secondary role in his oeuvre. Here the genre of the string quartet, to which he turned at points during his compositional development, formed an exception. What was central for him here was always “the idea.” For him this idea was not a theme or a melody but the idea for a work. For example, he explained that he designed the Donna Diana overture in five minutes while lying on the divan and smoking a cigar. With the idea for the work in his head, he sat down at the piano and sought suitable themes for it. It is thus that many of his quartets experienced a difficult and varied developmental history since he often took them up again, revising and rewriting them at times. However, all the quartets may be regarded as independent contemporary contributions to the genre; they range from his early development, when he continued to regard Beethoven as his model, to his complex and individual mature late quartets of great expressive power.

Strange but true: Emil Nikolaus von Reznicek’s opera Benzin set to his own libretto freely adapting Pedro Calderón de la Barca’s "El mayor encanto amor" collected dust for more than eighty years and first found its way from his music cabinet to the stage when it came to the attention of the Chemnitz Theater. It was here that the opera, now finally being released as a recording, celebrated its premiere on 28 November 2010. A closer examination of the opera reveals that there is much more to it than a lighthearted operetta; here we have a farcical, fantastic drama à la E. T. A. Hoffmann in which grotesque exaggeration renders tolerable the depths and perils of human existence. Dance forms pervade the music, contributing to the characterization of the social class depicted in the plot of the opera while also offering an overview of the “light tone” intended by Reznicek for this work; polonaise, foxtrot, Boston lente, and Tempo di Valse numbers occur along with a tango and a Galop presto. The tonal arsenal is fully equipped and implemented, which of course means propeller noise, sirens, and hammering on an anvil creating an authentic airport atmosphere.

Includes work(s) by E. Nikolaus von Reznicek. Ensemble: Cologne West German Radio Symphony Orchestra. Conductor: Michail Jurowski.