Max Bense Arno Schmidt

“In conversations about Franz Schmidt the recurring theme emerging for many is that listening to a performance of his music at a young age became the turning point in their lives the realization of how powerful music can be,” says Jonathan Berman, whose longtime love of Franz Schmidt’s work has its origins in a performance preparation for his Fourth Symphony.

inexplicably, both these Quintets by Bruckner and Schmidt are rarely performed and recorded. One demands to know why these magnificent works are not part of the standard repertoire. Here the scores are given performances of the strongest advocacy by the Vienna Philharmonia Quintet. The recordings were made for Decca over thirty years ago and they remain among the finest examples of late-Romantic chamber music on record.

“In conversations about Franz Schmidt the recurring theme emerging for many is that listening to a performance of his music at a young age became the turning point in their lives the realization of how powerful music can be,” says Jonathan Berman, whose longtime love of Franz Schmidt’s work has its origins in a performance preparation for his Fourth Symphony.

Franz Schmidts Apokalypsen-Oratorium ‘Das Buch mit sieben Siegeln’, seine letzte, 1937 vollendete Komposition, ist laut dem Komponisten ein Werk über die « fundamentale Antithese” von Gut und Böse, zusammengestellt aus Texten, die Schmidt aus der Offenbarung des Johannes selbst ausgewählt hat. Dass er kurz vor dem Anschluss ein solches Weltuntergangswerk komponierte, zeigt das Zeitgespür des Komponisten.

Franz Schmidt is currently on his way to be recognized as one of the most important representatives of the post-Mahlerian, post-romantic symphonic tradition. Indeed, there is something about Schmidt's symphonies - the fourth in particular - that suggests a certain post-apocalyptic feeling, not in terms of any feeling of tragedy in particular but because it feels as if Schmidt are writing the somewhat sobering afterwords to the works of Bruckner and Mahler at the very end of the romantic era (the symphony dates from 1933).

This German version of Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart’s Marriage of Figaro, with set and costumes by Ita Maximowna, dates from the year 1967. The Hamburg State Opera Choir and the Philharmonic State Orchestra of Hamburg are conducted by Hans Schmidt-Isserstedt, who worked as the opera company’s first conductor between 1935 and 1942 as well as from 1945 to 1971 and was chief conductor of the North German Radio Orchestra, which he had personally been responsible for reorganizing in the post-war years. It may come as a surprise to learn that the singers, all of whom are now international stars, were drawn exclusively from the Hamburg State Opera ensemble - further proof of Rolf Liebermann’s skill in identifying up-and-coming musicians!

Polish trumpeter / composer Piotr Schmidt returns, undeterred by the pandemic that is changing the face of our globe, to share with us some joyful moments inspired by the music we love so much.

I became sceptical when I noted that such a young singer had chosen to record at once these two late sets by Brahms and Wolf. They ought to be the province of baritones and basses (preferably the latter) of mature years, who have garnered the vocal and emotional experience to make the most of two of the profoundest compositions in all the field of Lieder. My scepticism was all too readily confirmed in listening to Schmidt tackle each.

As is evident in these works, Børresen was a highly talented Danish composer. His first symphony bears some resemblance to Tchaikovsky's Sixth, in particular in the last movement that ends quietly like Tchaikovsky's. However, it is an independent, assured symphony that is well worth hearing. Indeed, after listening to it several times, it is difficult to understand why this tuneful and highly likeable work is not played regularly in concerts anymore. Ole Schmidt and the Saarbrücken orchestra certainly make a strong case for the music.

This is the second CD by the young German pianist David Theodor Schmidt playing music by Bach and music inspired by Bach. In the first CD from 2007 Bach Reflections he played the Sixth Partita, the 12th of the preludes and fugues from the Well-Tempered Clavier, Book II, plus one of the Shostakovich Op. 87 Preludes and Fugues and the Liszt 'Variations on a motif by Bach ("Weinen, Klagen, Sorgen, Zagen")'. I was somewhat critical of that earlier disc although I did feel that Schmidt is a talented newcomer to watch. I thought his playing was a bit callow and hoped he might mature. In this CD that hope has been fulfilled.