Classical Music

Karl Goldmark was one of the most popular and frequently performed Central European Romantic composers until the Nazi Regime in the 1930's. The ostracism of his work continued after World War II, until finally at the end of the 20th century slowly a selective rediscovery of his oeuvre took place. With this release Thomas Albertus Imberger continues to ending this oblivion of Goldmark's manifold work.

Carl Goldmark, Jewish composer of Hungaro-Austrian descent, practically never in his youth received comprehensive musical training, which may be why he only at the age of 30, around the year 1860, gained public attention as a composer with his string quartet Op. 8. Foregone has a period of intense self-study of counterpoint and works by Bach and Beethoven. Two years later, Goldmarks string quintet Op. 9 premiered, though being thought of as too bold for the taste of the audience, hence it's performance was refused by Ferdinand David, concert master of the Gewandhaus Orchestra in Leipzig, after having made some unpleasant experiences with the string sextet by Brahms. The Haydn Quartet, for more than 20 years "quartet in residence" in Esterhazy Palace in Eisenstadt, is being supported by outstanding cellist and professor Rudolph Leopold.

Classical Music

Before the Austro-Hungarian composer Carl Goldmark conquered the international concert halls and opera houses with his Ländliche Hochzeit and Queen of Sheba, he initially attracted attention with some chamber compositions. When his overture after the drama Sakuntula by the great Indian poet Kâlidâsa then celebrated its premiere in Vienna in December 1865, the news of this masterfully designed, tonally beautiful music spread like wildfire beyond his home terrain. In view of this trailblazing success it is not surprising that Goldmark repeatedly returned to the overture form during the course of the next twenty-five years or so. Examples here include his reflections on the tragedies involving Penthesilea, the Queen of the Amazons (after Heinrich von Kleist), and the Greek poetess Sappho (after Franz Grillparzer) in one-movement works that may very much be termed variants of the symphonic poem. The three female protagonists of Goldmark’s overtures are heard here along with his two Scherzos for Orchestra – works in which the composer reveals his flirtatious side.

Although the music of Karl Goldmark eventually fell into obscurity, the composer enjoyed a successful career during his life. Goldmark has been admired by some of the greatest names still remembered in music. Brahms was a personal friend of his, who believed that his Wedding Symphony was perfect in form, and Sir Thomas Beecham and Leonard Bernstein frequently conducted his music. Along with his Wedding Symphony, his output included other works that premiered to much acclaim such as his opera The Queen of Sheba, his outstanding violin concerto, and Overture to the Prometheus Bound of Aeschylus.

Carl Goldmark was not a symphonist – and that is no secret. His few attempts in this field – an early work, in part lost, and his second symphony, his op. 35, did not add up to much, and the Ländliche Hochzeit, to which the generic label »symphony« was assigned, does nothing more than confirm that this master of orchestral colors was above all good at atmospheric and character pictures. Goldmark very evidently needed a programmatic or dramatic “pretext” in order to rise up to his creative best, which is why he was able to gain the greatest fame and to score his most important successes with his stage works (tops here: Die Königin von Saba) as well as with his concert overtures. As he himself said, a change of milieu was good for his powers of inspiration, and so he repeatedly sought out extremes while selecting his materials and subjects. Accordingly, this new album with the Bamberg Symphony and the conductor Fabrice Bollon is also a “composite”: it complements Vol. 1 (555 160-2) with a program including the three mirthful overtures Im Frühling (In the Spring), In Italien (In Italy), and Aus Jugendtagen (From the Days of Youth), the preludes to his last two operas, Götz von Berlichingen and Ein Wintermärchen (A Winter’s Tale), and a special rarity in the form of the symphonic tone picture Zrinyi – a musical monument to this Hungarian-Croatian national hero and a work with which Goldmark wanted to express his gratitude to his home Magyar territory.

Classical Music

GOLDMARK: Symphony No. 2, Op. 35 / Penthesilea, Op. 31

SCHUBERT/GOLDMARK/STREICHQUART

Die Koenigin von Saba (The Queen of Sheba) was Karl Goldmark's first opera. It conquered stages across Europe after its premiere in 1875. This production of the opera was recorded at Theater Freiburg, The four act opera stars vocalists Katerina Hebelkova and Nuttaporn Thammathi.

Brahms’s friend Carl Goldmark completed Merlin in 1886, when it was premiered at the Vienna Hofoper. Fairly successful on both sides of the Atlantic before the Great War but hardly heard since, it’s representative of an almost-forgotten genre of 19th-century operas on aspects of the Arthurian mythos. (Chausson’s Le Roi Arthus and Albéniz’s Merlin are other examples).

The libretto by Siegfried Lipiner concentrates on Merlin’s fatal love for the wild child Viviane, which dims the magical powers with which he had served King Arthur, so that he falls victim to the Demon he had previously enslaved.

This spirited revival reveals a beautifully-scored and theatrically quite sure-footed piece fascinatingly poised between Brahms and Wagner: chromatic, Tristan-esque motifs contrast with choral writing more out of Rinaldo and the Triumphlied.

Between these extremes there is a supple, late-Romantic middle-ground where Goldmark’s declamatory vocal writing rises to occasional eloquence, with some noble orchestral passages that seem to anticipate Elgar.

The piece was certainly worth revival, but actual greatness eludes it. Luckily this production is vocally strong, with Robert Künzli as a noble-voiced Merlin, Frank van Hove as the scheming Demon and Anna Gabler a touching Viviane being the clear stars of the show.

-- Calum MacDonald, BBC Music Magazine