Germans and Britons - Leipzig marks the End of the First World War

What real heroes did when it rained in the Somme

(For my piece on Vladimir Jurowski's inspired Eternal Flame concert for Armistice day, please read here)   From Leipzig Peterskirche, the Gedenkkonzert 100 Jahre Ende ertsen Weltkreig (Memorial Concert marking 100 years after the End of the First World War) - Max Reger, Rudi Stephan, Walter Braunfels, Gustav Holst, Ernest Farrar and Samuel Barber.  Alexander Shelley conducts the MDR-Rundfunkchor und MDR-Sinfonieorchester, broadcast via BR Klassik.  It's worth watching as well as listening, as the Peterskirche was bombed during the Second World War, remaining a ruin for many years. Appropriately the concert began with Max Reger's Totenfeier, a section from his incomplete Lateinisches Requiem Op. 145a. The word "Requiem" repeats, weaving through the orchestration like an unbreakable thread, expressing the idea of a funeral procession  

Rudi Stephan's Musik für Orkester in einem Satz (1910) followed. Stephan was killed in battle on 28th September 1915, aged only 28.  It's not a "war" piece, but its initial elegaic mood fits in well . Long , exploratory lines lead to wilder animation, trumpets and other brass calling forward.  Perhaps these are military, but perhaps not, since the instruments can signify different things in different times.  Elliptical lines : watch the trombone tubes moving back and forth. An extended inner section, hushed and mysterious, with muffled pulse, strings rising upwards, the top graced by clarinet, flutes and cello, delicate bell sounds for colour.  As the piece draws to a close the strings swell and a stange, angular melody emerges. It's whimsical yet also provocative, stimulating the orchestra into epressive outburst.  After a diminuendo, the temporary stillness gives way to more invention - whistling string lines, dizzy exuberance and emphatic final chords.  Not music of defeat or disillusion.  This isn't recycled retro but intelligent and highly original, reflecting the creative ferment of Secession Munich, and possibly the "modern" Germany of Weimar art and film and literature. Stephan is definitely on the radar in Germany. There are no less than three recordings of his opera Die ersten Menschen on the market.  It's so "Expressionist" that it's not easy to follow if you're expecting verisimo and washes of colour, but think in terms of Jungian archetypes, semi-pagan folklore and so on. Indeed, the spirit of Schoenberg Moses und Aron (1932) seems to be there in germ.  Imagine if Stephan had lived : he would have felt much common ground with Franz Schreker and Walter Braunfels.  

Throughout his whole career, Braunfels was obssessed by war and the causes of war. To reinterpret his passionate anti-militarism as soft centred "romantic" is a travesty.  Be careful which conductors you listen to. In this concert, he was represented by just one song  Auf ein Soldatengrab op 26 to a poem by Hermann Hesse, written in 1915. ".....Der Jugend wandelt licht in weiten Räumen und hört der Ahnen Chor aus dunklem Quell im heligen Berge träumen".  Please read HERE for more about Braunfels' Orchestral Songs and also look up "Braunfels" on the link below.   

Gustav Holst's Ode to Death (1919) blends voices and orchestra to create lush textures which suddenly ignite into crescendo. returning again to ethereal harmonies "Over the treetops I float thee along, over the rising and sinking waves, come lovely and soothing death, come with joy!". Harps and fine, bell-like tones in the orchestra suggest transcendence.  Ernest Farrar lived for a while in Dresden, not all that far from Leipzig,  so it was good to hear him represented here.   Like Stephan and Braunfels, Farrar was a soldier though he was killed only two days after arriving at the front.  His Heroic Elegy Op 36 was completed in 1916, before he went to war.  Unsurprisngly, it is a war piece, a slow march, lit by flares of intensity : not so much a funeral march biut the long hard slog of soldiers entering a  battlefield, hearing gunfire in the distance, the inexorable tread emphasized by pounding timpani.  The ending is striking - single phrases repeated with silence between, growing ever quieter til all sound disappears.  Samuel Barber's Agnus Dei, in the context of the First World War is something of an anomaly, being Barber's 1966 adaptation of his Adagio for Strings. No ostensible 1914-1918 connectioins here other than that the text used is the Agnus Dei from the Requiem Mass with the words "Dona Nobis Pacem", which just happens to fit.  Sure the Americans entered the war in 1917, but wouldn't it have been fitting to acknowledge the French or the Belgians, Russians or Italians ?   Debussy Berceuse héroïque is about the same length, though without choir, and carries the same message : that patriotism born of love is better than nationalism born of hate.   


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Christmas? not! Braunfels Verkündigung medieval mystery for modern times

Christmas music ? Not ! Walter Braunfels  Verkündigung op 50 a medieval mystery play for modern times.  Angels, stars, snow, happy peasants and quaintly volkisch sounds. But no tinsel here, and no false sentiment. Braunfels was writing during the Third Reich.  Hitler loved kitsch medievalism, so Braunfels quietly turned it against him.  Braunfels's Verkündigung is subversion, the composer a resistance fighter in Gothic guise.  A miracle happens at Christmas but this is not religious music.  In this Nativity, the baby is stillborn, brought back from the dead by a mortal woman. God doesn't figure directly and the message isn't redemption.

The text is a loose adaptation of a play by Paul Claudel, an ultra-conservative Catholic and nationalist whose sympathies weren't far off from the Nazis.  Claudel was writing about a period before the emergence of Joan of Arc.  As an icon, Joan is as political as she is saintly. She's a saviour who gets martyred. Braunfels, who was radicalized by his experiences in the First World War, was passionately anti-war and despised dictators and charlatans.  Later, as Europe was again on the verge of war, Braunfels began to write Jeanne d'Arc, Szenen aus dem Leben der Heiligen Johanna . Please read more about that HERE.  So don't assume Braunfels didn't know what he was doing.   Verkündigung is an allegory which makes many potent points. 
Peter von Ulm is an architect who raises money from believers to build cathedrals, symbols of power and unquestioning faith.  Hitler wanted to build whole cities to glorify his 1000 year Reich, seducing architects like Albert Speer.  Although Claudel's translator - not Braunfels himself -  shifted the action in the play from France to the early medieval German city of Speyer, the irony wasn't lost on the composer. Speyer = Speer, and Peter the rock on which grand Churches are built,  Peter von Ulm has a secret: he's a leper and he's infectious.  An angelus rings from Marienberg Tower.  Inspired by the idea of sacrifice, thinking that God will protect her, Violane kisses Peter to comfort him, and contracts his disease.  Violane's family and her fiancé, Jakobäus, think she's been unchaste and throw her out.

Years pass. It's Christmas Eve in Rothestein.  A cathedral is being built.  It's snowing and the peasants are celebrating the coming of the King, in every sense.  Braunfels’s writing is vivid.  Robust mock medieval instrumentation and jolly peasant dance, fuelled  by too much Pfälzerwein. "Weihnacht, tralla, Weihnacht tralla...... der Starmetz friert, brrrr, brrrr, brrrr!". Meanwhile, Violane is a hermit, having caught leprosy from Peter, and blind.  Her sister Mara's baby is dead.  Though Mara had betrayed Violane years before, now she wants Violaneto resurrect   the corpse.  Though Violane doesn't have supernatural powers, she hears the sounds of Christmas bells, though her sister can't.   Braunfels writes Violane’s part so the voice shimmers, as if the woman were being beatified by the orchestra around her. Fascinating music, pulsating with obssessive rhythms, the trumpets swathed by a celestial choir. Violane's voice soars upwards, in ecstasy, the choirs swirling round her.  Magnificent! 

A miracle happens. But the dead child is reborn with blue eyes like Violane, not brown eyes like Mara !  So Mara throws Violane down a cliff, where she dies.  Peter von Ulm carries her body: Having been cured by Violane's kiss, he is now immune to catching the disease again. Violane is returned to her father's home, but that's not much help, since she's dead herself.  Nobody gets out of this well, except perhaps Peter von Ulm, who has learned by Violane's selfless example. Although parallels are often drawn between Verkündigung and Hindemith Mathis der Maler,  (artists and architects) there are also parallels with Parsifal . "Durch Mitglied wissen...."   Is Violane an artist, too, her art the art of self-transcending compassion ? 

The recording to get is the one made for BR Klassik, with Ulf Schirmer conducting the Münchner Rundfunksorkester. Juliane Banse sings a rapturous Violane. I've been listening to her for years, and this is outstanding. Janina Baenchle sings Mara, Matthias Klink sings Peter von Ulm and Robert Holl sings Andreas Gradherz.  When this BR Klassik performance was mooted, the long-deleted recording from 1992. conducted by Russell Davies in Cologne, was re-issued. Though the singers on that are good, orchestrally it's less focused, the sound quality isn't conducive to concentrated listening. Schirmer and his forces bring out so much depth that their recording is the one to go for. 



Please read my many other posts on Walter Braunfels and composers of this period.

Walter Braunfels Ulenspiegel on DVD

For the first time on DVD, Walter Braunfels' opera Ulenspiegel is now available. Braunfels's op 23 received its premiere in Stuttgart in November 1913. Two world wars intervened. Braunfels's Ulenspiegel was not performed again until 2011, as part of the Gera Festival.  An audio recording is available of that performance, conducted by Jens Tröster. This new DVD comes from the Linz Festival in 2014, and is conducted by Martin Sieghart, known for his recordings with the Bruckner Orchester Linz.

Braunfels' Ulenspiegel is based on Uilenspiegel and Lamme Goedzak, by Charles de Coster (1867), which Braunfels would have known in the German translation published in 1910. Coster was a child when Belgium became independent from the northern Netherlands.  Coster understood the tensions that led to the 1830 revolution. Coster's Ulenspiegel does not follow the Ulenspiegel of medieval tradition, popular throughout northern central Europe. Instead, Coster quite pointedly turns Ulenspiegel into a hero of the Dutch wars of independence from Spain, and pits Ulenspiegel against the Duke of Alba, whose draconian policies of suppression inflamed revolt.  As a French speaker and a Catholic, Coster would have been well aware of the irony. In the 17th century, the Dutch fought off Counter-Reformatioin  Spain.  In 1830,  Dutch Protestants  opposed Belgian (and Catholic) freedom.

This background is fundamental to understanding the opera.  Braunfels knew Richard Strauss Till Eulenspiegels lustige Streiche (1895). Like Coster before him, Braunfels' Ulenspiegel was a completely different personality, clothed in medieval disguise.   The "merry pranks" here have purpose. Even at this early period in Braunfels' career, the underlying rationale behind his music is clear.  All his life, Braunfels  opposed militarism and fascism.  This is vital to the interpretation of his music.  His lush orchestrations are not in the least "romantic" in Hollywood terms. Rather, Braunfels is a Romantic in the true spirit of the revolution which transformed European culture, forging individualism and self-determination. Ulenspiegel escapes prison but there's no happy ending.

The Linz production of Braunfels' Ulenspiegel took place in the Tabakfabrik, a disused factory. Hence the post-industrial set. Ulenspiegel and his friends are underclass.  The caravan they live in reminds us that mobility, physical ot social, is denied to the "peasants" of modern society.   There is nothing pretty about situations where the privileged can exploit the gullible with promises of Heaven, bought through Indulgences.  If the performance space is bleak, it fits meaning. Moreover, the Israel Chamber Orchestra are visible at all times, reminding us that opera is theatre, and music is art.

The version of the score used here is an arrangement for chamber orchestra by Werner Steinmetz (2014) which makes performance more practical and requires a smaller chorus.  The essentials are retained. If anything, the percussion sounds even more hollow and ominous echoing in the open space of the Tabakfabrik, and the winds sound haunting. Though textures are less rich, they feel hardier - more "Dutch" than "Spanish".

Although the EntArte Opera Choir sing well,  the relatively small ensemble doesn't quite give the impact of a vast force in uproar. On the other hand, the focus is greater on individual parts.  Marc Horus sings Ulenspiegel, capturing the prankster's rebellious spirit. When Ulenspiegel's energies are channelled purposefully, he becomes a genuine hero, rather than fool  as hero.  On film, we can also focus on detail. Close-ups are rewarding.  Ulenspiegel's father, Klas, sung by Hans Peter Scheidegger, is vividly characterized, though the role is killed off fairly early in the plot.  Christa Ratzenböck sings a strong Nele, Ulenspiegel's foster sister and lover.

This DVD is welcome, but you do also need the  Tröster.CD version from 2011 for the full score. Neither performance is ideal, so I hope the opera gets done again soon, with better resources and an understanding of Braunfels'  idiom, on the level of Lothar Zagrosek's Die Vögel, (1997) so outstanding that all others pale before it. Ulenspiegel is a good opera, but what we really need is a decent recording of Der Traum ein Leben  which was done in Bonn not long ago. the only recording on the market is so badly recorded that it's unlistenable.

Please also see a few of my other reviews of the works of Walter Braunfels:

Walter Braunfels Orchestral Songs vol 1 Hansjörg Albrecht
Walter Braunfels Orchestral Songs Vol 2 Hansjörg Albrecht

Salzburg Braunfels : Medievalism as modernity (Jeanne d'Arc)
Walter Braunfels : Jeanne d'Arc, Szenen aus dem Lebem der Heiligen Johanna

Gothic Resistance Fighter : Walter Braunfels Die Verkündigung 

Walter Braunfels : Fantastiche Erscheinungen eines Thema von Hector Berlioz
Walter Braunfels : Lieder

Walter Braunfels Orchestral Songs Vol 2 Hansjörg Albrecht

Walter Braunfels Orchestral Songs, Vol. 2, with Hansjörg Albrecht, this time conducting the Konzerthausorchester  Berlin, with soloists Camilla Nylund, Genia Kühmeier and Ricarda Merbeth, an excellent companion to the outstanding Braunfels Orchestral Songs vol 1  (reviewed here). Honours yet again to Oehms Classics who understand the importance of excellence. A composer as good, and as individual, as Walter Braunfels deserves nothing less.

Braunfels' Drei chinesiche Gesänge op 19 (1914) sets texts by Hans Bethge whose loose translations of Chinese poetry, Die chinesische Flöte (1907) had a huge influence, building on the mid-European fascination with the East, which dates back at least to Goethe.  The East represented an alien aesthetic, something possibly purer and more mysterious. Hence the appeal to Jugendstil tastes and the new century's quest for new ideas and forms of expression.  Braunfels's  songs are not specifically"oriental", but evoke an attractive ambiguity, as if the forms of 19th century tonality were being gradually evoked from within. Ein Jungling denkt an die Geliebte, in particular, seems to float in timeless space, evoking the moonlit night beside a pool where "ein feiner Windhauch küsst den blanken Speigel des Teiches" : a mood which Braunfels captures with great poise. The image will be familiar to anyone who knows Mahler's Das Lied von der Erde - the last line even refers to "der dunkeln Erde" - but Braunfels's treatment is very individual.  The high tessitura of Camilla Nylund's voice complements the long, searching lines for the strings. Extremely refined.  In Die Geliebte des Kreigers, dying diminuendos suggest the despair of the maiden as she thinks of her soldier, far away. The horns evoke the sound of a (European) battle and the rhythms the sound of galloping horses.  Somewhat reminiscent of Mahler, though the rest of the song is more turbulent, culminating in several climaxes, the final "dem mein Herz gehört!" a shout of anguish.

Braunfels' Romantisches Gesänge op 58 were completed by 1942, but some date back to 1918.  The first, Abendständchen, to a text by Clemens Brentano bears resemblance to the Bethge songs, but Der Kranke, to a text by Joseph Freiherr von Eichendorff, is altogether more individual.  In Ist der lebens Band mit scherz gelöset (Brentano) the searching woodwinds and sliding vocal ellipses are echt Braunfels.  Der Pilot (Eichendorff), with its rousing trumpet calls and choppy rhythms, is heroic, the second strophe swelling magnificently. "Liebe schwellet sanft die Segel" - the wind in the sails, propelling the boat forward.  Nylund emphasizes the word "Morgen!", which Braunfels marks with a short pause.

With Die Gott minnende Seele op 53 (1935-6), we are firmly in Braunfels's characteristic territory, medievalism employed as disguise for dangerous modern thoughts, beating the Nazis at their own game. The poems are by Mechthilde von Magdeburg, a 13th century mystic. As so often in Braunfels, background matters.  Mechthilde's writings, collected together as Das fließende Licht der Gottheit, were controversial because she criticized the Church hierarchy practices that didn't tally with the purity of faith.  Had she lived 300 years later, she might have been a protestant, in every sense of the word.  For  Braunfels, living under the Third Reich, Mechthilde would have had more than mystical appeal.  She could have been a prototype for Jeanne d’Arc – Szenen aus dem Leben der Heiligen Johanna op. 57. Please read my piece on Braunfels Jeanne d' Arc HERE 

The magnificent introduction to Die Gott minnende Seele, with its haunting horn melody, prepares us for the dark richness of the vocal line to come. It feels like slipping through a time tunnel, for the text isn't poetry so much as prayer.  In the first song, the same phrase repeats with pointed variation "O du giessender Gott in deiner Gabe, O du fliessendern Gott in deiner Minne!", the pattern recreated in the orchestration.  Utter simplicity, yet great depth and sincerity.  Gradually the pace quickens: sudden flashes in strings suggesting rapture, then a quiet humble ending "ohne dich mag ich nicht sein".  An even lovelier melody sets the tone for the second song, where Genia Kühmeier sings the sprightly lines so they suggest excited palpitation.  The song ends with the melody, this time on low winds and brass.  There's something vernal and innocent in the "medievalism" in this cycle, where voice and orchestra interact, as if Mechthilde is singing to invisible voices: not a bad thing in a hostile world, and very Joan of Arc. When  Kühmeier sings "Herre, Herre, wo soll ich hinlegen?" her voice flutters and the flute answers. A duet between birds, another Braunfels signature.  This delicate fluttering is even more prominent in the last song Eia, fröliche Anshauung which begins with quasi-medieval pipes and develops into a merry dance. Mecthilde may be isolated, but she's happy.  This wonderful, tightly constructed song cycle is a miniature masterpiece.

From a nun to an Egyptian queen: Braunfels's Der Tod der Kleopatra op 59 (1944).  The harp suggests a lyre, and there are suggestions of bells but Braunfels know what's more important to Cleopatra: the man without whom she'd rather be dead. Braunfels marks this moment with an orchestral interlude, suggesting that Kleopatra is thinking about what really matters in life, not the trappings of wealth.  This song runs nearly 10 minutes but proceeds in carefully marked stages, the point at which Kleopatra takes hold of the snake also highlighted by the orchestra.
Back to Bethge with Braunfels' Vier Japanische Gesänge op. 62 (1944–45) based on Bethge's Von der Liebe süß’ und bittrer Frucht  In these songs, Braunfels doesn't even bother with fake japonisme, but treats each song on its own merits. Whatever the culture, human emotions remain the same.  All four songs are dramatic art pieces, the third, Trennung und Klage, particularly interesting, with the lovely dialogue between instruments in the orchestra, the strings suggesting night breezes "the Dämmerung den Mond". The singer here is Ricarda Merbeth.  It's worth noting that Bethge, despite his interest in exotic cultures died only in 1946 and was a contemporary of Braunfels.

On this second recording of Braunfels's Orchestral Songs, Hansjörg Albrecht conducts the Konzerthausorchester Berlin, which doesn't have an ancient pedigree like the Staatskappelle Weimar on the first recording, but does have Braunfels connections. The orchestra, set up by the DDR to counterbalance the Berliner Philharmoniker, was conducted for many years by Kurt Sanderling, like Braunfels no friend of the Nazis, and by Lothar Zagrosek whose recording of Braunfels Die Vögel is outstanding. Quite frankly, unless you know Zagrosek you don't know Braunfels.  DDR musical traditions weren't as dominated by commercial pressure as in the west,  so they represent much deeper traditions.

In recent years there seems to have been an attempt to pigeonhole Braunfels as a "romantic" . When  his Berlioz Variations were done at the Proms. the most interesting variations were cut so the piece came over like Hollywood pap. That might please some audiences but it's unfaithful to what Braunfels really stands for.  In any case what passes for"romantic" bears no resemblance to Romanticism as the cultural revolution which reshaped European history and aesthetics.  Although Sensucht was a typical Romantic meme, Romanticism as a movement was progressive, radical and very political. Although the notes for this recording are more focused than in the previous volume, they are too concerned with fitting Braunfels into a category, which is not the author's fault since she clearly knows Braunfels and his music, but may be marketing imperative.  But what is so wrong with evaluating a composer on his own grounds, without having to force him into the straitjacket of categories? Why not listen to his music, as music, without preconditions?  Braunfels is a good composer because he was himself, whatever the Reich around him might have wanted.  The Nazis liked "romantic", backward-looking music, so re-branding Braunfels would be ironic. All the more we can thank Oehms Classics and Hansjörg Albrecht for bringing us Braunfels as Braunfels, revealing his true originality.

Please also see my other pieces on Braunfels and on music and culture of this period.

Walter Braunfels Lieder Songs

When this concert of Walter Braunfels Songs was first broadcast on Deutschlandradio Kultur in 2011, it broke new ground. Eric Schneider is the pianist, with Marlis Petersen and Konrad Jarnot the singers.  Many thanks to Capriccio for making this available on CD, for this disc fills a significant niche in the discography.  For my review of Braynfels Or chestral Soings on Oehms (highly recommended) with Volle, Vogt and the Weimar Sraarskapelle please see HERE

Marlis Petersen possesses a voice that can handle the high, bright tessitura Braunfels was so fond of, and Konrad Jarnot is both blessed and cursed by the way his voice resembles Dietrich Fischer-Dieskau's. Eric Schneider is an exemplary Lieder pianist. This disc is a must for anyone interested in Braunfels or indeed interested at all in the development of Lieder during the first part of the 20th century.  What lets it down, though, is the lack of context.  While Braunfels is hardly unknown, he is misunderstood.

If Capriccio really wants to bring Braunfels to wider audiences, they need to provide enough background for listeners to appreciate why Braunfels and his songs for voice and piano are worth listening to.  The lack of translations to texts isn't a major issue, since most people interested in Braunfels and in Lieder are reasonably fluent in German. Capriccio is a budget label so we can't really expect much in the way of notes, but generalities, even if well meant, don't amount to much.  Informative notes do make a difference. If recording companies cared about what they do, they'd realize that properly researched notes are part of the marketing process.  The more buyers get from a CD, the more likely they'll buy more. Listeners shouldn't have to do all their own background work, especially in repertoire that needs cultural context. 

On this disc, there are eight sets of songs, organized by opus numbers, and 41 separate tracks. Quite a lot to take on board. However, they're more or less arranged chronologically, starting with Braunfels's Op 1 Lieder (1901). Braunfels was 19 when he wrote these songs, so don't expect much in the way of genius. But they do shed insight on the literary and artistic impulses that would shape the composer's whole outlook. These texts come from the George-Kreis, the fanatical and secretive sect around Stefan George. George obsessed about the German past, as if it were a sacred mission against the modern world.  Imagine the Grail Community on uppers. Beneath the romance, however, lay extremism.  Although George attracted good minds, like the Stauffenbergs and the teenage Hugo von Hofmannsthal, he also galvanized minds like Heinrich Himmler.  Although George didn't actually align with the Nazis - he died in 1933 - he was antisemitic, which makes one wonder why some of his followers, like Karl Wolfskehl, and Walter Wenghöfer, whose poems are set here, were Jewish. A curious toxic mix, but one that might have taught Braunfels to be wary of narcissism,  totalitarian values and the abuse of medievalist hogwash.  From Braunfels op 1 to Der Traum ein Leben and Heilige Johanna. 

Thus to Braunfels's Fragmente eines Federspiele op 7 (1904), Fragjments from a feather game, meaning a concoction of lightness and charm, like playing with feathers.  Here Braunfels's thing for writing tricky high tessitura, the voice of a Nightingale, which means so much in Die Vögel. Each of these songs describes a bird - bullfinch, swallow, siskin, even a hoopoe - songs of chirpy litheness, effeverscence and spontaneity: the freedom of birds in nature.  If there are antecedents, they might lie in Hugo Wolf, but to me they are characteristic of Braunfel's whimsical humour, and like very little else written in this period.  But like Braunfels's Mozart Variations  and, indeed, the Magic Flute aspects of  Die Vögel, this disc includes a second set of Federspiele, nine songs, including goldfinch, turtledove and lark.  Braunfels's Federspiele are airy, but he's no airhead.

Braunfels's op 4, Sechs Gesänge (1905) are settings of poems by Hölderlin, Hebbel, Hessel and Goethe, finished off with sturdy ballads from Clemens and Brentano's Des Knaben Wunderhorn, all rather more typical art songs  of the period in which they were written and rather well crafted for a composer still in his early 20's.   Much more strikingly original are Braunfels's settings of Shakespeare, Musik zu Shakespeares Komödie Was Ihr wollt op 11 (1908).   A long piano introduction sets the scene for  text, spoken in English ; "If music be the food of love, play on....." This is followed by three Leid des Narren, each song charming, yet also funny, for fools and knaves are not so far apart, as the witty low figures on the piano suggest. 

Two of Goethe's Egmont poems,  Klärchen's songs,  Freudvoll, leidvoll and Die Trommel gerüret follow. Both were set by Beethoven: Braunfels's versions, form 1916, are his own. Braunfels's Nachklänge Beethovenscher Musik op 13 provide thoughtful contrast.  A version of An die Parzen op27/1 follows, but is not a patch on Braunfels's full orchestration on the Oehms Classics disc of Braunfels Orchestral Songs which I reviewed HERE. partly because the textures are finer, but also because Jarnot is no match for Michael Volle  Then, fast forward from 1916 to 1932, and two of Braunfels's last songs of the Weimar period, the Zwei Lieder von Hans Carossa op 44/1 and /2.  Marlis Petersen's soaring timbre brings out the starlight  magic and moonlight in these refined miniatures: birdsongs and feather games, in darkening times. 

Walter Braunfels Orchestral Songs Vol 1

New from Oehms Classics, Walter Braunfels Orchestral Songs Vol 1.  Luxury singers - Valentina Farcas, Klaus Florian Vogt and Michael Volle, with the Staatskapelle Weimar, conducted by Hansjörg Albrecht. The Staatskapelle Weimar dates from 1491, one of the oldest ensembles in the world. (For my review of Braunfels Orchestral Songs Vol 2 please see HERE)

Even before the First World War, during which he served on the front line, Braunfels was preparing what is now his best-known work,  the opera Die Vögel , which helped launch Albrecht Dümling's seminally important series on Decca which pioneered the rediscovery of  Entartete Musik, the "degenerate" music the Nazis hated.  Although his career dimmed, Braunfels wasn't actively suppressed by the regime, even though he was a half-Jewish convert. His three sons all served in the German army.  His music itself would have made him an outsider to the Nazis and their taste for unquestioning sentimentality in art.  Die Vögel is based on Aristophanes. Braunfels's treatment of the play highlights its powerful underlying message. The Birds aren't so much passive objects of beauty but the voices of women  protesting against dominant hierarchies. Braunfels continually returned to these basic concepts throughout his career. In Jeanne d'Arc, Szenen aus dem Leben der heiligen Johanna (more here) and Die Verkündigung (more here), Braunfels used medievalism as a disguise for ideas that were dangerous in a totalitarian regime. Braunfels was a resistance fighter no less, using the Gothic to subvert the Nazi preoccupation with glorifying the past.  In Der Traum ein Leben, Braunfels even depicts a talentless fool following a false Fuhrer. The orchestration is lush but highly ironic. Attempts to rebrand Braunfels as dreamy-eyed romantic inflict on him a kind of posthumous castration.  

This new recording begins with the Vorspiel und Prolog der Nachtigall Op 30/3 1913)  a coloratura display for soprano and orchestra, a sampler for the full opera  Die Vögel which premiered in 1920.  Exquisitely refined playing from the Staatskapelle Weimar, emphasizing the delicacy of the scoring: to remind us that birds are fragile, like the ideas they symbolize in the opera. Valentina Farcas sings the fiendishly difficult part with assurance, not quite as miraculously as Hellen Kwon did for Lothar Zagrosek in 1997, though more idiomatically than some since. Kwon made the part feel almost supernaturally ethereal, like an elemental force of nature, which, arguably, is what the role is all about.  

In Zwei Hölderlin-Gesänge op 27 (1916-18) Michael Volle is a commanding presence, and rightly so, for the poems have a strange unworldly quality "Willkommen dann, o Stille der Schattenwelt!"  the poet wrote, wrote, fixated by death. The second song, Der Tod fürs Vaterland is even more unsettling.  Swirling, almost Wagnerian flourishes in the orchestra lead to stillness, for we are  on a battlefield awaiting the Valkyries.  The legend long pre-dated Wagner.  For Hölderlin "Fremdling und brüderlich ists hier unten"  might have meant noble sacrifice, but to Braunfels, in the last years of the war, words like "O Vaterland,Und zähle nicht die Toten! Dir ist,Liebes! nicht Einer zu viel gefallen"  would not have felt so grand.  Significantly, Hölderlin came from Württemberg, which supplied Napoleon with thousands of troops, most of whom died in Russia in 1812, a detail not lost on Braunfels, who marked on the manuscript that it was written "in the forest camp at Neu-Württemberg  at Christmas 1916". These two songs are neatly complemented by Auf ein Soldatengrab op 26 to a poem by Hermann Hesse, written in 1915 : new poetry, new music and very topical.


"Dich, Nachtigall, verstand ich eine Stunde" sings Klaus Florian Vogt  in Abschied vom Walde op 30/1  which Hoffegut sings in Die Vögel when he leaves the Nightingale in the woods, and returns home a wiser man.  The lustre of Vogt's singing makes one feel that Hoffegut learned more from the birds of the forest than Siegfried ever could.

This selection of orchestral songs has a wonderful unity, underlining the importance of respecting  Braunfels as an intellectual as well as a composer.  They are nicely set into place by Braunfels's Don Juan op 34 (1922-4) variations on the Champagne Aria from Mozart Don Giovanni. Seven variations follow the initial Theme, all of them played briskly, reflecting the humour oif the original. Leporello is perplexed  and the aria is delightfully funny. But there's a darker side, as Donna Elvira discovers. One day, Don Giovanni will pay for this frivolity.  Thus, beneath the post Jugendstil decorative filigree lurks menace. Variation 4 is serene, but  Variation 5 ( Mässig-bewegter) begins with an ominous boom , as if winds were sweeping upwards, from a tomb. Is the Commendatore emerging?  The mood in Variation 6 (Andante) is equivocal, the theme emerging on a solo wind instrument, "clouds" of rumbling strings enveloping it.  In the final Variation (Presto) the old devil is back to his tricks, flying fleetingly, the brass blowing raspberries of defiance, though the ending, is, as we know, defeat .  Braunfels is much more than a study in techiques and adaptation. It's a miniature opera, without words.  

Congratulations to Oehms Classics for this superlative recording of Braunfels's Orchestral Songs, so good that I've already ordered the next in the series. But the same standards of excellence don't apply to the programme notes.  What relevance does Yoko Ono have for Braunfels, happily married as he was? These songs aren't about love. This is something that Oehms should take more seriously. Good notes are important because they can enhance the listening experience: well-informed readers can better appreciate what they're listening to. Please also see my review of Braunfels Lieder Songs on Capriccio here and other pieces on Braunfles and other composers ans artists of the Weimar and what followed.

New ! Walter Braunfels Der Traum ein Leben Bonn

Walter Braunfels' Der Traum ein Leben (The Dream is Life) opens 30 March at Theater Bonn. It's going to be broadcast three times - Deutschlandradio Kultur | 5. März 2014, 20:03h ,WDR 3 - WDR Bühne | 22. Juni 2014, 20:05h SWR | and  13. Juli 2014, (time unspecified).  It's going to be worth hearing as the cast includes Endrik Wottrich as Rustan, the anti hero, and Graham Clark as Old Caleb (not much singing, but can Clark declaim!) The conductor is Will Humburg, and the director is Jürgen R Weber, who has an interesting website with lots of photos and insights into the creation process.

Braunfels'  Der Traum ein Leben  is based on a play by Franz Grillparzer  and follows the story of Rustan, a young man who lacks talent but has delusions of power.  He's easily led astray by his slave, Zanga the Moor. After a cataclysmic dream, he realizes that worldly success isn't for him. The "Moorish" elements of the story provide a supernatural context, where dervishes and demons operate like magical forces. This is a life journey, not unlike The Magic Flute, where the hero finds himself. Or not, in Rustan's case. It's interesting to think of the play as a metaphor for Grillparzer's life. He liked travelling to exotic lands, but wasn't particularly happy or successful. On the other hand, the play was written in 1834, when he was still fairly young.

Braunfels wrote the opera in the years after Hitler came to power, when the composer's career was sidelined by the Nazis. Perhaps he was reflecting on the situation he and so many others were facing   Those of us who haven't lived under mad regimes probably don't realize that "internal emigration" can be, for some, a valid option. The plot also predicates on a feckless fool following a false Fuhrer, Braunfels's music for Die Traum ein Leben is vividly expressive; theatrical enough to fool Nazi tastes. Lush harps create a "magical" atmosphere. But listen to, to the flickering flames which suggest Hell and the hahahaha of demons. The cataclysmic "dream" sequence is violently intense.  This tale isn't fairy tale kitsch. The pounding percussion,  screaming strings and wild vocal lines suggest damnation.

Der Traum ein Leben  is much darker than Verkündigung (Read my "Gothic Resistance Fighter " here) and suggests the savagery that was to come in Braunfels' Szenen aus dem Leben der Heiligen Johanna (Read my "Braunfels Medievalism as Moderrnity" here). There's more on Braunfels and indeed more on composers of this genre on this site than anywhere else, The only recording was made in Regensburg in 2001, which is readily available. I'm looking forward to hearing the Bonn production.

Salzburg Braunfels Medievalism as Modernity

How I wish I could be in Salzburg next week - Birtwistle Gawain and the Green Knight (coming unstaged to the Barbican next year) and Walter Braunfels's Jeanne d'Arc, Szenen aus dem Leben der Heiligen Johanna. Manfred Honeck conducts. He made the only recording, released in 2012.  Juliane Banse sings Joan, as she did on the recording but look who else is in the cast!  Bryan Hymel singing the Archangel Michael, Pavol Breslik singing Charles de Valois, Thomas E Bauer the Archbishop and Johan Reuter as Gilles des Rais.  This is luxury casting indeed, infinitely better than the recording (though Banse is superb). There was also a staged production (Schlingensief director, conductor ULf Schirmer) in Berlin in 2010, also with Juliane Banse. Braunfels is at last getting megastar billing.

Braunfels' Jeanne d'Arc, Szenen aus dem Leben der Heiligen Johanna.is eclipsed by the fame of Die Vögel, but it's a masterpiece, tighter, more concise and conceptual. The piece is mock medieval, but like Hindemith's Mathis der Maler, Hartmann's Simplicius Simplicissimuss, (more HERE) Orff's Carmina Burana and indeed Braunfel's  Die Verkündigung. (more HERE)  and  Honegger's Joan of Arc at the Stake (more HERE). It happened not only in music but in the visual arts, architecture and film. Clean lines, stark drama, stylized symbolism. All keynotes of the period. Think also of films like Dreyer's The Passion of Joan of Arc or Eisenstein's Alexander Nevsky (with music by Prokofiev).

Medievalism was a way towards modernism. There's nothing retro or escapist in these pieces. Far too much is made of the fact that fashion changed after the war, and this music didn't get performed. After the trauma of the Second World War, people were hardly in the mood to deal with reminders of the period, especially when, up to 1989, much of central and eastern Europe was still controlled by the Soviet Union, in direct consequence of the war. Similarly, the "jazz age" and modernity of the 1920;s was a reaction against the trauma of the First World War and the forces that shaped it. It's nonsense to blame Schoenberg or modern music for the eclipse of composers like Braunfels. Every decent composer creates something personal and original. Cultures survive because they adapt.

Braunfels fought at the front during the First World War. The trauma completely changed his perspectives. Die Vögel is is an early stage in Braunfel's's engagement with the issues of the 20th century. Jeanne d'Arc is in many ways its culmination, politically, spritually and musically.
 
Braunfels started writing Jeanne d'Arc in 1938. He'd been proscribed by the Nazis, and made an unemployable non-person whose music could not be performed in public. Hitler was threatening war, staved off by British appeasement. By the time Braunfels completed the opera in 1943, war had broken out all over again on an even wider scale than the war he'd known. This time his sons were at the front.. The madness was happening all over again."We are like castaways on a desert island, around which the hurricane continues to rage", he wrote.

Braunfels' choice of subject was deliberate. Joan of Arc rallied the French against English invaders. This time France was invaded by Germans. Joan was a powerless girl who stood up to overwhelming forces. Throughout Europe in the 1920's, 30's  and 40's, Joan was a symbol  explored in plays, movies, and music. Braunfels' most direct inspiration was Paul Hindemith's Mathis der Maler, which he heard in Zurich in 1938. By connecting to medieval Christian Europe, Braunfels eschews both totalitarian anti-religion and the kind of nationalism that causes war.

Braunfels' libretto, which he wrote himself after reading about Joan's trial, places the context firmly in  a time of crisis. A chorus of villagers cry in panic, Hilfe, Hilfe! As Joan's father later says "An Himmel lohnt drer Brand von tausend Höfen". Johanna, however, is sitting by a tree from which a strange light is shining. Voices tell her that she has a mission. She';s so child-like that she sings a ditty, complete with tra la las. "Denn ein Kreiger, ein Kreiger, soll ich werden".

Braunfels' music is pointedly pure and simple. Single instrumental groups, often solo instruments, swathes of strings and winds suggest flowing movement not decoration for its own sake. Even in the scenes in the royal court, textures are clean, texts conversational. King and knights, portrayed as ordinary men. When Saint Michael appears, he's almost one of their own. For the faithful like Johanna, (and Braunfels), saints are as natural as normal people.

Braunfels uses a formal structure to frame the narrative, like a  medieval painting. Three main sections, Der Berufung (the summons) Der Triumph and Das Leiden, (Sufferings) unfold. Der Triumph, of course, lasts but a few minutes. It's preceded by a bizarre interlude, after the first Act. The Herzog de la Trémouille steps in front of the theatre curtain and sings a monologue. "When God created the Fool, he, the wisest of all, could be sure that scum (Abschaum) would arise from it". The Duke thinks Johanna is scum, for she leads "Die dumpfe Masse" (stupid masses) "From every hole there now crawls all who were poor, and who, deeply humiliated, long for a 1000 year Reich - troopers, roughnecks, greedy wastrels!". (Landsknechte, Raufbolde, geldsücht'ge Habenichste). Ferocious dark chords, skeletal discords, smoky woodwinds. The vocal part is set with angular extremes. "And I alone" sings the bass, "should be wrong because I don't follow deception and don't give in to urges". Perhaps Braunfels is referring to non-believers who distrust faith and miracles. But the references to the rise of the Brownshirts are so obvious that they can't be ignored.  Anyone who thinks Braunfels was a mindless, dreamy Romantic needs to hear this, and wonder what its upside-down morality might mean.

The moment of Johanna's triumph at Rheims with fanfares. At last the music soars as one would expect, but this is no cinematic glory. Braunfels keeps his colours clear, the text simple. "Johanna! Johanna!" the townsfolk cry, but there's a chill, which prepares us for the next scene, where at dawn, Johanna is communing alone with her voices. This minor-key stillness seems the true heart of Braunfels' meditation,   We're spared the details of Johanna's first imprisonment. Each scene is preceded by a Vorspeil that creates mood, but the one that begins the third act expresses the passage of time. Johanna has been confessed and recanted, yet she's still in prison. Dark rhythms, blasting timpani, trumpets blasting, Johanna's voice ascending shooting up the scale, all sudden, tense moments cut off in their prime.  Distant kin of the jerky bird rhythms of Die Vögel and Die Verkündigung. The Vicar Inquisitor condemns Johanna in a mix of speech and stylized chant. The king and nobles call Johanna  a fraud : their music vaguely like medieval march. Then St Michael appears, a Lohengrin whom no-one can see.

Long, keening lines in the orchestra. We're now at the stake in the marketplace at Rouen. Joan is calm for Saint Michael has told her why she must die. Significantly, now, Braunfels gives Gilles des Rais (Bluebeard) an interesting aria. "Nien, niemals, nein, niemals, so endet das nicht"  He can't believe that the real miracle is Johanna's death, not her escape. Braunfels shows des Rais as sensitive, confused and desperate for certainty, "Gewissheit! Gewissheit! Gewissheit!". Perhaps it was that crisis of faith that drove the historic des Rais into madness and turned him into a mass murderer of innocent children? This is an aspect of the story few explore, but Braunfels does it by implication,  and shows it as.a very 20th century anguish.

The Bishop of Beauvais insists "Mein System war der richtiges!", but the part is written to show the strain on the tenor's voice. Yet again, we hear the bird rhythms of  Die Vögel , and how they function as exclamation points breaking up the vocal line. Not comfortable, soothing or Romantic at all.  In contrast, the deeper, more lugubrious timbre of the Vicar Inquisitor, who shows more sympathy with Johanna. The chorus howls like a mob and in a sudden crescendo, we can hear the flames ignite. Screams and  eerie"smoke" like cadences from the orchestra. Gilles des Rais appears again, his last aria tinged with extreme grief. He sees Johanna as Christ-like, but still can't understand what her death means "Satan, du hast geseigt". Only when the mob discovers that Johanna's heart did not burn do they realize a miracle has taken place. "Wir haben eine Heilige gebrannt" cries the Vicar Inquisitor. By then, though, it's too late.


A recording of this Salzburg performance (one only) opera will be broadcast by ORF on Saturday, August 3, at 7.30 pm on the Ö1 channel.

Braunfels Berlin Jeanne d'Arc

Currently on at the Deutsche Oper, Berlin,  Walter Braunfels Jeanne d'Arc, Szenen aus dem Leben der heiligen Johanna.  (Scenes from the life of St Joan).  (more HERE with production shots). Braunfels is a fascinating composer because he doesn't fit easy categories. He's been posthumously castrated as soft-centred ultra-romantic. But listen to his music without an agenda, and think about the man behind the music, and a much deeper Braunfels emerges.

Braunfel's Joan of Arc is not a comic book retelling of the historic Joan of Arc. To suggest that it's religious is beside the point,  except in a sense that any contemplation on the nature of evil involves ethical thought.  Absolutely not a drama to be staged as comic book piety!

Braunfels places much more emphasis on the male authority figures, and how they deal with violence, faith and evil. Braunfels was a front-line soldier in the First World War. The experience traumatized him. He became passionately anti-militarist.  Szenen aus dem Leben der heiligen Johanna was written between 1938 and 1943, when Europe once again descended into war. The madness was happening all over again. "We are like castaways on a desert island, around which the hurricane continues to rage", he wrote.

By connecting to medieval Christian Europe, Braunfels eschews both totalitarian anti-religion and the kind of nationalism that causes war. Braunfels's libretto, which he wrote himself after reading about Joan's trial, places the context firmly in  a time of crisis. A chorus of villagers cry in panic, Hilfe, Hilfe! As Joan's father later says "An Himmel lohnt drer Brand von tausend Höfen". Johanna, however, is sitting by a tree from which a strange light is shining. Voices tell her that she has a mission. She';s so child-like that she sings a ditty, complete with tra la las. "Denn ein Kreiger, ein Kreiger, soll ich werden".

Braunfels's music is pointedly pure and simple. Single instrumental groups, often solo instruments, swathes of strings and winds suggest flowing movement not decoration for its own sake. Even in the scenes in the royal court, textures are clean, texts conversational. King and knights, portrayed as ordinary men. When Saint Michael appears, he's almost one of their own. For the faithful like Johanna, (and Braunfels), saints are as natural as normal people.

For a more detailed analysis of Braunfel's  Jeanne d'Arc, Szenen aus dem Leben der heiligen Johanna. and its music,please read what I wrote about it last year HERE.  Lots more on other portrayals of Joan of Arc in music (use labels)

If you can't get to Berlin, there is an excellent recording.  It's conducted by Manfred Honeck, with Juliane Banse as Jeanne. Terje Stensvold sings Gilles des Rais, Günter Missenhardt the Herzog de la Trémouille.

Walter Braunfels Jeanne D'Arc, Szenen aus dem Leben der Heiligen Johanna

Walter Braunfels's Jeanne d'Arc, Szenen aus dem Leben der Heiligen Johanna is a much underestimated work. It's eclipsed by the fame of Die Vögel, but Jeanne d'Arc is a masterpiece. Braunfels fought at the front during the First World War. The trauma completely changed his perspectives. Die Vögel is is an early stage in Braunfel's's engagement with the issues of the 20th century. Jeanne d'Arc is in many ways its culmination, politically, spritually and musically.
 
Braunfels started writing Jeanne d'Arc in 1938. He'd been proscribed by the Nazis, and made an unemployable non-person whose music could not be performed in public. Hitler was threatening war, staved off by British appeasement. By the time Braunfels completed the opera in 1943, war had broken out all over again on an even wider scale than the war he'd known. This time his sons were at the front.. The madness was happening all over again."We are like castaways on a desert island, around which the hurricane continues to rage", he wrote.

Braunfels's choice of subject was deliberate. Joan of Arc rallied the French against English invaders. This time France was invaded by Germans. Joan was a powerless girl who stood up to overwhelming forces. Throughout Europe in the 1920's, 30's  and 40's, Joan was a symbol  explored in plays, movies, and music. Braunfels's most direct inspiration was Paul Hindemith's Mathis der Maler, which he heard in Zurich in 1938. By connecting to medieval Christian Europe, Braunfels eschews both totalitarian anti-religion and the kind of nationalism that causes war.

Braunfels's libretto, which he wrote himself after reading about Joan's trial, places the context firmly in  a time of crisis. A chorus of villagers cry in panic, Hilfe, Hilfe! As Joan's father later says "An Himmel lohnt drer Brand von tausend Höfen". Johanna, however, is sitting by a tree from which a strange light is shining. Voices tell her that she has a mission. She';s so child-like that she sings a ditty, complete with tra la las. "Denn ein Kreiger, ein Kreiger, soll ich werden".

Braunfels's music is pointedly pure and simple. Single instrumental groups, often solo instruments, swathes of strings and winds suggest flowing movement not decoration for its own sake. Even in the scenes in the royal court, textures are clean, texts conversational. King and knights, portrayed as ordinary men. When Saint Michael appears, he's almost one of their own. For the faithful like Johanna, (and Braunfels), saints are as natural as normal people.

Braunfels uses a formal structure to frame the narrative, like a  medieval painting. Three main sections, Der Berufung (the summons) Der Triumph and Das Leiden, (Sufferings) unfold. Der Triumph, of course, lasts but a few minutes. It's preceded by a bizarre interlude, after the first Act. The Herzog de la Trémouille steps in front of the theatre curtain and sings a monologue. "When God created the Fool, he, the wisest of all, could be sure that scum (Abschaum) would arise from it". The Duke thinks Johanna is scum, for she leads "Die dumpfe Masse" (stupid masses) "From every hole there now crawls all who were poor, and who, deeply humiliated, long for a 1000 year Reich - troopers, roughnecks, greedy wastrels!". (Landsknechte, Raufbolde, geldsücht'ge Habenichste). Ferocious dark chords, skeletal discords, smoky woodwinds. The vocal part is set with angular extremes. "And I alone" sings the bass, "should be wrong because I don't follow deception and don't give in to urges". Perhaps Braunfels is referring to non-believers who distrust faith and miracles. But the references to the rise of the Brownshirts are so obvious that they can't be ignored.  Anyone who thinks Braunfels was a mindless, dreamy Romantic needs to hear this, and wonder what its upside down morality might mean.

The moment of Johanna's triumph at Rheims with fanfares. At last the music soars as one would expect, but this is no cinematic glory. Braunfels keeps his colours clear, the text simple. "Johanna ! Johanna!" the townsfolk cry, but there's a chill, which prepares us for the nest scene, where at dawn, Johanna is communing alone with her voices. This minor-key stillness seems the true heart of Braunfels's meditation,   We're spared the deatils of Johanna's first imprisonment. Each scene is preceded by a Vorpeil that creates mood, but the one that begins the third act expresses the passage of time. Johanna has been confessed and recanted, yet she's still in prison. Dark rhythms, blasting timpani, trumpets blasting, Johanna's voice ascending shooting up the scale, all sudden, tense moments cut off in their prime.  Distant kin of the jerky bird rhythms of Die Vögel and Die Verkündigung. The Vicar Inquisitor condemns Johanna in a mix of speech and stylized chant. The king and nobles call Johanna  a fraud : their music vaguely like medieval march. Then St Michael appears, a Lohengrin whom no-one can see.

Long, keening lines in the orchestra. We're now at the stake in the marketplace at Rouen. Joan is calm for Saint Michael has told her why she must die. Significantly, now, Braunfels gives Gilles des Rais (Bluebeard) an interesting aria. "Nien, niemals, nein, niemals, so endet das nicht"  He can't believe that the real miracle is Johanna's death, not her escape. Braunfels shows des Rais as sensitive, confused and desperate for certainty, "Gewissheit! Gewissheit! Gewissheit!". Perhaps it was that crisis of faith that drove the historic des Rais into madness and turned him into a mass murderer of innocent children? This is an aspect of the story few explore, but Braunfels does it by implication,  and shows it as.a very 20th century anguish.

The Bishop of Beauvais insists "Mein System war der richtiges!", but the part is written to show the strain on the tenor's voice. Yet again, we hear the bird rhythms of  Die Vögel , and how they function as exclamation points breaking up the vocal line. Not comfortable, soothing or Romantic at all.  In contrast, the deeper, more lugubrious timbre of the Vicar Inquisitor, who shows more sympathy with Johanna. The chorus howls like a mob and in a sudden crescendo, we can hear the flames ignite. Screams and  eerie"smoke" like cadences from the orchestra. Gilles des Rais appears again, his last aria tinged with extreme grief. He sees Johanna as Christ-like, but still can't understand what her death means "Satan, du hast geseigt". Only when the mob discovers that Johanna's heart did not burn do they realize a miracle has taken place. "Wir haben eine Heilige gebrannt" cries the Vicar Inquisitor. By then, though, it's too late.

Braunfels's Jeanne d'Arc, Szenen aus dem Leben der Heiligen Johanna is mock medieval, but like Hiundemith's Mathis der Maler, Hartmann's Simplicius Simplicissimuss, (more HERE) Orff's Carmina Burana and indeed Braunfel's  Die Verkündigung. (more HERE) the medievalism is but a disguise for utterly modern preoccupations.  There's nothing retro or escapist in these pieces. Far too much is made of the fact that fashion changed after the war, and this music didn't get performed.  After the trauma of the Second World War, people were hardly in the mood to deal with reminders of the period, especially when, up to 1989, much of central and eastern Europe was still controlled by the Soviet Union, in direct consequence of the war. Similarly, the "jazz age" and modernity of the 1920;s was a reaction against the trauma of the First World War and the forces that shaped it. As Braunfels would certainly have understood, cultures need periodic renewal..

It's nonsense to blame Schoenberg or modern music for the eclipse of composers like Braunfels. Fashions in music change all the time. No-one forced anyone to write 12 tone, it just opened up new ideas. Berg and Webern wrote in very different styles to Schoenberg.  Composers often seem to disappear after they die for no apparent reason. Schubert, for example, was obscure long after his death, revived sporadically, and the D numbers organized for the 1928 centenary. Even Bach fell out of fashion until Mendelssohn performed him and made sure he was published.

The notion that Braunfels and others were "suppressed" by modern music is as crazy as thinking you can be President if you can see Russia from your backyard. Braunfels and his peers were modern.  There are many kinds of modernity, and hearing them in the context of art, literature and the culture of their time, shows how they fit into place. So why the need to hear them as "suppressed" by modernity?
 
I don't know why only a few minutes of Braunfel's Phantastische Erscheinungen eines Themas von Hector Berlioz (read more HERE) was heard at the Proms. It was as if the composer had been posthumously castrated.  Surely those who love his work should be proud of what he achieved? But until we learn to listen to Braunfels and the composers of his time for what they really wrote, they won't get the genuine respect they deserve.

There's a very good recording of Braunfels Jeanne d'Arc, Szenen aus dem Leben der Heiligen Johanna released late last year on Decca. Juliane Banse sings Johanna (she also sang the lead in Die Verkündigung), Terje Stensvold sings Gilles des Rais, Günter Missenhardt the Herzog de la Trémouille. Manfred Honeck, who specializes in Braunfels, conducts the Swedish Radio Symphony Orchestra. Get it. Extremely good performances, and conducting. Just as it's a good idea to avoid the sloppy molasses LA Die Vögel (Conlon) in favour of the vastly more intelligent, idiomatic 1997 Decca Die Vögel (Zagrosek and a cast who really can sing those high notes) best stick to Honeck with European orchestras.
Please also see the other things I've writte about Joan of Arc in music, film and art, and lots more on Braunfels  

Gothic resistance fighter - Walter Braunfels Die Verkündigung

Walter Braunfels was one of the more important German composers of the early 20th century, related to Ludwig Spohr and connected to Pfitzner, Furtwängler, Bruno Walter, Hindemith and others. His opera Die Vögel was the flagship of the Deutsche Grammophon Entartete Musik series, so popular that it's now almost standard repertoire. He was even featured (briefly) at last year's Proms. So why sin't Braunfels known even in these circles?

His Die Verkündigung (op50) was broadcast last week, a performance last year from Munich Radio Orchestra conductd by Ulf Schirmer. It was an important event, for Braunels was connected to Munich's artistic circles, and the only recording of Die Verkündigung has been out of print for years.

The new Munich Die Verkündigung is fascinating. It's very lively. Juliane Banse sings the heroine Violaine, a  taxing part where the tessitura leaps upwards suddenly from nowhere and has to fly. I've been following her for years: this is one of her best performances ever. Robert Holl and Hanna Schwarz sing her parents, and Janina Baechle her sister Mara. Adrian Erod sings Jakobaus, to whom Violane is betrothed, and Matthis Klink sings Peter von Ulm the Leper.

Peter von Ulm builds great cathedrals, but contracts leprosy. In a gesture of kindness, Violane kisses him, but the kiss is misinterpreted, and Jakobaus drops Violane. Eight years pass. It's Xmas and it's cold. Br Br Br the townsfolk recite in mock stylized wit, while "medieval" bells and drums sound and dog latin seems to be spoken. Peter is back and he's cured, "with the skin of a child". Mara is holding her dead daughter. Violane holds her while Mara reads the Christmas story. The child breathes again but now her eyes are blue like Violane not dark like her mother. Mara throws Violane into a ditch, but she's rescued. At which point, father returns from pilgrimage and the truth about the kiss is revealed. Violane has taken on Peter's illness and promptly dies. A lot more dramatic than it sounds, and brightly written. (the semi-spoken sequence is brilliant). There are even references to  Die Vögel in the jerky staccato rhythms, and lovely off-key horns..

The opera is based on a medieval miracle play, but curiously, it's not overly religious, even though Braunfels and the playwright, Paul Claudel, were both extremely devout Catholics. Indeed, on strictly liturgical terms, Die Verkündigung is blasphemy for it's about an ordinary woman who can raise the dead and cure the sick. God is not involved, though the Virgin Mary is implicated.  But maybe that's the point, for you don't have to be a saint to do miracles.

Notice when the opera was written - 1933/5 - when Braunfels' career was strangled by the Nazis. Die Verkündigung is about faith and the power that good people have to overcome evil. Claudel also wrote the play which Arthur Honegger set as Jeanne d'Arc au bûcher, also in 1935. (read more here and here).And Braunfels wrote another opera, Jeanne d'Arc (Szenen aus dem leben  der heiligen Joihanna) between 1939 and 1943. In retrospect, his "inner exile" is clear.

It's significant, too, that Braunfels adapts Claudel's play,written in French, to German  and to an unequivocally "Germanic" pseudo-medieval style, complete with long spoken passages. The sort of thing the Nazis admired, without understanding the true meaning of medieval piety. K A Hartmann was to do much the same thing in his Simplicus Simplicissimus.
Please read lots more about Braunfels on this site - more on this genre here than any other!

Walter Braunfels - Phantastische Erscheinungen eines Themas von Hector Berlioz

Walter Braunfels' Phantastische Erscheinungen eines Themas von Hector Berlioz (Fantastic Appearances of a Theme by Hector Berlioz), Op. 25 (1914-17) is a fascinating work, though you'd never guess from the truncated rump that was done at Prom 68. I was so upset that it's taken me ages to write about the complete(ish) piece, but here at last, as promised. Die Vögel, Te Deum,and Jeanne d'Arc to follow. Fantastic Appearances and  Die Vögel  need to be heard together, for both were written at about the same time, when Braunfels was fighting in the First World War. Like so many of his generation that war changed everything and ushered in what we now call the "Modern" age. Braunfels is not escaping into retro Romanticism but confronting the issues of his times without compromise.

Phantastische Erscheinungen deals with a single theme from Berlioz's The Damnation of Faust., specifically the scene where Faust and Méphistophélès enter the Auerbach tavern in Leipzig. Both of them are out of their usual element, among "normal" people, so there's more to the scene than divertissement. They've come to learn about life and "le fatras de la philosophie". Brander sings the song about rats invading a kitchen. Méphistophélès's response is the song of the flea. A king becomes obssessed with a pet flea and soon the whole court is infested with fleas. "Mais ce qui fut bien pire, C’est que les gens de cour,Sans en oser rien dire,Se grattaient tout le jour"  What's significant is that the courtiers were too cowed to object, so they suffered. The solution, says Méphistophélès, is to squash the fleas forthwith. Nothing "Romantic" about that.

Braunfels begins with an opening like a vista, then zones in on the theme. The moderato variation is glorious, as if Braunfels is describing the splendour of the court, but that's quickly blown away by the turbulent "gusts of wind" in the Gemessen. Storm clouds ahead, even allusions to Faust and Méphistophélès flying through the skies. This "Appearance" is wild, the relentless "winds" pushing higher and higher. No "sudden end" in this part, but stomping ostinato building towards a climax. The unstoppable march of pounding feet ?

In the next three variations, Braunfels examines the basic theme more wistfully, as if he's looking back on more innocent times from different angles, trying to reflect on how things came about. Notice the endings, where in the original, Méphistophélès suggest a sudden, crushing solution. Here they're muted, even open ended. There was a lot of good in Wilhelmine Germany and indeed in German culture as a whole. There's even something Beethovenian in the grace of the Ruhig. Perhaps Braunfels wasn't the kind of man to do violent Putsches. In this work, he considers a small theme from all perspectives.

The Ruhig is transitional, rather than purely "restful", for Braunfels is now looking ahead. The 7th variation is mercurial, like a sprightly dance, but gradually the darker undrtones draw in. All three variations in this penultimate group start with the same exposition, developing different ways. The 8th Appearance is marked by dizzying, spiralling diminuendos, which lead to whizzing, strident alarums. Hence the very short tenth segment, dominated by a single trumpet. The "winds imagery" whips round it, taking over completely in the turbulent 11th variation, a highly dramatic, demonic Moderato. You can almost picture smoke rising from Hell, storms tearing across the heavens. The final variation, is march-like, loud and expansive. Even so the rising cadences soar above, as if searching beyond into the distance. For me, the image of Faust flying above the landscape, borne on the heavy wings of Satan, til eventually textures open outward in an ending that's almost like a chorale. Is Faust redeemed? Braunfels doesn't commit. The Finale restates the basic theme with elements from all the variations - bright, manic, chilling. The Phantastische Erscheinungen are so tightly bound together, that taking excerpts out of context doesn't do justice to this fascinating composer.

Prom 68 Braunfels Beethoven Tchaikovsky

"Music should disturb the comfortable and comfort the disturbed", a phrase coined by one of my friends. However, Prom 68, with Manfred Honeck and  the Pittsburgh Symphony Orchestra proved somewhat the opposite. Nice, safe and unchallenging, guaranteed to confirm the comfortable in their comfort. The main relief was Hélène Grimaud's clear sighted intelligence, which lifted Beethoven Piano Concerto no 4 above the realm of feelgood. Pleasant, but interpretively undemanding Tchaikovsky no 5 thereafter. Lots of self-congratulatory chatter on the radio broadcast. Music as social lubricant.

As for music for music's sake? Walter Braunfels Phantastische Erscheinungen eines Themas von Hector Berlioz (Fantastic appearances on a theme from Berlioz) is a significant work by a significant composer. So what was the point of butchering it by two-thirds? Thius is artistic murder, but for what purpose? The work is based on a single theme from Berlioz's The Damnation of Faust, where Méphistophélès sings the song of the flea. It lasts but a few moments, but Braunfels examines it with such close forensic detail that he manages no fewer than 12 different variations and takes 50 minutes to do so. Pay attention! Braunfels is trying to tell us something! Instead, we got episodes from the middle sections of the piece, based around  Ruhig, the slowest movement of all, which in the original is a transitional stage, not the main event.Ask yourself, is Méphistophélès being "restful"? Is Braunfels suggesting that Méphistophélès is there to comfort Faust? Of course not. Indeed, Braunfels is warning us to be alert.

So what was the musical logi ? What motivated Honeck, who does know his Braunfels, to authorize this rump? Braunfels's original is so tightly put together that there are hardly any pauses between segments, so it's not as if movements (or mini-movements) can simply be lifted out of context. The most interesting sections were left out. This wasn't Braunfels we were hearing, but a strange curtailment, as if someone, somewhere hates Braunfels so much they must cut out what makes him distinctive. Perhaps a rump of Braunfels is better than nothing at all, but this does the composer a disservice. Braunfels is by no means obscure, even if he's not mainstream. There is no excuse at all for anyone with an interest in this genre not to know who he is. There is a good recording of Phantastische Erscheinungen easily available, so anyone could look it up. (here it is on amazon).


Braunfels's Die Vögel received an ecstatic reception in 1995, when the Lothar Zagrosek recording was released, one of the highest points in the Decca Entartete Musik series. The very fact that LA Opera did a mega highprofile production last year means that Braunfels is not nobody. So why do we get fobbed off with a 15 minute summary ? A bit like playing a few bars from Mussorgsky's Song of the Flea.

I will write about the full Braunfels Fantastic Appearances later and about other Braunfels works like Die Vögel, the Te Deum and Honeck's new recording of Braunfels's major opera Jeanne d'Arc, with his regular European band, the Swedish Radio Symphony Orchestra.  Braunfels was "suppressed" before. There's no reason he should be suppressed yet again.  Please see my earlier post on the Fantastic Appearances HERE.
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Walter Braunfels - Fantastic appearances of a theme of Berlioz

Tonight's Prom 68 could be a milestone. Manfred Honeck conducts the Pittsburgh Symphony Orchestra in Walter Braunfels, Phantastische Erscheinungen eines Themas von Hector Berlioz (Fantastic appearances on a theme from Berlioz).  Braunfels (1882-1954)  is a bit of a cult composer, since relatively few have heard of him, but those who do are passionate. Honeck is one of Braunfels's champions, so this Prom might give Braunfels the prominence he deserves.

The Berlioz theme Braunfels is referring to comes from Berlioz The Damnation of Faust. All year we're having one Faust inspired work after another, from Liszt's Faust Symphony, to Mephisto Waltz,  to the revival of Gounod's Faust at the Royal Opera House, starting soon. Terry Gilliam's Faust in Jackboots ego trip doesn't count.

Braunfels specifically pinpoints the scene where Faust and Méphistophélès enter the Leipzig tavern. Both of them are out of their usual element, among "normal" people, so there's more to the scene than divertissement. Braunfels focuses on the song of the flea, which Méphistophélès sings to describe the way a mad king becomes obsessed with a flea, til his whole court are infested and suffer. Braunfels was writing during the 1914-18 war, although he was conscripted and fought in the western front. It was a traumatic period. He was injured and converted to Catholicism (from being Lutheran). Phantastische Erscheinungen eines Themas von Hector Berlioz develops the basic theme from different angles. We hear Méphistophélès cynical swagger, and a purer, more lyrical approach, which might be Faust. Images of hell, rising from low rumblings in the orchestra,  diminuendos and rising passages, movements up and down. Smoke? Dreams? Tonight, after Prom 68, I will write much more, so please come back and bookmark/subscribe.

This week I've been listening again to Walter Braunfels Die Vögel (the Birds) which comes from the same period as the Fantastical variations. In Die Vögel, birds do what fleas do in Faust : the opera is altogether more complex and sophisticated. Indeed, Die Vögel and the Phantastische Erscheinungen need to be heard together for full impact. The opera is sumptuously beautiful, but with a kick.

There are two recordings of Die Vogel, the first being Lothar Zagrosek's 1996 recording for Decca. It is outstanding, the soprano Helen Kwon truly captures the surreal birdsong which Braunfels incorporates into the part. (Link here to Zagrosek's The Birds on amazon). I hate to say it, but avoid the 2010 LA Opera production which is on DVD. The conducting (Conlon) is leaden and deadening. It is not enough simply to do an opera because it's obscure. This approach is why composers like Braunfels don't get the respect they are due. Die Vögel is much more intelligent and sophisticated, and indeed more musically adventurous as the DVD would suggest.  It's the curse of the myth that Schoenberg somehow "forced" anyone to be modern. Everyone was modern in their own ways. No-one was deliberately retrogressive. I'll write more about Die Vögel when I have time. Until then, please explore this site where there is a great deal in depth about other composers "suppressed" by changes in taste and politics. For more on Braunfels, HERE is a link to a very good German site about him (with English translation)

Don't forget, lots coming up, please explore this site and come back. (try searching Schreker, Korngold, Berg, Haas, Krasa, Theresienstadt, Ullmann, Eisler, Zemlinsky etc for more goodies)